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WHATS XTREMEABOUT YOUTH?!

Youth work / Knowledge / Policy

FEBRUARY 2014 N.20

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by Mark E. TaylorOn behalf of the Coyote editorial team

Contents

Hello readers!

Well, exciting times are these. But are they extreme? Are young people and those who work with

them extreme? If something is classied as extreme, what is the reference point to say something

else is normal?

To put it mildly, we had a lot of discussions inside and around the editorial team when asked to put

together an issue which somehow should link the two concepts of youth and extremism. Some

reactions were so strong that we even doubted for a while whether to tackle this at all. What you see

here is the result of a lot of soul-searching to nd ways of looking at extremism and youth: from the

very personal relationship of a mother and son, to a summary of research into the issues, to a tongue-

in-cheek manifesto, right through to action which aims to combat hate speech online.

Ranging further we hope to stimulate your thoughts with looking at the consequences of bringing

babies into non-formal education, using more visual triggers to enhance learning, being intelligent

emotionally and raising recognition at the grass roots.

Back in 1999, a team was asked to bring into being the Partnerships educational link. This became

Coyoteand I have had the honour to be associated ever since, working with Sonja and Jonathan as

editors taught me a lot about getting this inter-structural baby to print. Now its got to issue 20

who would have thought it!? And it coincides with the 15th anniversary of the European

CommissionCouncil of Europe Youth Partnership!

Winter is coming, but we shall always nd some wiggle

room for juggling!

Happy reading.

In the last edition of Coyote, a technical glitch meant that some of the illustrations by Marlies Pschl werenot credited we apologise and want to thank her for her brilliant work which does so much to give Coyoteits distinctive air. For the full list of credits please see the online version here:

http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int/youth-partnership/publications/Coyote/19/Index.html

Coyote editorial team:Mark E.Taylor (editor)Marlies PschlGisle EvrardDarko MarkovicFilip CousseThomas Spragg

Co-ordination and

administrationMarta MedlinskaViktoria KarpatskaSPDP,Council of Europe

Design & layout& Spiffy the coyote

The Big Family

Photos

Shutterstock (throughout the magazine)Portraits provided by the authors

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by Darko Markovic

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour.

Viktor Frankl

Groups of young people burning cars and breaking windows during the street riotsin London. A number of young people, members of a far-right movement, marchingin the streets and clashing with the police in Warsaw. Hundreds of young footballhooligans threatening the organisers of the Gay Pride parade in Belgrade. Afterwatching the evening news, would you label these young people as youth extremistsor, perhaps, social deviants? How much d oes labelling help the groups in question?And how useful is it for any kind of youth work intervention? What are the challengesin calling something youth extremism? These are the questions that puzzled mewhile thinking about the title of the current Coyoteissue.

Sociological perspective:

beware of labellingPerhaps, labelling the behaviours above as youth extremism or deviant wouldseem natural in order to give a name to a phenomenon, to call it what it is,avoiding euphemisms and overdoing political correctness.

At the same time, an interesting warning comes from Howard S. Becker, one of thefounders of the labelling theory. In his groundbreaking book, The outsiders(1963), heargues that deviance is not a given, but is rather created by the society. Becker wrote:

[...] social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction createsdeviance, and by applying those roles to particular people and labellingthem as outsiders. From this point of view, deviance is not a quality of theact the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application byothers of rules and sanctions to an offender. The deviant is one to whomthat label has been successfully applied; deviant behaviour is behaviourthat people so labels.

Moreover, Beckers warning goes further saying that while society usesthe stigmatic label to justify its condemnation, the deviant actor uses it tojustify his actions.

Hmmm one could say: Sure, Mr. Becker, but you cannot say thateverything is relative, particularly not vi olence! And somehow we get stuckin the argument of having an anchor in positive values and our referencepoint as human rights. But we should hold onto the idea of the power oflabelling by society and need to u se it with special care.

Belief:

Societyisunjust

andunfair

Behaviour:Streetriotsandstreetviolence

Behaviour:Punishment,sanctionsand

publiccondemnation

Belief:

Thisisyouthextrem

ism

anditcann

otbetolerated

Psychological perspective:a vicious circle

Another approach is to have a deeper look at the possible dynamicsof the events described at the beginning of the article.

One could say that the behaviours of young people in the newshave been driven by a certain set of core beliefs (such as societyis essentially unjust and unfair), which are manifested in thebehaviour we see and condemn as youth extremism. The problemis that this labelling does not stop there. It leads to counteractions

towards these groups of young people which in turn cement andre-confirm their initial beliefs, just how society is unjust andunfair. We are caught in a vicious cycle like this one:

The problem here is that being trapped in thinking like thisdoes not help to create a positive educational and youth workintervention. After all, do we still believe youth work can doanything here?

Youth work perspective:power of transformation

It seems to me that the problem for youth workers interested indealing with the issues of youth extremism is how to navigatebetween the challenge of labelling and the challenge of losingones own value base. I believe we need to look beyond diagnosisand fixing those young people to fit better into the society.Instead, we need to recognise their potential and work at the levelof values and identities. At the same time, any comprehensiveyouth work i ntervention means keeping the critical focus on thesociety, working on its transformation and tackling the deepestroots of the behaviours we see in the news these days.

d ingatein

e

sm

ated

thatargues

[..dthacotthth

Mthju

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Its not t ime to make a change. J ust relax, take it easy.Youre still young, thats your fault,Theres so much you have to know.Find a girl, settle down, If you want you can marry.Look at me, I amold, but Imhappy.

I was once like you are now, and I know that its not easy,To be calmwhen youve found something going on.But take your time, think a lot, Why, think of everything youve got.For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

(Father and Son, Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman, A&M)

I start this article with a wonderful song on beingyoung and dreaming of change. When I wasyounger I thought the song was written by HowardWilliamson who used to sing it on each and everyseminar for international exchanges supported bythe Council of Europe. Quite soon I found out thatthe song was written by Cat Stevens, today knownas Yusuf Islam.

You have to be realistic. Many young peoplehave been bombarded with this (non-) argument.

Actually, not only young people get to hear theargument but anyone who dares to imagine thatthere may be more just alternatives to todayssocial system is asked to be realistic. There isno alternative. Even political debates that pre-eminently should tackle the subject of anotherworld do not go beyond the bounds of reality.Ideas that do not fit within the restricted horizonof maintaining the social project are shoved asideas unrealistic. People who defend ideas that go

beyond that horizon are looked at with pity, aslong as they express their ideas in a relativelyharmless way. This changes the moment onestarts to shout a little bit louder or to form a grouparound extreme ideas. A popular strategy tocope with extreme ideas is what Herbert Marcuse(1969) has named repressive tolerance. That is thetechnique to give dissonant voices a certain forumin society, grinding down too sharp edges. In doingso, deviant ideas about the organisation of societyare assimilated into the dominant discourse and

dissonant voices are politically recuperated withinrealistic views of the desired social order. Theinitial revolutionary ideas are welcomed as ideasfor cultural renewal. Implications that would go inthe direction of social conflict are averted. Ideasthat cannot be recuperated find no response.If needed, they are obstinately persecuted andviolently repressed. This can in turn initiate aspiral of violence, so the strategy of repressivetolerance is always the preferred option.

by Filip Cousse

CatSte

vens

In itself there is nothing wrong with a societyaiming for stability. As long as this does not meanthat the confrontation of divergent ideas on the

desired social order is paralysed or too strictlycanalised. The risk here is that the voice of peoplewho enjoy the least benefits within the existingsocial order is not heard. They are further awayfrom dominant ideas and mainstream ideals.They have to shout really loud to be heard.They dont have easy access to the channelsthat amplify ones voice. This concerns not onlyquestions about the inequality between youngpeople and adults, but also and perhaps evenmore important about the inequality betweenpoor and rich or in more general terms, ethnic,disability or gender differences between theestablished and the outsiders (Elias andScotson 1965). In a way one could say that youngpeople are doubly disempowered if they grow

up in poverty, if their parents were migrants orif they are disabled. Sometimes disempoweredgroups create innovative instruments andtechniques to question reality or to shape theirown realities (often in the areas of the informaleconomy or housing). Societies are not alwayswilling to support those in itiatives. Those who areestablished in society find it quite nice that theoutsiders want to emancipate themselves, but notif they do it on their own terms. Other groups playwith different forms of social action, exploringthe frontiers of what is acceptable (Indignados in Spain, the Occupy movement on a globalscale, squatters movements on a local scale).Other groups that do not have cultural, social orfinancial resources opt for violent action (riots in

Greece or England). Often this is because theirvoice has not reached an organised level, manymembers of this group therefore are focused onindividual opportunities, more than on gettingthings moving on a more structural level.

