From 8th to 10th November 2017, the 10 teams of the PARTISPACE project met at the Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany) for the 6th consortium meeting. Five months from the end of the project, partners were glad to receive Gudrun Quenzel, reviewer of PARTISPACE for a presentation of the progress in the research especially concerning the local case studies (work package 4), the action-research process (WP5) and the ongoing analysis phase (work package 6). Discussions included sharing about how to get an impact on policy-makers and practitioners, and how the results of the project will help policy makers and youth workers to increase youth participation?
Whereas the local case studies phase (Work Package 4) has been completed with the publication of the second thematic paper of the project entitled ‘Claiming Spaces and Struggling for Recognition’, to download here, one of the big issues discussed at the meeting was the ongoing thematic and comparative analysis (Work Package 6). The analysis is expected to contribute to develop the theoretical understanding of youth participation across and between local, national and transnational contexts; between individual, collective and institutional practice, and between formal, non-formal and informal styles and spaces. Potential analytical categories from first results were collected from the mapping and the case study phases of the Work Package 4. The collection of categories was clustered into emerging themes around the main concepts of styles and spaces of participation. The process resulted in 5 thematic perspectives for comparative analysis. Each perspective is represented by a Thematic Group of researchers working on the production of a thematic working paper based on its in-depth analysis. As a side-product teams will elaborate on the existing glossary concepts based on the analysis and findings. Each of the 5 groups has developed a draft work plan consisting of a set of research questions, a rationale for the selection of data from WP 2, 3, 4 and 5 and a provisional timetable. During the meeting, partners have discussed the ongoing development of the work so far and the upcoming challenges of further developing the theoretical framework.
Another ongoing work package is the action-research (WP5) which involves young people to undertake their own research on issues and questions that they identify as important in a way to open up possibilities for exploring additional questions and gain new understandings about participation (modes, styles, spaces, etc.). During the meeting, partners discussed the developments, the challenges and the learning of participating in the process. The consortium also took the opportunity of the meeting to watch the 8 national action-research projects video-films, which will be published next year.
Finally, dissemination and communication activities (work package 7) have been discussed in order to share ideas for the organization of the final meeting of the project as well as for the development of a youth training module which aim to include the outcomes from the project, so that they reach youth workers, policy makers and young people.