MARCO NORMATIVO DE LA GESTIÓN AMBIENTAL

9 See appendix A for a concise identification of the 48 groups.

The case clusters presented here consists of a descriptive-analytical ordering of different forms of participatory activity based on the 48 in-depth cases. Based on the case studies in the national reports, seven different clusters of participatory activities have been worked out, based on six to ten in-depth cases.

CLUSTER I: Representation of interests as right and obligation

The first cluster comprises all formal cases, such as youth parliaments, student representatives at universities as well as the participation of pupils and the interest representation of home-schooled individuals. The commonality of the, otherwise different, in-depth-cases is an institutionally or legally secured setting in which youngsters, students or pupils can articulate their own interests and thus can or must assume responsibility within the framework of a particular institution. The degrees of freedom as well as the range of participation (from information on opinion formation to the decision) are very different in the individual cases. Common to all cases are forms of representation of interest analogous to democratic forms of government. Whether and to what extent this actually constitutes political interest representation differs from case to case.

In contrast, the next two styles “Fighting within and with the political system” as well as “Living social alternatives as a political model” can indeed be assigned to the sphere of political activities. These directly or indirectly aim at working on the social system, either with regard to the political system in general, or with regard to individual social spheres of life. However, they do so in two very different styles.

CLUSTER II: Fighting within and with the political system – explicit activities in and out of political parties

Within this cluster, the political confrontation with the existent political system is at the forefront. Platforms for this confrontation are offered by political parties with their youth organisations, small self-initiated political groups as well as by social movements. The focus is on written and spoken debate regarding the own political objectives as well as persuasive efforts in the form of organized public discourse and public actions.

CLUSTER III: Living social alternatives as a political model

This cluster is characterized by the fact that the propagation of the 'walk through the institutions' or the 'preparation of a change of system' is not primary. Instead, the desired changed social reality in the here and now is directly being implemented or lived. These models (e.g. a self-managed cultural sector or a self-governed educational institution), are, from the point of view of the actors, political alternatives that challenge the existing system. The lived model allows participants to make concrete counter experiences against that which is established and demonstrates to a general public that a different social order is possible - at least for certain areas of life. This style is not only evident in a collectively organized alternative way of life, but also in individualized forms, through individual lifestyles as a means of political change.

CLUSTER IV: Producing and negotiating own spaces

This cluster only has a political character in as far as the claim exists that activities and regulations can be largely defined in one's own places or spaces, even if they are contrary or even in conflict with the currently applicable regulations. One's own space is clearly delimited from the outside and this self-chosen demarcation requires societal acceptance. If this does not exist or insufficiently exist, the participants react by retreating into the 'invisibility' or by offensively defending their own borders. How different the societal acceptance of such worlds and the styles of demarcation are is shown by the different cases. CLUSTER V: Inbetween service of humanity and service enterprise

An activity that is very different at first sight is the voluntary commitment of young people at the service of others. In this style's in-depth-cases, it becomes clear that it is precisely the delimitation from political engagement that is an important component. The voluntary commitment, whether in others, in the care of the weaker or the natural basis, is often provided within the framework of civil society organisations. They are in some ways services to others, or even to society, which the respective state does not provide itself. It is interesting to note that this kind of voluntary commitment is not only provided under the umbrella of traditional non-profit organisations, but that this commitment is also provided in small self- organized groups, which in a sense understand themselves to be service providers and offer these services for money, analogous to the non-profit organisations, which themselves are based on a professionalized structure. In this interplay of professional and voluntary work, young people discover the potential to use their voluntary commitment as a stepping stone for their career planning and/or as a cornerstone of economic livelihood.

The commitment, which leads back to itself, is particularly evident in the sixth style, “Exploring interests, developing and performing skills”.

CLUSTER VI: Exploring interests, developing and performing skills

These activities focus, on the one hand, on the individual abilities and, on the other hand, the belonging to certain scenes. In most cases, this style shows that certain skills are essential to enter, for instance, a musical, theater or sports scene. The act of proving oneself in these scenes in front of others, yet also with others in front of audiences, characterizes the activities, which are in some cases very different from one another. The variance of the scenes is considerable, whether in the sense of short-lived and long-lived scenes, or in the sense of offers commercialized or initiated by the youth work.

In some way, this style finds a counterpart in the “Pedagogically supervised leisure infrastructure”.

CLUSTER VII: Pedagogically supervised leisure infrastructure for young people

In a certain way, the style of pedagogically organized leisure- infrastructure, which includes most cases stemming from youth work, is about developing skills. The potential of creative, musical and athletic activities was discovered in order to attract young people to a sensible leisure time. Basically, this is a broad learning field, in which young people can experiment

with themselves, discover and develop themselves and their abilities (whether through self- organisation of small projects, or in the area of their own expression and self-articulation over analogous forms). The pedagogical objective in the background is ultimately aimed at societal integration, because the addressees in many of the studied youth Centres are young people who are disadvantaged due to their living conditions and who have more difficulties accessing the commercial offerings of the leisure industry.