It is clear that a living democracy needs to engagein a lively social debate. This debate cant neglectthe existing balances of power in a society. Thisrequires maximum transparency as it concerns

the underpinning values of our social order. Ademocratic society needs a permanent and honesdebate on the question of which realities are in

whose int erests an d the grounds on which somideas or ideals are confirmed as realistic whilothers are not.

To a certain degree these values and grounds aralready firmly established. A genuine democracis supposed to respect the Universal Declarationof Human Rights and the UN Convention on thRights of the Child. But it must be clear that thesrights are not absolute rights that can simply bclaimed by each individual person. These rightact as a lever. The confirmation of these rightdoes not mean that they are realised. It means thawe expect the government to take the necessarsteps in order to realise those collective rightsThe question of course is what kind of social orde

gives people the necessary space to work towardthe collective realisation of these rights. This ithe perennial search for democracy. Its nothinnew. We need to learn to live with debates andilemmas in order to reconcile the two inherentlycontradictory values that underpin a democratisociety: freedom and equality. As Tocquevill(1835) argued, the principle of equality can eithelead to misery or to prosperity, it all depends onour choices. But one thing is sure, giving up othe deliberate quest for equality will inevitabllead to misery.

Now we come to the point where its reallycooking, for this democratic struggle seemto have come to an end at the dawn of the 21s

century. As Fukuyama (1989, p.4) argued aftethe fall of the Berlin Wall: What we may bwitnessing is not just the end of the Cold Waror the passing of a particular period of post-wahistory, but the end of history as such: that is, thend point of mankinds ideological evolution anthe universalization of Western liberal democracas the final form of human government. Thereonly one way left to experience democracy, swhy debate and di scuss any longer?

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8

r eal

i

dem

socie

t

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10

The desocialisation of liberal democracies hasalso restricted the role of youth work. In manycountries, youth work is centred on apolitical playand recreation. In other countries youth work isextremely instrumentalised and is required tocontribute to employability and prevention, allin the service of becoming the most competitive

market economy in the world. A society that goesto extremes may expect extreme ideas to find theirway to extremist frameworks. This goes especiallyfor young people who fail to find their place inthis competitive market; a failure that must beindividual.

In apolitical societies, such as our Western liberaldemocracies, political education becomes oneof the core missions of youth work. This missionshould not be restricted to citizenship training,although that may be the task that governmentswant youth workers to fulfil (Giesecke 1972). Youthworkers should be well aware that they cannot beobjective and neutral to the existing social system.Washing ones hands of the conflict between the

powerful and the powerless means to side with thepowerful, not to be neutral (Freire 1985, p. 122).

Three decades of neoliberalism have affected youthwork more than we might think. In the 1980s youthclubs participated in protest marches of youngpeople for employment. Youth organisationsorganised demonstrations against racism ornuclear weapons. Also youth workers increasinglyseem to define their social engagement in terms of

helping individual young people to scratch out aliving, not join the ranks of those not in education,employment or training (NEETs). Inspirationto reconnect youth work with society can surelybe found in history (Cousse 2010a; 2010b), butshould also be grounded in todays practice ofworking with socially excluded young people.

Political education can be local and modest.Youth workers play a crucial role in engagingpoliticians in local practices and engaging youngpeople in local debates on neighbourhoodredevelopment, playground renovation, trafficplans, re-employment programmes, etc. Lots ofyoung people are not addressed. Their capacities,knowledge and energy remain unused. Manygroups of young people are seen as problems, notas resources, even by youth workers (De Block2012). Through youth work we reconnect youngpeople to the social debate and we revive thatdemocratic debate. We do not resign ourselves tothe treatment of the symptoms, but help developsustained solutions. This can lead to tensionswith local governments that provide subsidies.

Thats good, tensions keep us moving. Handlingthese tensions in a constructive manner is one ofthe main fields of expertise of well-trained youthworkers. Although it is hugely overlooked in mostof our youth work training programmes that focuson other, equally important fields such as creativityand animation techniques, developmentalpsychology and motivational conversations, youthwork is probably the most difficult job in the world(Cousse and Williamson 2011).

Imyour

man!

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ByMarko Pejovi Images by Marlies Pschl

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I see interculturality as the process of mutual influence of (sub-)cultures at their meeting points. For thisreason, it is most often referred to concerning meetings of groups with different ethnic backgrounds.For me, it also means the meeting of any two groups with distinctive differences. Some groups of youngpeople, members of the same social group, (for example, football fans or software engineers) can be quitedifferent regarding their values, thinking and behaviour. They can be as far from each other as membersof different and distant national groups.

When the group Lets... (Grupa Hajde da...) started working on the development of inclusive theatrein Serbia, it was not possible to see the entire picture. We were not completely sure what were we dealingwith. We knew from the experience of some European countries and the USA that it was possible toinclude people with disabilities into dance theatre. However, we were not immediately aware of theobstacles we would have to face. I believe that the greatest obstacles were psychological. A number ofexperts in the field of disability, as well as part of the community of people with disabilities, believed therewas no possibility of success. They didnt think that a paraplegic or a person with muscular dystrophycould be engaged in artistic dance. Their chief argument was that performing arts are meant for bodies

that are in accordance with the norm. But contemporary dance is exactly the art form that does notrequire a ballet body. It is open for different bodies and bodies with different abilities. In Serbia, asfar as we knew, there were no previous attempts to work with people with disabilities in the context ofcontemporary dance.

A totally different, but equally important, issue wasthat of accessible premises (which is a really bigproblem in Serbia). Another obstacle was mutualcommunication channels, which were not easyto establish. At the beginning, there were a signlanguage interpreter present during workshopswith deaf and hard of hearing youth. Later wedecided to rely on our own forces. Artists and otherparticipants started to learn sign language. Therewere a lot of mistakes in this learning process notknowing all the signs, we simply invented newones when we needed them and these became ourslang. The deaf and hard of hearing participantsdid their best in lip reading. We managed to createa mutual communication space. Sign language has

its own logic. Sometimes it is similar to the logicof verbal language, but sometimes its completelydifferent. When we started to recognise this logic, itinfluenced our way of thinking about the world as awhole (since it is not meant only for hearing people).We tried to present the structure of verbal languageto our deaf and hard of hearing friends. This wasnot too hard for them, since they are familiar withverbal language from everyday situations.

I believe that all participants of this mutual woracquired valuable experience the deaf and hard hearing people learned what it means to be engagein theatre in Serbia and the artists learned a lot about the position of the deaf and hard of hearinpeople in our society. The result of this mutual wowas two shows, produced in professional theatconditions. The first of these two performanceentitled The curve for Gaus (choreography by Borakiran and Sanja Krsmanovi Tasi) includefive people with disabilities and three professionartists. The other, Reset (choreography by DanicArapovi) included six dancers, with and withodisabilities. Reset won the prize at the festival ocontemporary and new theatre in Novi Sad in 201

After five years of co-operation with the grouLets..., my friend Stojan received an invitatioto work with Croatian choreographers on a neperformance. He may have an int ernational careas a dancer in the future. I sincerely hope that, fopeople with disabilities interested in theatre anthe arts, Stojans work will be an inspiration analso, let me put it this way a new norm.

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Youth extremism is not a term that is often

used here. However, there is very clear evidencethat there remains a youth sub-culture for whomsectarian violence is still very much a normalisedpart of everyday life. Many readers will be familiarwith images of groups of children and young peoplein Northern Ireland, as young as 6, engaging inanti-social behaviour, rioting and violence. Thisis particularly an issue around times of tensionbetween communities, such as during the annualcontroversial marching season, with whole areas ofBelfast being shut down due to riots and violenceinvolving mainly young people. This is despite thefact that the current generation of young people, (orat least those aged 16 and under) were born afterthe IRA ceasefire of 1994, which is still regarded asthe main breakthrough towards peace.

So, why exactly is it that these young people are stillbeing drawn into violence and extremism despitenever having witnessed the conflict first hand?

One possible explanation is that the passage oftime has allowed for a collective romanticisation ofparamilitaries and the violence they perpetrated,and many young people now commonly viewthe conflict through rose-tinted glasses. This isparticularly the case among young people who did

not have to experience the horror and utterdevastation of the conflict directly, suchas through the loss of a family member

or witnessing a bombing. For many youngpeople, the stories that are passed through

the generations of those who perpetratedviolence in the name of the cause involve a level

of hero worship. Paramilitaries are often hailed asprotectors of the community against the other, andtherefore the pain they inflicted on others deemed asnecessary or unavoidable as a result.

