Hostages of future - about discursive policy towards youth

Abstract

The main purpose of considerations is a critical analysis of a discourse upon state about youth, represented by a document entitled Revised European Charter on Youth Participation in Local and Regional life, passed by a Congress of local and regional authorities of Europe on 21 May 2003. In Poland released on the commission of Ministry of National Education and Sport in 2005. Identification of characteristics of mentioned discourse was made by means of using discourse categories, knowledge/power and dividing practices defined by M. Foucault and a concept of power in global age by U. Beck. After discussing the theoretically-methodological premises, the author describes institutional conditions of discourse upon state about youth. Further she concentrates her attention on content of Charter as a characteristic illustration of a discursive “youth policy”. The author defends a thesis which says that a discourse upon Youth Bureau, agency of Ministry of National Education and Science, implies as common a present knowledge about youth and society aiming at control over a concept of active participation of young people in local and regional life. From the pedagogical point of view a particular characteristic of construing pedagogy (creating and processing) is an identity of a young citizen. A peculiar property of such discourse is situating within confines of discourse upon state and outside state agencies, with whom a question of acceptance is directly connected. Knowledge/power that is carried by the analyzed document is a part of a modernistic model of citizen education, where the starting point is defining its respectable results.