International reach of Teesside Youth Research

Teesside youth researchers continue to have an international impact.

Three papers were presented at the European Sociological Association conference in Glasgow in September 2007.

Dr Ray Arthur spoke about youth offending, the family and criminal justice. Dr Tracy Shildrick presented a paper about the new forms of class prejudice to be found in popular discourses about ‘chavs’ and’ charvers’. Tracy was elected to the organising committee of the Youth and Generation Research Network of the ESA at this conference. Professor Robert MacDonald reviewed Teesside research on pathways into and out crime for young people.

This was a theme pursued in more depth by Dr Colin Webster (Visiting Fellow) at the European Society for Criminology - Developmental Criminology Group in Bologna, also in September, in a paper co-authored with Mark Simpson, Tracy Shildrick and Robert MacDonald.

‘Theorising criminal careers’ was the title of a paper by the same team, delivered by Colin at the British Society for Criminology conference, LSE, London in September.

Professor MacDonald delivered two key-note lectures on Teesside research in January 2008. The first was at a conference entitled ‘The Place of Youth’ at Kingston University. The second was at a three-day, international conference on ‘Youth Marginalisation’ organised by Bielefeld University and the government of North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany.

His opening plenary lecture -‘Disconnected Youth? The ‘underclass’, social exclusion and economic marginality’ – connected UK policy debates and youth research findings to new German political and policy agendas about young people, youth work and an alleged new, German underclass. This and other conference papers are likely to be published in a special issue of Social Work and Society.

Finally, Dr Shildrick has been invited to contribute to a special issue of the French journal Diversité. The journal is published by the French Ministry of Education and the issue examines 16-18 year olds in France and Europe. Tracy will review UK research and policy for the journal.

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