Additionally, with the police not always recognisedor accepted as law enforcers, particularly inCatholic areas, residents have historically reliedheavily on paramilitaries to police their ownareas against criminality from within their owncommunities.

It is easy then to see how these factors ar

linked to, and impact on, the mentality of manyoung people who engage in violence along thinterface areas (flashpoints where Catholics anProtestants live in close proximity but are divideby physical or imagined barriers, such as thpeace walls).

These mainly working-class areas are the moprone to brutal, violent instances of sectariadivision. For the young people who live ithe shadow of the interface, there is often thperception that engaging in violence with thother is their way of having a role within thecommunity. Many see themselves as policing anprotecting their area against the other, just athe generations before them did during the heighof the conflict and were held up as martyrs fo

doing so. Of course, there are many who engagin such violence as a form of recreation, while alscognisant of the fact that they can attempt to ju stior excuse their violence as merely defending thecommunity should their actions be called inquestion. There are even many reported cases oyoung people who have travelled across the regiospecifically in order to engage in such violencwhich calls into question the rationale that theare doing so in the name of their community.

On the other hand, many young people who arstill engaged in sectarian violence come frocommunities and families which have beedirectly impacted, and for whom the memorof the conflict is incredibly personal and rawThis transgenerational, shared trauma remain

evident given that such major atrocities as thShankill and Omagh bombs are still very mucwithin living memory, with the effects of these stimpacting on the current generations of younpeople and their families. Often, when we seyoung people engaging in sectarian violence, it a manifestation of this unhealed trauma. Sadly, acting out this trauma, these young people creata new cycle of victimhood; by moving from victimto perpetrator they create new victims and traumin the process.

As a youth and community worker originally from, and

practising in, west Belfast, I am often intrigued at how

Northern Ireland is viewed by outsiders. For many, the

images that prevail are those that I remember from my own

childhood: burning buses blocking roads, masked youths

throwing petrol bombs, armed tanks rolling through streets

left in utter devastation and chaos after yet another explosion.

However, following on from the Good Friday Agreement of

1998, when both sides of the political divide agreed to end the

40 years of protracted violence and engage in a process of

political power sharing, Northern Ireland is now held up a s a

beacon of hope. Along with South Africa, Northern Ireland is

hailed as a model of good practice in peace building, a success

story. We are widely considered a post-conflict society.

As a youth worker, a parent and a resident of Northern Ireland,it is my belief that neither of these images quite fit with thereality facing our young people. While we have moved to asituation where our political leaders are working towardsa shared future, this has not been embraced at all levelsof society, with many young people still as affected by,and engaged in, conflict here as ever.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has experiencedconflict on a societal level that the impact of the con flict onour young people has been complex, multi-faceted and widereaching. In answer to this, there has now been over 2 billioneuros of peace money pumped into projects that aim to healdivisions, increase tolerance and understanding and pave out abrighter, shared future for Northern Ireland. This is a staggeringamount when one takes into account that we are a nation ofonly 1.7 million inhabitants. To put this into perspective, thisamount exceeds that which was spent under the Marshall Plan,the economic aid plan to rebuild Europe after the Second WorldWar. Yet, while there is no doubt that the youth and communitysector has benefitted immensely from this funding and in turncontributed greatly to the progress that has been made in peacebuilding in Northern Ireland to date, t here still remain manychallenges in working with our young people in addressing thelegacy of the conflict.

by Clare Cosgrove

Bre

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One morning of summer 2012 Myrddhin, a 10 year-old kid, stops what he is doinand asks: What does it mean to be unconventional? After receiving the relativestandard def inition that it generally relates to a behaviour that isnt in accordanwith the given norms and conventions and some examples, his next question is: Doethat mean that it is necessarily bad to be unconventional?

The point here is not to try to define what is normal and what is not; other articles this issue will tackle the question of normality. Nonetheless, it raises two predominanissues: how teenagers perceive the question of norms and social behaviour and hoadults deal with that perception. When linked to social behaviour, extremism is alwaymeasured against something that is supposed to match a series of norms anstandards. The relativity of the latter can and possibly ought to be questioned. If in any way diminishes the importance of social conventions, it certainly highlights th

fact that norms are not only different for each of us or our social groups (somethiwe knew already) but also the fact that adolescents behave differently than adult

for reasons that can be social as well as neurological.

By Gisle Evrard andFilip Cousse

G

i s l

e E

vrar d

Peace?

Whynow?

t

There is also a strong economic element to the current cultureof youth violence. As our young people become more and moredemoralised by the absence of employment and opportunities onoffer, there is an overwhelming lack of incentive to ensure thatthey engage with their communities and society in a positiveway. This has allowed for the further compounding of thepolarisation that young people commonly experience anyway. Inturn, this marginalisation makes it acceptable for young peoplewho otherwise feel at a loss when seeking their place or role in

their community to form an identity built around violence. Oftenthis is through rioting against a common cause, such as duringthe marching season, or a common enemy, such as the police orthose who live on the other side of the interface.

As in other areas of the world, such as Palestine and Israel, physicalstructures still ensure that our young people remain very muchsegregated from each other. The now infamous peace walls,separate Catholic and Protestant areas to the extent that manyof the young people I have worked with have never knowinglyexperienced or had meaningful conversation with someonefrom the opposite side. While youth and community groupshave striven for years to increase each groups understandingand tolerance of the other, it is undeniable that this work stillholds many challenges in the context of a society where we live,socialise and are educated almost entirely separately. In the 2001census, it was reported that more than two thirds of us still live inareas which are more than 90% Catholic or Protestant, with 93%of us still being taught in either exclusively Catholic or Protestantschools. This being the case, one can see the challenges we asyouth educators continue to face in our efforts to decrease youthextremism; how can we increase empathy for the other whenthey may have never had an opportunity to engage positively withsomeone from the opposite side, knowing them only as the rival?

Many youth workers dealing with young people engaged inviolence and extremism point to the current funding climateas a massive issue in tackling the problem. Despite the earlyintervention of funders on the scale previously discussed, manyin the sector fear that there is a huge underestimation of theongoing impacts of the conict which is still not being addressed.Funding is now being focused on other areas, with the obviousimplications this has on areas of work undertaken.

In my view, I fear that for too long we have avoided talking toour young people about difcult questions. Rightly or wrongly,we have wanted to protect the next generation from the horrorof the troubles, and have too often mistaken their silence forresilience. While local government need to play their role inensuring that these issues continue to be addressed at a policylevel, it is incumbent on us as youth workers to tackle the hardissues through open dialogue, and to help these young peoplend a more productive means of engaging with their communityand each other.

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Now that we managed to place adolescence onsomeones personal timeline, what do we mean bythe social brain? The social brain and in particularthe prefrontal cortex of a human brain is whatallows one to understand peoples ways to relateand to interact, to understand emotions and tomake decisions, among other aspects. It is therefore

also a condensed set of cognitive functions thatallow a person to take risks or not (to measure theconsequences), to elaborate strategies, to plan, toadjust behaviours, to make social decisions, andto almost simultaneously assess the degree of apossibly rewarding process.

Adolescents tend to have an extraordinary capacityto not only understand irony or to measure the partof truth and exaggeration in someones discourse,but also to feel emotions to a higher degree thanadults and, therefore, to experience intensely therewarding feeling that follows decision making.This also explains why adolescents are high risk-takers, because the emotions and related rewardsare as important and relevant as the level of risk tobe taken. However, the part of the brain focusing onsocial relations our now well-known prefrontalcortex is less developed during adolescence thanin adulthood. This means that factual analysis orreasoning is less predominant in an adolescentmind. This is the reason why impulses, emotionsand the need to find greater recognition and supportfrom ones peers and social group is higher than foran adult (in principle, at least). In her book, The Artof Choosing,Sheena Iyengar (2010) goes along thesame line of analysis when examining how peoplemake choices (in general) in order to highlight the

differences between adolescents, young people andadults as well as what motivates them to opt forcertain choices rather than others, even for thosewhich could be considered extreme ones.

Knowing how the social brains of adolescentsfunction does not explain it all. When properguidance and support is not made available to

young people, extremist types of behaviourcan more easily occur. The social abilities of anadolescent may turn into cognitive and emotionaldisorders, but knowing this does not justifyeverything. Being unconventional is not badper se. The fact that conventions and normsexist means that they can also be challenged andquestioned.

