RESOURCES: Classic text revisited - The Social Education of theAdolescent Bernard Davies and Alan Gibson, 1967

The authors' advocacy of a "client-centred" social education, delivered significantly, but not exclusively, through youth work, resonates strongly with today's debate about the place of youth work in delivering prevailing political agendas and measurable outcomes. In 1967, Davies and Gibson constructed a gentle, but persuasive, case for a "self-conscious" practice of social education. Today, it could be adopted as a scathing attack on what they refer to as the "scientific and bureaucratic impulse to measure young people" through adult-determined structures and intervention.

Early on, the authors say that "youth work has for some years been uncertain of itself and its future, and has been unenthusiastic about modifying its traditional practices and deepest assumptions". Yes, youth work does need to continue to adapt, but the principles enshrined in this book are not sacred cows to be slain, but core ideas to be defended.