McLoughlin, Shane (2018) Connecting the dots: young people, social inclusion and digitalisation - Reflection Paper. Discussion Paper. EU - CoE Youth Partnership.

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Abstract

The digital transformation of society in the 21st century presents tremendous opportunities and challenges to be agreed upon and bridged by the field of youth. This reflection paper seeks to explore our understand ing of s ocial i nclusion, the opportunities and challenges for the social inclusion of young people in the digital age, as well as the opportunities and challenges for youth policy, y outh research and youth workers in both confronting digitalisation and applying digit ali s ation to reali s e s ocial i nclusion of young people today and in the future. The principle aim is to sensitise readers to some of the key concepts, range of issues and applied practices that draw on digitalisation in seeking to address the s ocial i nclusion of young people. Thus, this reflection paper is meant as an initial prompt for thought, discussion and debate for this year’s symposium. It is hoped that the symposiu m will further enrich this di scussion and debate by stimulating the formulation of key problems and issues, and by reaching a consensus around how to tackl e some of th e se core issues. In this paper, w e particular ly focus on conditions for social inclusion, including young peoples’ capacities such as the “ h uman c apital ” (or competencies) needed by young people today in order to access and negotiat e digital technologies . We note the salient issue of trust when thinking about s ocial i nclusion and recommend closer attention to how digitalisation can be drawn on in order to directly and indirectly engender trust by young people. The paper argues that digitalisation is both a necessary response to the current and future socio - political - ec onomic climate of Europe, and an opportunity to increase the reach, relevance and impact of youth - focused policy, research and practice. We conclude with some recommendations for thinking about how the youth policy field is moving forward in addressing the breadth of challenges.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Keywords:	Connecting the dots; Young people; social inclusion; digitalisation;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Innovation Value Institute, IVI
Item ID:	10218
Depositing User:	IVI Editor
Date Deposited:	16 Nov 2018 15:41
Publisher:	EU - CoE Youth Partnership
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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