Symposium Youth - actor of social change? Date December 12-16, 2001 Where European Youth Centre Strasbourg 30, rue Pierre de Coubertin 67000 Strasbourg France Contact Irena Guidikova, Anne-Marie Faradji, Inge Stuer Tel : (33 3) 88 41 23 00 Fax : (33 3) 88 41 27 77 Registration procedure Please fill the on-line application form: http://www.coe.fr/youth/home.htm Note that we cannot invite more than 100 participants. An early registration is therefore strongly recommended. Registration fee, payable upon arrival. Deadline May 30, 2001 This symposium is a key element of the Council of Europe's three year programme on Youth Participation, which focuses on issues related to the role of young people and youth NGOs in social governance, youth political involvement at local level, the emergence of new forms of social and cultural activism, and the interaction between new information technologies and political participation. The symposium will seek to steer a debate on participation in a broad sense, looking at ways young people make a difference in their immediate environment and in social development dynamics, though their everyday behaviour at individual and group levels. The relationship between "life politics", individualisation, social fragmentation, and the shifting forms of collective identification will be explored in view of identifying those structures and mechanisms which correspond to late-modern youth's understanding of politics, democracy and solidarity. Is the upcoming generation, in Europe and worldwide, carrying a distinctively new set of values, attitudes and lifestyles? What social changes could predictably come about as a result of this generation's activity? What are the implications for the social and political institutions as we know them? Are we witnessing the rise of the N-Gen[eration][1] - a bunch of smart community - minded, self-determined nerds, driven by achievement, healthy lifestyles, and social change activism? Are youth trends global and how do they translate locally in the West, as well as in the transition countries in Europe and in the developing world? What indicators allow us to measure young people's influence on social change? How do young people's action or inaction alter the landscape of knowledge, work, leisure, community and power? How do social structures and institutions favour and/or obstruct the young generation's influence? Six workshops, designed as expert fora, will debate on the following issues: Theorising youth: the concept of "youth" in late modernity - revisiting the concept of transition in the light of discussions on multiple and reversible trajectories, lifelong and peer learning, and the de-segmentation of life course with regard to age; youth citizenship and individualisation; social fragmentation and youth identities; globalisation and multi-cultural society. Demography: the young generation's demographic weight, fertility rates, family patterns and roles, ethnic mix, rural-urban divide, and their implications for the inter-generational distribution of power and wealth. Education: achievement and drop-out rates, school-to-work transitions, investment in education and training, equal opportunity policies, life-long learning opportunities, and their impact on social prosperity and stability. Employment: the generation's employment expectations, choices and opportunities, inter-generational relations in the labour market and on the workplace, and their consequences for the economy, the social meaning of work and the work-life balance. Culture and Lifestyle: trends in youth leisure and consumption, youth cultures and lifestyle politics and their relationship to structures and processes in education, work, family and politics. Participation and citizenship: youth and the future of representative democracy, volunteering trends, new-age activism, local democracy and the role of the third sector, cultural participation, NIT and new forms of participation. The symposium will primarily focus on disparities/similarities among European countries in relation to the above issues. However, we shall also invite a number of non-European participants to introduce a global perspective and identify global youth trends. The symposium will seek to integrate several levels of discussion, ranging from policy context to social theory and practice, on the basis of the varied expertise of a mixed audience of researchers, policy professionals and youth workers. Due to the density of the programme, participants will not be expected to present individual research projects but develop intellectual approaches and address strategic issues within a give subject area on the basis of previous research, or knowledge and reflection. However, participants are invited to prepare written contributions which will be published in the symposium's proceedings. Working languages The working languages of the symposium will be English and French. Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in plenary sessions and some of the workshops. Travel costs Travel costs of a limited number of participants could be reimbursed up to 100% . Participants will receive free board and lodging at the European Youth Centre. 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