What is the link between the social brain of anadolescent and extreme behaviours? To answerthis one must look at social issues and how socialbehaviours and societies as such have developedin recent years. Blakemore concludes her workby stating how important education is, especiallyduring adolescence. Adolescence is a vulnerableperiod. Pedagogical influence needs to beexercised to support the adolescent in becomingan independent person. Adolescence is a turbulentperiod of Sturm und Drang. This brings perhapsbigger risks to positive development, but at the

same time offers a fantastic opportunity forlearning and creativity (Blakemore 2012). This isthe huge pedagogical paradox that makes our workso exciting, and difficult: we need to influence anddirect young people to become more autonomousand independent, provide them with structuresand boundaries for them to either evolve within,or break.

G i s

l e E v r a r d

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The above does not mean that we detest the conceptof educational guidance and that we shouldnot foment a sense of initiatives, responsibilitiesand participation, but perhaps that we ought toallow more flexibility in the way, and when, thisis effectively acknowledged, understood and acertain ownership of such process and concept isdeveloped.

Without a bubble spacious enough for youngpeople to express themselves, resist, contrast,confront, explode and come back, the risk ofextremely divergent social behaviours getsundoubtedly higher. Indeed, together with aclear cognitive improvement during adolescencecomes an increasing rate of antisocial and/or riskybehaviours. As explained earlier, social propertiesand their related emotional significance are ofutmost relevance during adolescence. Withoutproper spaces to develop and express themselvesand without a proper distant guidance andsupport which allows for the former, frustration,impulse, inhibition or the incapacity to channelemotions can contribute to isolation, extreme risktaking and cognitive recession. In other terms andbecause adolescence is a period where recognitionfrom peers is not only looked for but necessaryfor identity and personal development, the lackof spaces to safely experiment in ones youthcan lead to a certain rigidity of the identity, andtherefore to extreme behaviours and to youthextremism.

That doesnt mean that such a process is only onesided and negative (as we try to demonstrate inthis issue, extremism is not necessarily bad andthe connotation we give to the word is socially

and politically biased), but the danger of losiyoung people on the way may be higher. This han impact not only on the young person as subut also on the whole society. We need extremispaces for young people to develop and exprethemselves because it helps the society to groto renew itself, to get inspired. Without thosources of social development, the rigidity reachus all. But lets not isolate those spaces frosociety. Youth spaces are not reservations wheyoung people can grow u p in splendid isolatioThis attitude creates the conditions for youpeople to develop either borderless or templidentities.

If you wonder if adolescents are different, thidifferently and behave differently than adulyou are totally right. Not only because they ayoung but because their bodies and minfunction differently. Space and support, flexibiland guidance are the paradoxical, yet necessaelements to help them grow and develop inautonomous, critical and independent people.we really are in favour of democratic societies thyoung people must have the freedom to experimeand express themselves, even in extreme wayIn our youth work jargon, we usually say that be challenged is a good thing, dont we? A bentendeur

As long as any adult thinks that he, like t

parents and teachers of o ld, can b ecome intr

spective, invoking his own youth to understa

the youth before him, he is lost.Margaret Me

Inspired by Muse, Uprising,Mushroom records

Today, those social spaces still exist, but they aremore directed at individual development thanat social movement. To a great extent they areinstitutionalised or even privatised, giving muchmore weight to ideas that fit into the mainstreamof society. Instead of creating spaces for young

people to practice democratic citizenship theyincreasingly focus on educating young people tobecome democratic citizens.

Pressure may be another reason for the mismatchbetween the way young people (and their identity/ies) express themselves in their category (socialand cognitive) on the one hand and what societyexpects from them on the other. Education, learning,behaviour and integration into a constantly changingsociety are all elements which take on more andmore importance in the ways of accompanying and/or educating younger generations.

Education as such requires not only more andmore efforts and a huge diversity of knowledge

and competences, but is also constantly increasingthe level of efficiency and meritocracy whichare expected from pupils and students. As KenRobinson (2001, p.58) ironically highlights in hisbook, Out of our mind, in some urban centres thecompetition is so high and so intense that childrenare being interviewed for kindergarten.

A certain denial of the existence of youth assuch has also emerged over the past 10 years.

Adolescents immediately access the status ofyoung adults. Society (parents, policy, schools,youth workers, etc.) has transformed the youthperiod from a moratorium into a preparatoryphase. Young people are demanded to fulfil theabove-mentioned expectations as soon, as quick

and as perfectly as possible. The whole idea ofyouth as a period of Sturm und D rang may stillbe underpinning our youth policies, but societyseems to have decided to pre-structure thatperiod so that experiments cannot go wrong andare channelled into safe environments instead ofsocial spaces. We still talk about young peopleand refer to that age group between 14 and 20year-olds as such, but there is no space anymoreto just be young, or even to just be; youngpeople are adults-to-be. Yet, it has becomedifficult for young people to be themselves. Theirsocial brain is focused on exploring boundaries,taking risks, discovering the unknown, whileour youth policies (or lets say policies aimed atyoung people) focus on guiding young people

into predefi

ned territories of what we callthe democratic society, based on economicdevelopment and individual meritocracy. Thedevelopment of young people is pushed forwardand further, stretched and confined into a conceptof rights and responsibilities to be understoodand practised from the youngest age possible. Theyounger children learn to behave as democraticcitizens the safer our maintaining societal projectwill be.

GisleEvrard

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Meet Elf, he has been living stateless andmoneyless for over three years, by choice. Likemost people, he used to have a job, as a webdeveloper, but decided to let go of humanlyproduced artefacts that do nothing but conditionour exchanges. How does this work? Well, hedoes things he enjoys for free, building software,sometimes helping grow food and supportingothers without expecting anything in returnand using sharing as a currency. Yet this comesaround, as he receives food, shelter whentravelling (across Europe only because he doesnthave identification documents) or whatever heneeds for basic survival, and when he doesnt hedumpster dives not so outrageous when onestops to think about all the perfectly good foodthats being wasted daily. Not surprisingly, Elfsway of tweaking his lifestyle i s allowing him toexperiment with new skills and surface needsin communities he didnt know existed, and allthis helps build great relationships with thosearound him, generating high mutual trust andenvironments that feel safe.

Meet Alessia, she is a social innovator, designerand activist. Among other things, she is t ravellingacross Italy to save endangered cultural heritagesites. What Alessia and a diverse crowd dois occupy theatres or spaces for culture asa protest against their degradation, privatebuyoffs, decreasing wages of artists or teachers,and economic decay of knowledge workers ingeneral. Inside theatres the protesters organiseworkshops and debates on cultural commons or

welfare policies, or set up art performances, eventransform them into after-school care centres.While occupying state or pr ivate property runsagainst the law and is criminalised, the logicis that they in fact operate to protect thesespaces, and their actions are legitimate fromthe standpoint of the values occupiers fight topreserve: public goods funded by public moneybelong to the people; access to culture by allpreservation of historical heritage; arts, cultureand knowledge that neednt be measured bymonetary value. Essentially these guys areputting forward a new model of governance, onethat takes into account the knowledge-basedeconomy and is much more inclusive than thecurrent one.Meet Petros, he used to run an Internet companybefore the crisis hit. And it hit hard, as Pet rosand his wife Natalia went bankrupt and decidedto move to rural Poland to found the Laboratoryof Freedom on a rent-free estate. The FreeLabis a community of international residentsresearching solutions, offering technical supportand building new skills, working together inwaste co ntrol and electricity (they build rocketstoves or solar water heaters). Very importantly,theyre teaching others to become self-organisedand live independently from economic systemsPetros believes intentional communities are thebest way to cope with the crisis and really be freeas they live off-the-matrix: We dont want toreintegrate within the system. We are free andwant to use our restored freedom for creating.

Briefly, it started with the Council of Europe and theEuropean Commission wanting to understand one ofEuropes most ardent problems: the situation of youngpeople who navigate unstable environments, who questionthe return on investment of formal education, who donthave a place in labour markets or simply step away fromtraditional channels of participation; basically thosewho do things that dont show up in statistics or officialreports because there are no instruments to measure thetype of work they do. And so the Edgeryders distributed

think tank was born: an open, online, highly interactiveplatform where young people from all corners of Europecome together to meet one another, share their strugglesand equally the creative solutions they find, and collecteverything into a fresh vision of what the future may holdfor young Europeans if the right instruments are in place tosupport their work.

T h i s co n t r i b u t i o n a i m s t o s h ow how i n d i v i d u a l s

e x p er i m e n t i n g w i t h r a d i c a l , i n n o v a t i v e w o r k a r e p a v i n g

t h e w a y t o s o lv i n g c o l l e ct i v e p r o b l em s f o r a b e t t er f u t u r e .

