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Community work is not a straightforward enterprise, as practitioners well know. For example, it embodies a number of key tensions which create competing and sometimes conflicting demands. This is hardly surprising given the disparate provenance, contested history and diverse contexts of contemporary community work. In fact, it could be argued that what constitutes community work at any time is inevitably the rather messy outcome of contestation between all those interests which seek to frame, deploy or regulate it. It follows, therefore, that the process of contestation, and the dilemmas of choice it generates, produce competing rationalities, although these may not always be explicit. This article explores competing ways of thinking about and justifying professional community work – as distinct from paid or unpaid activism – because they raise important political and educational questions

Drawing on international examples, this book interrogates the relationship between the arts, culture and community development. Contributors from six continents, reimagine community development as they consider how aesthetic arts contribute to processes of peacebuilding, youth empowerment, participatory planning and environmental regeneration.

This is a special issue of Concept which considers the changed and changing landscape of youth work in the UK. It includes contributions which take a backward look in order to locate present day developments, articles which reflect on contemporary themes, issues and practices, and interviews with current youth workers who are striving to manage the contradictions of politics and policy for young people, on the ground. Editors: Mel Aitken & Mae Shaw Youth Work: A 2020 Vision- Editorial Introduction: Ian Fyfe 'Open' Youth Work in 2019: A backward look:Bernard Davies Youth Work: Converging and diverging responses in Scotland:Annette Coburn andSinead Gormally The decline of the Local Authority Youth Service in England: Reflections of an actor in its demise:Tony Taylor 'That was another moment where people were like wow!These young people have really done something!':Christina McMellon Relocating place in the life of neo-liberal youth:Alan Mackie On the Ground!:Sabrina Tickle, Karen Anderson & Gemma Burns Cover image:Special thanks to Caitlyn McFarlane. Her art can be followed on Instagram under the name c8s_art.

This article explores the relationship between policy discourses framed around notions of resilience, the influence of the mental health user movement, and the institutionalisation of the recovery model in mental health programmes. This has particular relevance for community education practice. It argues that a spurious consensus has been constructed which conceals competing interests, contested meanings and contentious politics. It concludes by considering what hope there is for reclaiming recovery as a social and political practice which is capable of resisting those neoliberal austerity agendas through which it is currently constructed. Although it is written from the Scottish context, it will certainly have relevance elsewhere.

Presenting unique and critical reflections on international policy and practice, this book addresses the global dominance of neoliberalism. It examines the extent to which community development practitioners, activists and programmes can challenge, critique, engage with or resist its influence.

This book, the second title in the Rethinking Community Development series, starts from concern about increasing inequality worldwide and the re-emergence of community development in public policy debates. It argues for the centrality of class analysis and its associated divisions of power to any discussion of the potential benefits of community development. It proposes that, without such an analysis, community development can simply mask the underlying causes of structural inequality. It may even exacerbate divisions between groups competing for dwindling public resources in the context of neoliberal globalisation. Reflecting on their own contexts, a wide range of contributors from across the global north and south explore how an understanding of social class can offer ways forward in the face of increasing social polarisation. The book considers class as a dynamic and contested concept and examines its application in policies and practices past and present. These include local/global and rural/urban alliances, community organising, ecology, gender and education