Youth Work in the UK (England)

This book is the culmination of a European project funded by Erasmus and is a small-scale study of youth work. It does not attempt to draw a representative sample of the diversity of youth work practice across Europe. All the projects involved also accord with the broad parameters of youth work as defined by the Council of Europe (2018), which defines youth work as "a relational, critical and youth-centric practice".

The chapter focuses on the development of UK youth work.

A version of youth work emerged in the early 19th century within forms of "popular" education whereby working-class groups sought to provide education for themselves rather than allow their upper-class "betters" to do it for and especially to them. These were seen as revolutionary and even political, the upper-class soon began imposing their own versions of "provided" education for themselves, rendering the "popular" education, which education was provided by the upper-class, largely invisible.