E d g e r y d e r s i s a c omm un i t y o f s o ci a l i n n o v a t o r s , a r t i s t s,

a c t i v i s t s , g l oba l t h i n ke r s wh ose p r o j ec t s have ve r y h i gh

s o ci a l a n d c u l t u r a l v a l u e , d es p i t e h a v i n g l i t t l e o r n o fin a n c i a l

s u p p o r t . O n c e w e c ame t o g e t h er i n a E u r o p e a n - f u n d e d p r o j e ct a n d mode l o f

c i t i ze ni n s t i t u t i o n c o l l a b o r a t i o n , o u r n e x t g o a l i s t o w i r e s eem i n g l y d i s p a r a t e

i n i t i a t i v e s t ow a r d s s c a l a b i li t y a n d g r e a t e r b e n e fit s f o r t h e ma i n s t r e am . I am

w r i t i n g f r om t w o s t a n d p o i n t s : a comm un i t y b u i l d e r w ho i s p a r t o f t h e p r o j e c t

s t a f f a n d a membe r o f t h e E dg er y d e r s comm un i t y , p r e t t y w e l l i mm e r s ed

i n i t . M y d e ep e st t h a n k s g o t o e v e r y o n e o f m y n ew f r i e n d s w h o i n s p i r e dt h i s accoun t : E l f , A l ess i a , Pe t r os , Lucas , Ga i a , James and t he r es t o f t he

c omm u n i t y .

byNoemi Salantiu Illustrations byMalica Worms

e.

,

n c i a l

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How do we connect the dots and offer supportand recognition to people at the edge of change,especially starting with our institutions? First ofall, Edgeryders are pretty much against socialcategorisations of any kind, whether or not weare the category in question.1I dont think manywould think of themselves as radicals. During anopen debate at the Living on the Edge offlinecommunity event in June, someones attemptto make a general statement about Europesyouth as extremist and violent was abruptlydisqualified by the community in the room on thebasis t hat if institutions antagonise citi zens theycut off chances of finding constructive solutions,

especially together. Also, thinking of Edgerydersas leading radical lifestyles falls short of fullygrasping the meaning of their work. Edgeryding isnot freeriding, our paths and risks are individualbut highly connected because our success stands tobenefit all. We are all part of a common future thatsome have started to build already.

So far the platform is home to over 1 200participants, Europeans and non-Europeans,young or not so young. There are hundreds of sharedstories, many of them similar to the ones above,and thousands of comments in conversations. InJune 2012 we set up an offline event bringing inover 150 Edgeryders at the Council of Europe.People from all over the Internet met Big

Government, up close and personal, to make acase for the immediacy of solutions such as theirs,and they did so successfully. The Transition

handbook for policy makers in preparatdraws a list of policy recommendations that womake it easier for radical innovators out therecontinue to do their jobs. It starts with maka case that policy makers should come closer aunderstand the lives of young people, and goescalling for policies to accommodate the isolatturns-out-not-so-isolated cases of risky transitinto cultural norms, so as to relieve some of societal pressure and stigma associated with dosomething outside the mainstream.

Each recommendation can be fleshed in concrete lines of action to give people

institutions, particularly local ones, the tools to hthe young. Edgeryders started with the Europinstitutions willing to lend an ear, and now want to be lent a hand. With the right incentialigned among others, commitment from puservants in key positions2 we are moving fra think tank advising on youth policies, to a tank that multiplies positive experiences and ptransformative action at the heart of its collectexistence. If youre reading this and youd to be part of the change, Edgeryders style, dohesitate to get in touch. Edgeryders started out aproject by the Council of Europe and the EuropCommission in 2011. Upon termination end2012, the community spun off and built itselnew interactive web platform. A social enterpr

Edgeryders LBG, has been created to maintain asupport the communitys infrastructure. See mat: http://edgeryders.eu/

1This was one of the projects research findings. A small research team was commissioned to do ethnographic analysis of all the platform constructured into several broad transition themes. After validation of the findings by the community, all papers are now being aggregateda Transition handbook for policy makers http://edgeryders.ppa.coe.int/finale/making-sense-edgeryders-experiences-where-do-we-go-h

2Many in the community dont trust institutions deemed as machines that are highly resistant to change, limited in their ability to reforbut acknowledge that institutions are made by and of people; and that public servants can build precedents for good practices and canndiscarded as untrustworthy. The team at the Council of Europe driving the Edgeryders project is a good example, it can be thought of dradical work from an institutional standpoint, and the fact that people like Elf or Petros are engaging in conversation through an institutichannel is a good sign that collaboration and mutual support is possible, and that we should move fo rward and not away from the radical, inof its forms, depending from where one looks.

The folks at FreeLab are not the only ones workingtowards increasing communities resilience. Lucas,Gaia, James and others in their crowd are lookinginto breakdowns of health resources (staff, supplies,equipment) and are devising alternate plans. Lucas is apublic health physician, Gaia is a researcher and socialnetwork analyst, James is a community volunteer andavid cycler. What they question is how we go aboutleveraging community to improve the resilience of a place.Theirs is an interdisciplinary model for collaborationthrough networks of individuals, health and non-health

professionals alike, who instead offi

ghting against eachother when resources are scarce, work together to betterrespond to economic meltdowns. This has enormousvalue in terms of promoting solidarity, mutual aid andstrengthening community connections.

What do Edgeryders Elf, Alessia, Petros, Lucas andthe others have in common? First, none of these waysto experiment for the greater good are funded or arecommercial activities; therefore they dont exist in themarket economy. But rather than being isolated, theirinitiatives are connected to a larger, virtual network ofchange makers, people who do groundbreaking workoften at the cost of living day by day. Radicalism isa cheap way to try new things that only have a smallprobability of working, but it costs a lot in terms of

personal commitment and security. Whether its re-appropriating commons in mercantilist societiesor designing tools to increase transparency andaccountability in democracies, Edgeryders are drivingthe change. Doing work outside the system doesnt equalbeing outsiders from the real world; on the contrary,their actions are based on deep awareness of the globalproblems affecting individual lives and communities.

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This article gives an overview of the campaignand ideas about how to get involved,

as the campaign will run at least until the end of 2014.

The name of the campaign has been adopted

as the No Hate Speech Movement.

by Rui Gomes

National campaign committees and support groups

No Hate Speech Movement website

National online platforms

The campaign is decentralised through national campaigns in the member states. Governments werinvited to set up national campaign committees. The Council of Europe considers the committee as ideaif it involves the government, youth organisations and other civil society actors, as well as the relevansegments of the business sector. At the time of writing there are 36 member states of the Council oEurope that have started national campaigns. Campaign support groups may be formed in cases wherenational campaign committee is not (yet) feasible. Interest for the campaign is spreading beyond Europ

NGOs and institutions from Mexico have recently expressed interest in implementing the campaign.

www.nohatespeechmovement.org

No Hate Speech Movement:Online platform for user-generated content uploaded by young peoplwith their emotional and rational contributions about hate speech, identity and ideas. This site is the malanding page of the campaign available for the widest public with testim onials through self-made videophotos or other visual manifestations. Young moderators are working to ensure safety and respect.

National committees can operate their own national online campaign platform and online tools ithe languages that are relevant in the country. National campaigns may translate the tools into loclanguages so as to take into account the linguistic and cultural context of each country; this is alreadhappening in a number of countries.

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Hate Speech Watch

Campaign co-ordination website

This is an online platform to monitor, collect and discusshate speech content on the Internet. It is a user-generatedonline engine where registered users can link in anyhate speech content from the Internet. Users can tagthem, comment them and discuss them. Moderatorsare monitoring and facilitating the site, creating focus

topics every month based on the main interest of theonline community. Special take action features will alsobe available if the identified and discussed hate speechcontent requires further action. Its the perfect place foronline activists!

The No Ha t e Speech Mov emen t platform and the

Ha t e Speech W at chare developed and maintained by

the Council of Europe in English and French.

This is the portal for campaign organisers and activistswith updated information about the work behind thecampaign. Organisations that are interested in takingpart in the campaign can join by filling out a form on thiswebsite.

The campaign co-ordination website:

www.coe.int/youthcampaign

School campaign pack: This online tool supports campaign promotion and action in the schooenvironment. The Council of Europe has developed this pack for secondary schools to help teachers whediscussing online hate speech with students, to organise a European competition among secondary schoostudents on hate speech online and cyber-bullying, to introduce the online campaign tools in schools and tinvolve secondary school students in the online campaign.

All three tools will be available in English on the campaign websites, and the Council of Europe provides thefree of charge to national campaign organisers to be translated and implemented in the national campaigcontext.

