Connecting youth with geographic communities: youth organisations and group identities in the UK during the twentieth century

该项目旨在了解青年组织在将青年与不同地域的社区联系起来方面所发挥的作用。青年组织使青年能够与当地社区发展牢固和积极的联系，最明显的是通过促进积极的地方公民精神(Kearns，1995)。青年组织也有助于在年轻人和国家想象中的社区之间建立联系(Anderson 1983)。最后，青年组织还有助于促进青年与国际或全球社区之间的联系。虽然青年组织一直在这三个不同的层面积极推动社会参与，但青年组织的部分意义在於加强这些层面之间的重要联系。此外，青年组织长期担当这个角色。英国青年组织的历史已经在许多研究中得到了阐明(例如，斯普林霍尔1977年；Proctor 2002年；Prynn 1983年)，然而，这些研究的范围有限。首先，他们没有明确研究青年组织在塑造青年与不同类型的政治和文化社区之间的联系方面所发挥的作用。其次，这些研究在很大程度上是对与英国国家项目相关的青年组织进行的英国式研究。对青年组织的关注较少，这些组织挑战了占主导地位的国家项目(参看。L，2006年；普林，1983年)。第三，对青年组织的研究也往往集中在1939年之前的时期(例如，斯普林霍尔，1977)。在1945年后的一段时间里，很少有研究考察青年组织如何调停年轻人与不同类型社区之间的关系。最后，到目前为止，很少有研究探讨青年组织如何设法克服--或有时成功地反映或促进--不同规模的社区紧张关系和分裂(尽管见Mills 2009)。鉴于这一背景，该项目的目标是：1.审查学术和政策文献，这些文献详细阐述了青年组织在反映和促进青年与不同类型社区之间的联系方面所发挥的作用。对档案材料进行范围研究，使人们能够了解威尔士的青年组织如何设法促进对年轻人与威尔士地方、威尔士国家和国际社区之间存在的联系的独特解释。召集一次由来自英格兰、苏格兰、北爱尔兰和威尔士的学者和从业人员参加的研讨会，以审查青年组织在历史和当代背景下将青年与社区联系起来所发挥的作用。该项目有助于补充呼吁的要求：开展更多研究，以审查文化机构在塑造社区参与方面的作用(在呼吁中第8-9页)；增进对(真正的)地方社区与(想象中的)国家和跨国社区之间可能存在的复活关系的认识(第3页)；历史上对群体与各种社区之间的联系的关注(第6-7页)；了解社区如何成为紧张和团结的场所(第10页)，尤其是因为与语言和宗教有关的问题(第7页)。更广泛地说，这个试点项目将作为一个更大的提案的基础，该提案将寻求发展一部关于青年组织的“新英国历史”。

The project aims to understand the role played by youth organisations in connecting young people to various kinds of community, geographically defined. Youth organisations enable young people to develop strong and positive connections with local communities, most clearly through their promotion of an ethos of an active local citizenship (Kearns 1995). Youth organisations also help a connection to be forged between young people and the imagined community of the nation (Anderson 1983). Finally, youth organisations also contribute to the promotion of connections between young people and international or global communities. While youth organisations have been active in shaping community engagement at these three different scales, part of the significance of youth organisations is the way in which they reinforce important connections between these scales.Youth organisations, moreover, have played this role over a long period. The history of youth organisations in the UK has been illuminated in a number of studies (e.g. Springhall 1977; Proctor 2002; Prynn 1983) and yet, these studies are limited in scope. First, they have not examined explicitly the role played by youth organisations in shaping the connections between young people and different kinds of political and cultural community. Second, these studies have been largely Anglocentric studies of youth organisations associated with a British state project. Less attention has been directed towards youth organisations, which have challenged dominant state projects (cf. Löffler 2006; Prynn 1983). Third, studies of youth organisations have also tended to focus on the period before 1939 (e.g. Springhall 1977). Few studies have examined how youth organisations have mediated the relationship between young people and different kinds of community in the period after 1945. Finally, very few studies to date have examined how youth organisations seek to overcome - or sometimes succeed in reflecting or promoting - community tensions and subdivisions at different scales (although see Mills 2009).Given this background, the project's aims are to:1. Examine the academic and policy literature that has elaborated on the role played by youth organisations in reflecting and promoting the connections between young people and different kinds of community, geographically defined.2. Conduct a scoping study of the archival material that can enable one to understand how youth organisations in Wales have sought to promote a distinctive interpretation of the connections that should exist between young people and Welsh places, the Welsh nation and an international community.3. Convene a workshop comprising academics and practitioners from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in order to examine the role played by youth organisations in connecting young people to communities - in historic and contemporary contexts.The project contributes to the Supplementary Call's demand for: more research to examine the role of cultural institutions in shaping community engagement (pp. 8-9 in the call); an increased understanding of the resursive relationship that can exist between (real) local communities and (imagined) national and transnational communities (p.3); an historical focus on the connections between groups of people and various kinds of community (pp. 6-7); an understanding of how communities can be places of tension as well as unity (p. 10), not least because of issues relating to language and religion (p. 7).More broadly, this pilot project will act as the basis for a larger proposal, which will seek to develop a 'new British history' of youth organisations.