Barriers and enablers to UK-German youth exchanges within the youth sector
Encouraging UK-German Youth Exchanges
Organisational barriers and enablers
Graph 5.7 Youth workers – Levels of interest youth worker exchange topics (DE)
Barriers for youth organisations
within the UK, and relatively small in Germany. However, German participants were significantly 19 more likely to rate UK-German exchanges as less relevant than exchanges to other countries. Overall, ratings were around three (equivalent to a lot ), in all areas. This suggests a sufficient level of organisational interest in youth exchanges amongst survey participants. However, taking into account the survey bias towards participants who are more interested in youth exchanges (see Chapter 2), the actual level of support for youth exchanges may be lower across the whole youth sector. Nevertheless, a lack of organisations interested in developing youth exchanges is not a substantive barrier.
The extent to which organisations in the youth sector have an interest in undertaking youth exchanges is an important factor, this level of interest will be influenced by the organisation’s own mission or goals, and the wider policy climate. In the survey, youth workers were asked to rate the relevance to the work of their organisation of UK-German youth exchanges , as well as exchanges to other countries, using a Likert scale equivalent to a 0-4 (Graph 5.8). Both German and UK youth workers rated UK-German exchanges as less relevant than exchanges to other countries, although the difference in rating was very small
International youth work good practices
Extremely interested Extremely interested Somewhat interested Not so interested Not at all interested
9.9 3.7
30.9
37.0
18.5
Sharing youth work practice
28.4
33.3
27.2
8.6 2.5
Finding international project partners
29.6
29.6
21.0
14.8
4.9
Developing youth work skills and competences
21.0
33.3
27.2
18.5
Youth work with marginalised or vulnerable groups
14.8
21.0
29.6
21.0
4.9
Using youth work to address key social issues
12.3
23.5
27.2
33.3
3.7
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Valid % (n=81)
Graph 5.8 Youth workers – In your view, how relevant are youth exchanges between the UK and Germany to the work of your organisation? By country group
“I think it is good to get to know each other first without participants. I think that is very important, also to see if you can not only function professionally but also on a personal level. It simply has to fit, especially in the social context involving children and young people, you have to be sincere, you can’t work with just anyone.” German youth worker
Within the interviews with youth workers, participants were asked to identify the specific value of collaboration between the UK and Germany (as distinct from collaboration with other countries). Participants described one of the strongest areas of interest was the ability to learn from youth work practice and share pedagogical approaches. Interviewees highlighted that youth work practice between the two countries was different enough that there was potential for learning, but similar enough that collaboration and practice sharing would still be relatable. Participants identified that youth worker exchanges were useful both for developing professional competences, and also for developing partnership and identifying new international contacts.
3.2
3.3
2.6
3.0
Relevance of UK-German youth exchanges
Relevance of exchanges to other countries
Mean rating (0=Not at all, 1=A little, 2=A moderate amount, 3=A lot, 4=A great deal)
UK (n=46) DE (n=81)
19 t(148)=-11.146, p=0.000
66
67
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