European Action Days

Throughout the campaign several Action Days will focus on different aspects andtargets of hate speech. Each Action Day will have a special programme and onlineactivities co-ordinated by international youth organisations.

17 May : Action Day against Homophobia and Transphobia online20 J u ne : Action Day in support of refugees and asylum seekers22 J u l y : Action Day against hate crimes12 Au gus t : Youth Day21 Septemb er :Action Day for religious diversity and tolerance14-20 October :Local Democracy Week: local actions against hate9 November : Action Day against Fascism and Anti-semitism10 December :Action Day for human rights online.

This is a campaign about education. Tools for education andaction are thus very important. The following will be madeavailable shortly.

Online campaign toolkit: The Council of Europe hasdeveloped an online toolkit for young people and theirorganisations about ways of involvement in the campaign.

The online toolkit provides knowledge and information aboutthe campaign and its media, and gives concrete practical andmethodological support for online campaigning.

Learning module on hate speech: This onlinelearning tool helps people to understand different aspectsof hate speech. The module provides basic and essentialknowledge about hate speech and hate speech online.

There are many ways to take an active part in the campaign.

Individualscan join the campaign by uploading their self-expression statement about their identity or abouhate speech and they can also register as a user at Hate Speech Watch and take part in the debates andmonitoring of hate speech content on the Internet.

Organisations and institutions that are interested in taking part in the campaign can join on thco-ordination website by registering as a campaign partner and advertise their activities on the campaigco-ordination site. Local and national youth organisations can take part in the national campaign in their owcountry by organising or contributing to online and offline activities of the national campaign. For this thecan contact the national campaign co-ordinator. The list of national campaign co-ordinators is available othe campaign co-ordination website. An organisation can also join one of the European Action Days that hathe theme closest to the objectives of the organisation, by organising a local or national activity on that day.

European and international youth organisationscan take the lead in proposing and implementin

a European Action Day that has a focus or target group within the interest of the organisation. If such anorganisation has an idea they can contact the campaign secretariat with their proposal for a European ActioDay within the campaign.

Schoolscan join by downloading the campaign pack for schools and implement activities for their studentand they may also register as campaign partners on the co-ordination website.

For further details or questions you can contact the campaign secretariat by email atyouth.nohatespeech@coe.int

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A few days before, Stefano had bought The Smiths LPMeat is Murderand was impressed, deciding never to eatmeat again. Going vegetarian in the land of prosciuttocrudo and mortadella was an extremist decision. It waswell beyond the borders of the ordinary, in regard to thecultural trait that is food, which was/is at the heart ofItalian-ness.However, what is interesting for us is that Stefano becamea food extremist because of a record. The extreme act ofdepriving himself from animal proteins makes him feela bond to a band, to a group of fans and to a certainlifestyle; he adopts it as the signifier of who he reallyis. This is the secret of much extremism connected topopular music, it is adopted as an individualisationprocess; it makes young people feel real.

Lets now time travel to an Italian kitchen in 2012, Stefano is still vegetarian and he is sitting next to histeenage son, Luca. Luca is 16, has long hair, a pentagram hangs on his neck and he is wearing a t-shirtfrom his favourite band, Burzum, from Norway. The singer of Burzum served time in prison for murderand for church burning. Luca has some basic notions about Satanism, mostly from Wikipedia and fromsome interviews with Burzum he found on the net and he doesnt consider himself a real Satanist. Hejust finds black metal to be really good music and he likes the goat skulls imagery and the ancient Nordicconnections. He wants to study old Norse when he gets to college. Despite listening to extreme musicand sharing the look, Luca has some ironic d istance towards its extremist ideology.

When we talk about extreme music, the sound in our head is always close to a distorted and confusednoise. This has been there since the beginning: in the 1950s Elvis sounded like a screaming monkeyto the older generations and his supposed influence on juvenile crime and rebelliousness were openlycondemned. New genres are born every day, keeping popular music extreme, and it is still clearly a signof ageing when someone suddenly realises their inability to understand the new. To me, this happenedwith Speedcore, a sub-genre of techno, which rarely drops below 3 00 beats per minute (an averagesong has 120).

We talk of extreme metal, for instance,when we are referring to the fastestand most distorted variety of metal.Satanism and/or paganism arethought to be simply embedded in thissound; they are the fries t hat we alwaysexpect with the steak. Interestingly thisdoesnt happen with classical music:the German composer Richard Wagnermade wide use of thundering bassesand complex gloomy orchestrations,however no one thinks of his musicas extreme or as linked in any waysto extremism, even if coincidentallyor not it was widely popular in NaziGermany.

The association between extreme music and extremismis of course not a given. Young people definitely tendto identify certain extreme sounds with extremefeelings like hate, anger and frustration but thisdoesnt necessary lead to extreme behaviours insociety. Sometimes extreme sounds have a catharticeffect and young people immerse themselves inthem to handle certain feelings, for instance whenthey use earphones, which build a bubble todefend oneself or create the right soundtrack for ahostile environment.

Popular music has also developed, throughout itshistory, deep relations with political extremism,whether of left- or right-wing connotation. Thisis mostly based on the weakness or better themalleability of music. Any kind of music can becomea vehicle of political thoughts and ideologies. Forinstance, if not referring to some minor semioticelements and sometimes to lyrics, it is very difficultto distinguish a neo-Nazi punk band from anapolitical one or a Christian emo from a properemo. This uncertainty has been exploited widelyby political groups: for instance in 2009 NicolasSarkozy used the song Kids by MGMT in hispresidential campaign. Kids is a catchy, successfulsong that uplifted the spirits of UMP supporters andenhanced their political experience. MGMT latersued Sarkozy for the use of t he song and there was asettlement of about 30 000.

Extreme political thoughts and ideologies in popularmusic also raise some major difficulties in terms offreedom of expression and censorship. The Polish

band Behemoth for instance has been suedblasphemy in their country, but the EuroCommission issued a statement concerning freeof expression as one of the values at the basis oEuropean Convention on Human Rights, advPoland to follow this treaty to which it is a pIn Germany, a considerable amount of recordbanned or indexed every year, mostly in conneto racial hatred, homophobia and sexism, whithe US the Parental advisory explicit lyrics sthas been put on new releases since 1985.

It is surprising to see that extremist content caavailable also in music genres that are considto be somewhat harmless. For instance regganormally associated with a relaxed lifestyle in thor with positive political activism, but homophlyrics are also widely represented. Racist lyricountry music are also widespread, along with mknown texts about homesickness and love.

The main point however is that popular mnowadays is ubiquitous, you find it everywhestreams out of your mobile phone into your while you are commuting, from your PC whenare working; its in the shop where you buy and in the bar where youre having a beer wreading Coyote. You can easily access (legallillegally) all the digitalised music ever created a simple move of your finger. This of coursemeans that musics power in conveying extreminon-extremist meanings and in defining life, orthreatening, choices weakens considerably, andonly in Italian kitchens.

byGiacomo Bott Images by Marlies Pschl

We a r e i n a n I t a l i a n k i t c h e n o n a Sund a y i n 1 9 8 5 a n d a t y p i c a l I t a l i a n mo t h e r

i s se r v i n g a r oas t f o r l u nch t o S t e f ano , her son . S t ef ano says : Ma mm a , I d

r a t he r no t ea t t h i s . I deci ded t o become a veget a r i an . Can I hav e some bo i l ed

cabbage i ns t ead? S t ef ano s mo t he r i s shaken and h u r t . She doesn t know w ha t

a vege t a r i an ea t s . She on l y know s he r son l i s t ens t o t oo mu ch mu s i c and she i s

s ca r ed o f t he sa t an i c backw a r d messages you can fin d o n r e co r d s .

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byThomas Spragg

Extremelyyouthful countries

In Turkey, 26% of the population is under theage of 15. This is closely followed by 23% inAlbania, 22% in Azerbaijan and 21% in Iceland!

Extremelyyouthful cities

Since 2006, Podgorica, Montenegrohas been the youngest European city.

Extremely rich

young peopleEuropes youngest billionaire is Prince Albert v on Thurnund Taxis, 29, from Germany who is worth a whopping1.5 billion! Prince Albert is the only European under theage of 30 who appears on the 2012 Forbes list, but he isclosely followed by 35 year-old Maxim Nogotkov (Russia)and Yvonne Bauer (Germany).