3.2.2.1 CLUSTER I: Representation of interests as right and obligation

This cluster combines all formal in-depth case studies, in which pupils, students or the urban youth can articulate their interests by means of institutional forms of representation. This kind of involvement is experienced ambivalently. Ambivalences refer both to the content of participation, which does not sufficiently reflect relevant issues from the perspective of the young people, as well as to the actual possibilities of influencing municipal politics. Rights and possibilities of participation stand opposite to obligations in these procedures. Furthermore, the assessment of importance of this cluster of participation opens a gap between a small group of active representatives and the large group of young people represented by them. In many cases, the group of representatives is divided into a small core group of very active young people and into an extended circle of young people who are less active as representatives.

The in-depth-cases that can be assigned to this cluster are briefly presented below and grouped according to different organisational forms (youth parliaments, school participation bodies and student representatives). The case of representation of interests in a shelter for young people can be described as a special case and will be discussed at the end.

Case Group: Youth parliaments as an institutionalized representation of the interests of young people

In three of the eight cities – Gothenburg, Frankfurt and Manchester – there are youth parliaments, and these all constituted case studies of the project. They differ in size and organisation, yet they have an institutionalized forum in common, where young people can debate their interests and lodge them at the municipal and/or national level. All three youth parliaments are run by a core group consisting of young people and, in some cases, persons who support the young people in the organisation like youth workers. Below we briefly described these three groups.

Formal Youth Organisation (FYO): The FYO is the main political, formal forum of youth participation in the city of Gothenburg. It was established in 2004, modelled after the City council, and serves the purpose of enhancing youth participation. Young people ages 12-17, from the 10 city districts, run a candidature every year and are voted into the FYO. Representatives come from all of the districts. There are 81 regular members and 20 replacements. The number of seats is allocated based on the proportion of young people living in a district. Formal, grand meetings, which gather (or at least are open to) all of the representatives, take place five times a year. These are highly formalised and agenda-driven. Members address issues that they identify as important, such as young people’s access to

public transportation, quality of school food, and leisure activities for the young. A small group of the most engaged members meet twice a week in the town hall. Assisted by a coordinator they discuss, plan and handle a variety of issues (NRG, p. 27).

Formal Youth Organisation (FYO): The youth parliament in Manchester is the key forum for recognised youth participation in the City of Manchester. It is the space with the most clear and explicit commitment to ‘young people’s participation’ in the city and it directly frames ‘participation’ as an induction into democracy, concerned as it is with voice and representation .It has existed since 2011 and offers young people an exchange and discussion platform regarding municipal and national topics. A core group of approximately 10 adolescents makes up the youth council, organizes elections and meetings, maintains links with the city council, maintains contact with other youth parliaments and organizes activities pertaining to national campaigns (see NRM p. 10). Although the discussion is made by young people, the entire structure for the discussion is determined by others beforehand (NRM, p. 24).

Youth and Student Representation of Frankfurt (YSR): In Frankfurt, each student council of each school has the right to send two delegates to the city-wide Youth and Student Representation which meets two to three times a year for its general assembly. Approximately 60,000 pupils and students elect the delegates once a year. These in turn elect an "executive board". This board is responsible for the day-to-day business of the YSR and has a budget of 6,800 Euro per annum provided by the municipality11. The executive board is supported by a former board member on a voluntary basis and by three guest members, liaising teachers. The work of the board is characterized by statutory duties to represent young people in the city’s governing bodies; by endorsing campaigns by other students’ representations; and by setting their own agenda by taking on “bottom-up” initiatives by local groups of young people (NRF p. 45).

Representative Systems - Between Participation and Alibi Exercise with Educational Intentions

The three cases stand for institutionalized forums for representing the interests of young people. A certain number of young people are elected or delegated for a certain period to represent the urban youth. The purpose of this organisation is to represent the interests of the entire city's youth in the city policy. In the case studies of Frankfurt and Gothenburg, the composition of the forum as an appropriate representation of all young people is problematized. Representatives and members of the core group from Gothenburg criticize the fact that in certain districts the election is badly organised and not sufficiently promoted, thus making more difficult for young people from certain areas to participate. In Frankfurt, the representative structure appears to function as a social filter. Male grammar school pupils are clearly overrepresented. With the election into the parliaments, pupils with more educated competence of self-presentation are preferred. At the same time, the right to representation of interest pupils in a lower grade is restricted. The uneven composition of the representatives

becomes even more evident in the core groups. In Gothenburg, where the organisation and planning are open to all the representatives and there is no core group, predominantly young males who are very interested and possess exceptional communicative, intellectual and social skills, are active. This small group take the forum as an opportunity to participate in democratic processes, to gather personal experiences and to find ways to influence political processes.

