Essentially, it is a critical indictment of youth work and its elusive purpose. Some of its arguments stand out as if written yesterday, particularly in the discussion of youth work being a tool of social control to keep "problem young people" occupied. When we think of how much our own work is driven by targeted funding and deficit model approaches, you wonder whether we have come very far.
In 1979, Jeffs was overtly critical of the loose claim youth work could make to be social and informal education providers without a clear purpose.
He, of course, went on (with Mark Smith) to try to frame, describe and argue for purpose in the development of informal education. Since then we may have had more recognition of the value of youth work, but the double-edged sword remains - with such recognition comes an increasing pressure to deliver the targeted work that Jeffs maligned.
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