Countries with extremegenerational gaps

1 . M onacoOld to young ratio 2.18:165 years and over 26.9%0-14 years 2.18%

2 . L a t v i a

Old to young ratio 1.25:165 years and over 16.9%0-14 years 13.5%

3 . S l oven i a

Old to young ratio 1.25:165 years and over 16.8%0-14 years 13.4%

Top fIve Europeanextreme sports

1. Cheese rolling, Gloucestershire, England2. Kite skiing, Chamonix, France

3. Caving, Iceland4. Snowmobiling, Greenland

5. Mountain biking, Morzine, France

Council of Europe: an extremecommitment to youthSince 1972, 5 000 young people have been trained everyyear in one of its two residential youth centres.Between January and June 2013, it has awarded58 grants for a total of 676 000 to youth projects.

Extreme musi

Shock Rock: an umbrella teartists who combine rock melements of theatrical shoclive performances.

Notable European shock roperformers are King Diamo(DK), Screaming Lord SutcRammstein (DE) and LordExtreme lack of

political participation

Less than half (40%) of children believe thatvoting in elections is an effective tool forimproving the situation in their countries (ashigh as 50% in western Europe and E U candidatecountries), but 16% believe that elections areineffective (particularly in transition countrieswithin the western CIS and the Caucasus).

Extreme happinessTwo thirds of all children feel happy mtime, more so in western Europe (80%transition countries (60%). In general,feel happy more often than boys, as dodwellers compared to rural children.

Young European extremeadventurers

The youngest person to have stood on the top of Europeshighest peak (Mount Elbrus, 5 642 meters above sea level),is the Ukranian Yunona Bukasova, at the tender age of 9 years

and 1 month old. Aged 16, Dutch teenager Laura Dekker becamethe youngest person to complete a solo around the world sailingadventure in 2012. Dutch authorities tried to prevent theexpedition, as the girl should have been in school. The GuinnessBook of World Recordsalso refused to recognise the feat,stating that they did not want to encourage other young peopleto skip school. The youngest relay team to ever have swumthe English Channel consisted of six 12 year-old boys from theRoyal Tunbridge Wells Monson Swimming Club. The mammothswim was completed on 4 September 1968.

Images by Marlies Pschl

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by Gisle Evrard, Darko Markovic and Mark E. Taylor

Illustrations by Marlies Pschl

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by Kateryna Shalayeva

Why would I recommend invitingbaby into the preparatory team?

It is after midnight as I start to draft this article for Coyote.

This might come as no surprise, as late-night sessions ofpreparatory teams are well known to you. So they were to me.What is unusual is the fact that my late-night session has itsstart, and not its end, after midnight.

Alexander is in bed, sleeping peacefully in his cot. Alleluia... Hismumcan share her story of being a mother-trainer who bringsher child on board for non-formal education.

The most adorable competence of my fellow baby-trainer is his intercultural competence, where hissmile is his strongest skill. His ability to approacheveryone with a smile and without any hesitationalways positively surprises me. Once he arrives ata course, he makes friends very fast. On a trainingcourse he joins working groups and participates inplenaries. His natural ability to communicate andnetwork is simply amazing. Persistence, wit andcourage compose his mediation and negotiationskills. He usually gets what he wants. It is hard tosay no to him. His reaction to people and events isimmediate and clear. His research and evaluationskills are in constant development.

Alexander has legendary leadership potential.People who have never met him have heard abouthim. People who have met him once keep talkingabout him. Teaming up with his mum 24/7 (24hours a day, seven days a week) makes him anexcellent team player. I shall further add learningskills, where his strongest point is doing, by simplycopying what others do and by experimenting. It isa childs natural non-formal way of learning, which

is by playing and by reproducing all productinputs. Finally, a childs creativity of learniby singing, dancing and performing, with muor without it, drawing, posing, making faces ajokes, makes a trainers profile complete. Wouldyou like to have a person like this among your temembers or participants? I definitely would!

What does it bring into group dynamics? It fostcommunication, gives an extra nice subject to tabout. It also stimulates creativity, as baby neto be occupied all the time. People team up to teand entertain a child. And it makes adults play in a simulation exercise, but in natural conditioAs it is well known, playing is the best meth

of learning. What does it bring into the teamtrainers? It stimulates co-operation, suppprofound interpersonal exchange and humoWhat shall I say about my own intercultural, tework, communication, networking, mediatinegotiation, research and evaluation traincompetences? As a mother I am trained dailymy adorable peer trainer. It makes my learnnon-formal, experiential and lifelong!

Disclaimer I did not plan this article for the European Year of ActiveAgeing and Inter-generational Dialogue, nor was my child born for thisreason. :-) But this European year is particularly dear to me, as I am livingmy dialogue between the generations every day in my European family.

And I am living daily in this mixture of roles of a mother, a wife and aprofessional woman. And even with all the existing affirmative actionsand support structures, this mixture of roles remains very uneasy for amodern woman.

One of my present challenges is how to integrate us (a parent and a child)into the non-formal learning process. I therefore wanted to return to

this subject and to list certain pros and cons of having children share thelearning space with adults in non-formal education. I would also invitefathers to have their say!

I shall be more specifically focused on the challenges of being a mother-trainer who is accompanied by her child, both of whom are members ofthe preparatory team of a non-formal learning activity. I will raise thefollowing issues: what makes learning special when a baby is involved?How does the baby influence interaction among team members andwith participants? How does becoming a parent i nfluence a trainerscompetences? I should immediately mention that I do not necessarilyhave answers to all these questions.

K

ateryn

aSh

alay

eva

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Firstof all, I believe that children do not simfollow their parents to a training course,once they are there they become full membof a peer learning community. It is not only children learn from adults. Adults can learmuch from (their) children too. Discovermutual.

Second, we learn at all ages. The presencebaby in a learning setting shows how we leto learn! And we shall be grateful for t his gi

Third, a hidden agenda persists. Instof blaming children and their parents discomfort that children might cause, had better think of how to re-organise modernise our learning space and techniqin order to allow full participation and comfor all generations.

Forth,non-formal education equals inclulearning. No one can be in two places at same time. Scheduling, therefore, is in questThe challenge is to tailor (or be willing to taitraining schedules with consideration fospecial parental need in terms of time.

Fifth, the relations of a parent-trainer wfellow team members and participants

two sided. Ice was broken between the band the participants, but it is not necessathe same for a parent-trainer and the resthe group. A fully booked schedule preveinformal mingling. This is just one more isto take into consideration.

All in all, it is up to everyone to decide wheor not to take up a challenge and bring a bon board for non-formal education. My choI have made it.

Morning and sunrise. Time to go to bed. I mbe lucky to get a couple of hours of sleep.

If you have had similar experiences and wto share, please, do not hesitate t o contact m

kateryna_shalayeva@yahoo.com. This subneeds a good lobbying force.

P.S. I would wish to thank all my fellow memof learning communities for contributingreat deal to my thinking on this issue.

Why would I leave baby home?

1Carina Stabauer, Annette Mutter, Ragga StefansdottirBeing a Trainer and a Parent, CoyoteNo. 7, pp. 28-30

In conclusion

K

aterynaShalayeva

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T h r o u g h o u t e d u c a t i on a l c a r e e r s mo s t o f u s e x p er i e n c e a v a s t n um be r o f t i r i n g

and p r e t t y m uch t ex t - cen t r ed ac t i v i t i e s. Fa r t oo o f t en t he t r an s f er o f know l edge ,

i d e a s a n d i n f o r ma t i o n i s m a i n l y o r g a n i s ed w i t h a s t r o n g f o c u s o n t h e sp o k e n

a n d / o r w r i t t en w o r d , co n f r o n t i n g u s w i t h fil l e d b l a c k b o a r d s a n d t e x t - h ea v y

s l i des . T he d i g i t a l r evo l u t i on came a l ong , r a i s i ng b i g hopes f o r a lmos t

e v er y b o d y i n t h e fie ld o f e d u c a t i o n . B u t a l t h o u g h i t b r o u g h t u s a n o v e r l o a d

o f n ew m ed i a a n d c ommu n i c a t i o n t e ch n o l o g i e s o f f er i n g v a r i o u s mu l t i m e d i a

a p p l i c a t i o n s f o r p r e s en t i n g i n f o rm a t i o n i n a mo r e jo y f u l a n d h um an w a y ,

t h e s i t u a t i o n o f l ea r n e r s w o r l dw i d e d i d n o t c h a n g e t h a t m u c h f o r t h e b e t t e r .