The parliaments are tied to the city's policy and are provided with public resources (spaces and budget). The possibility of truly introducing the interests into the overall city policy is structured differently in the three cities. In Gothenburg, the youth parliament has no real power to decide, but they do have the possibility of introducing issues: “In relation to the City Council, the FYO has no decision-making or executive power. Members can ask questions, offer suggestions and express opinions. The structure of FYO is decided by the City Council. Activities of the FYO are reported to a working group of elected politicians with supervising responsibility” (NRG, p. 27). Despite this possibility to participate, the real influence of the FYO is small, according to one of its members. On the relationship between FYO and the politicians, she comments: “Plainly speaking I don’t think it’s working. Some show up, some care and all, but nothing happens. It changes nothing /…/ It’s like, generally, we report, they report. (Amanda, BI)” (NRG, p. 31).

In contrast, it is striking that the board members of Frankfurt sit in various political commissions and can directly take their positions into the political negotiation. Thus, the youth parliament in Frankfurt has “a relatively powerful position within the city governance: board members are taking part in some formal committees, have access to senior members of the city administration and their potential for agenda-setting is high, given the potential to mobilize pupils and students for certain issues” (NRF p. 49).

In Manchester, the possibilities of the FYO members to develop their own topics and forms of negotiation are low. The agenda is mostly set by adults with an obvious pedagogical effort. FYO primarily serves the introduction of young people into institutional politics:

It is tempting to conclude that the FYO functions as a Trojan horse for the incubation of broader national politics into the lives of young people. This doesn't just happen implicitly, through the partial mimicking of formal political activities and modes of organisation, but also explicitly, through the organisation of work sessions, thematic days, and others, destined to inform or involve young people into mainstream policies. Official codes and scripts predominate and yet the young people find a reason to persist here, believing they can make a difference. Groups of young people often have to follow a discussion agenda that is structured in advance by the youth workers or other adults (e.g. regional politicians). (NRM p. 25)

For the three youth parliaments, it can be said in summary that the gap between a pedagogical reintegration into a representative political ensemble without actual participation and a real political influence of pupils is large. It is in each case a group of committed and well-

educated pupils who actively participate and thus also further develop their own competences.

Case group: Compulsory Extracurricular Activities in School

The extent to which the institutionalized right to representation of interests of young people is included in a school’s socialization mission is particularly evident in the student committee of a private grammar school in Zurich as well as in the High School Association at the High School. It means that the participatory activities have the form of an obligation within a pedagogical programme.

Student committee at a private grammar school in Zurich: The student committee at a private grammar school consists of elected representatives from each class. The committee meets at least four times a year, accompanied by teachers, to discuss the concerns of pupils. The committee can introduce proposals into the school management and has a right to be heard at the teacher's meeting, in which important decisions pertaining to the teaching mode are made. However, they are not entitled to vote. In their day-to-day life in the classroom as well as in the committee, the pupils involved in the committee are confronted with a school management and teacher body that thus far felt all-powerful, who regulates the central concerns of the school operation and is strongly influenced by external regulations such as cantonal curricula or parents' expectations. In the central areas of this school system, the students have few chances to assert their interests, but they can be involved in activities on the fringe of school’s normal functioning, participate in and co-create extracurricular activities. For example, they can (and must) organize the annual school festival.

High School Association at the High School: Pupils can choose a commitment in the High School-Association out of several compulsory optional subjects in school. The High School was founded in 1995 with more than 1200 branches throughout Italy. The movement's objective is to build a culture of lawfulness through various activities. The activities are organized exclusively by the young people and younger pupils are introduced by older pupils. However, it is primarily the core team of this youth section of the national association that is active and networked with the broader High School Association of Bologna. This split is also reflected in the school organisation as a whole: The group of students who are politically and culturally engaged and interested, and those who are primarily interested in the organisation of leisure (see NRB, p.48ff).

Right to participate as a performance of one's duty

The starting point in both cases is the obligation to participate in extracurricular tasks, although in different ways. Participation is thus primarily a duty and not so much a right. Although the activities are very different in both of the cases, it is primarily about encouraging young people to take responsibility for themselves and others, and therefore also for society, or as in the Zurich case, for the school community. In both cases, the promise of assuming responsibility entails a promise of influence. In Zurich it is about Influencing the school organisation; and in Bologna it is about influencing the building of an High School attitude. The balance between the assumption of responsibility and the possibilities for

influence, as demonstrated in the Zurich case, does not appears correct from the point of view