T h e f o rme r a n a l o g u e m ed i a w a s m o r e o r l e ss d i s p l a ce d b y t h e omn i p r e se n c e

o f p r e s en t a t i o n s o ft w a r e t h a t e v en a l l ow e d f o r a t t a c k i n g a u d i e n c e s w i t h

a n am oun t a n d d e n s i t y o f t ex t a n d d a t a t h a t w a s t h u s fa r u n i m ag i n e d . T h e

med i um c h a n g e d , t h e d om i n a n c e o f t e x t s t a y ed . D ea t h b y P ow e r P o i n t b e came

a w i d e sp r e a d a n d s ym p t oma t i c p h e n omenon o f o u r t i m e .

B u t r e ce n t l y t h e fie l d i s i n mo v emen t . W ha t w e c a n s ee a t t h e mom en t i s a n

o n g o i n g s h i f t t ow a r d s mo r e v i su a l c ommu n i c a t i o n a n d l a n g u a g e i n man y

a r eas o f soc i e t y i nc l ud i ng t h e fie l d o f educa t i on .

By Torben Grocholl Images by Torben Grocholl & Marlies Pschl

Whats the point of visual language?

The flipchart as anunderestimated tool

Visual language can be defined as the integrationof words and visual elements. It is thus thecombination of text, shapes and imageryto illustrate content in order to support thetransfer of knowledge and ideas, and to increaseunderstanding and retention. Especially whenit comes to situations where the density ofinformation or the level of complexity is ratherhigh, the use of visual language is of a great value

for perception and overall understanding, andhas a deep impact on the further processing ofinformation.

Visualisations can grasp attention and increasea learners level of motivation and commitment.Combining spoken and/or written words withvisual elements and thus offering multi-sensual

stimuli has an impact on how people perceiinformation and retain facts in their memorieEven complex issues can very often be sizdown into strong and meaningful images thcomplement the written and spoken words ancontribute to so-called big-picture thinking.

In fact almost every communication especiain the field of education goes along with t

intention of a communicator to draw or develop a clear and detailed picture in the minof the receiver. The common phrase I see whyou mean! makes that aspect literally quite cleSo the challenge is to stimulate and evoke theinner pictures for your audience by applying visulanguage into your presentations.

At this point the old-school medium of theflipchart becomes relevant again. The simple useof (large) paper and pens offers a huge potentialand variety of mostly unused opportunities

regarding visual facilitation. It can be seen asa really flexible and interactive tool for (live)visualisations as well as for normal presentationsin groups up to 20 people. The following tips andtricks can thus be easily applied to the flipchartbut not only. Most of them are however relevantfor almost every other medium or presentationtool such as handouts, whiteboards or evenpresentation software.

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Creating a visual language What does it mean?

1. Typography: Textual information remains important, even though itshould be considered as equal to the visual elements and most important

in presentations to the spoken word. The shape of text and letters canvary in many ways and thus underline the content and your message.

2. Bullets:Bullet points are important little tools that help to categoriseinformation. You can make many different kinds of bullet points: round,squares, stars, etc. They can even be shaped specifically to the topic youare talking about in many different ways.

3. Frames: Frames are essential and easy-to-draw tools to structureyour content, t o set focus and to i ncrease the readers ability to retaininformation. Via frames you can cluster your information and makeexplicit that this is something and that i s something else. Frames can bemodified and shaped in many ways and can even give hints to what kind ofinformation you are actually talking about. For example, speech bubblesfor statements, thinking clouds for thoughts, banners for headlines, etc.

4. Connections: Use eye-catching and visible arrows to make explicitcorrelations between the individual elements of information. It makes iteasier for your audience to understand an overview and to keep track ofthe bigger picture. Dynamic signs can also be used to create a flow ofinformation and liven up your presentation.

5. Images: Use simple smileys and cartoons to add emotions to yourcontent; draw little stick figures to make your presentation more human.Pictures can provoke emotional reactions that support learning processes.Visualisations and i mages contribute to the understanding of a topic byhelping people grasp an idea more easily. Sometimes a simple imagecan explain more than a lot of words just think about traffic signs forinstance. In order to provide significant imagery it is really helpful to beclear about the core point of what you want to say. What is your messageand what image can underline or even replace it? How can it be visualisedquickly?

6. Colours: In addition to all this, the strategical use of a limited rangeof colours (maybe 2-4) is highly recommendable. Use colour to groundyour information and to accentuate structures. Draw outlines with darkcolours and fill in the spaces afterwards. Be aware that colours aseverything mentioned above can support indivi dual learning and groupprocesses, but can also create confusion.

In order to work more visually there are some general principles and fundamentals

that can be combined and applied in designing your educational materials:

Hurdles and barriers

A lot of the information mentioned above mi ghtsound like common sense to you. But even thoughthe benefits of visual communication in the

learning process are quite obvious, documentedand traceable, its implementation into everydayworking or training practice remains challenging,tricky and very often an insurmountable hurdle.Why is that? What makes it so difficult toimplement techniques we had much fun withwhen we were kids into our work?

Most people are convinced that they are notcreative or good at drawing, mostly because theywere told so by parents, teachers, etc. At somepoint in life we seem to lose interest in expressingourselves visually. In the adult world, drawing,doodling and playing with colours and shapesbecomes inappropriate for most of us, even thoughit can be considered as something very inherent

to human nature. Instead, we unlearn our naturalskills and suppress them in a culture in whichlearning and working is very much text oriented.

Time to unlock creativity!

If you decide to (re)discover these abilities andto think and work more visually it only takes afew steps to kick off a fun and joyful learningprocess. Developing a visual language takes timeof course. But once you are on the way it is aninspiring journey with surprising moments andresults. You can start practising by implementingvisual language step by step into your everydaylife and/or work. First for personal note taking,project planning, mind mapping you can evenspice up your shopping list with visuals and at

a later stage or at the same time in your work wiothers, in groups and presentations. You can alget a personal sketch book from an art store practise. It is a good way of keeping track of yovisual learning path. Be open and look for visu

inspirations that you can adopt into your fieof work. The Internet is a great resource. Searfor images according to your specific topics ainterests. Adopt, modify and draw them withpen on paper. Play around with forms and shapeAs a personal resource and helpful tool you calso create your own visual dictionary a kind collection of useful images that you can keep wiyou in your work and go back to them whenevyou need. It can even be used the same way assticker album just with visuals to share wiyour colleagues.

You dont have tobe Walt Disney!

While exploring thefield there is one thing that yshould always keep in mind: you dont have to Walt Disney! Working more visually does not medrawing beautiful pictures. It is all about simplittle drawings that activate peoples attention anfoster understanding. In fact, peoples brains amostly activated when looking at drawings thare not perfect but slightly ambiguous. Followia concept by Scott McCloud a leading theorist comics amplification through simplificationit can even be stated that sizing down an imato its very essentials by taking away features anmaking it more and more abstract actually allothe individual viewer to put more meaning init. In other words, a simple stick figure can more effective than an elaborate and well-drawcharacter!

.

u

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If you have ever been on the other side of a non-formal learning activity,you certainly remember moments of managing different perspectives

in a team of trainers, dealing with multiple expectations from theinstitutions and participants involved, giving plenary presentationswhen the beamer was collapsing, handling conflict in a group, realisingthat the planned programme had to be totally changed on the spot, etc.These situations are numerous, and the emotional spectrum connectedto them is large. Certainly, training is an intrinsically emotionalbusiness, too. In order to cope with these challenges and to facilitatelearning, I believe trainers need emotional intelligence. But what is itexactly?

The term itself was popularised by Daniel Goleman in his groundbreak-ing bestseller book in the mid-1990s. The concept is often defined asfollows:

Emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognizing

our own feelings and feelings of others, for motivating

ourselves and for managing emotions well in ourselvesand in our relationships. (Goleman, 1998)

In the following years, Goleman and his colleague Richard Boyatzis,further developed the concept and today it is seen as a set of competencesgrouped in the four competence areas, as presented in a four-quadrantmodel (see image). The model is a combination of personal competences(how we see and manage ourselves) and more social competences (howwe sense and interact with other people). But lets see what is behind thecompetence headings.

(Boyatzis, Goleman, McKee 2002)

by Darko Markovic

Learning to ride a bicycle, practising new guitar chords, writing your very

first project application, getting feedback on your first training of trainers...

It seems that all significant learning is followed by significant emotions.

Perhaps Claxton (1999) is right in saying that learning itself is an intrinsically

emotional business. Following on this thought one could say that if the job

of a trainer is to help their learners to learn, a trainer needs to be able to

recognise the emotional dimension of learning and work with it. (adapted

fromMortiboys 2005)

cKee 20

S ocial

A wareness

R elationshipM anagement

S elf-

A wareness

S elf-M anagement

Self-awarenessis the ability to accurately perceive your own emotions as they happen, to be ablegive a realistic assessment of your own abilities