Sangeeta Soni - Working with Diversity in Youth and Community Work

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Working with Diversity in Youth and Community Work

Titles in the Series

Active Citizenship and Community Learning	ISBN 978 1 84445 152 4
Youth Work Ethics	ISBN 978 1 84445 246 0
Law and Youth Work	ISBN 978 1 84445 245 3
Managing Modern Youth Work	ISBN 978 1 84445 206 4
Popular Education Practice for Youth and Community Development Work	ISBN 978 1 84445 207 1
Using Theory in Youth and Community Work Practice	ISBN 978 1 84445 300 9
What is Youth Work?	ISBN 978 1 84445 466 2
Working with Distressed Young People	ISBN 978 1 84445 205 7
Empowerment and Participation in Youth Work	ISBN 978 1 84445 347 4

To order, please contact our distributor: BEBC Distribution, Albion Close, Parkstone, Poole, BH12 3LL. Telephone: 0845 230 9000, email:

Working with Diversity in Youth and Community Work

SANGEETA SONI

Series editors: Janet Batsleer and Keith Popple

First published in 2011 by Learning Matters Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Learning Matters.

2011 Sangeeta Soni
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84445 298 9

The rights of Sangeeta Soni to be identified as Author of this Work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is also available in the following ebook formats:
Adobe Ebook: 9781844457816
EPUB:9781844457809
Kindle: 9780857250315

Cover and text design by Code 5 Design Associates Ltd.
Project management by Newgen Publishing and Data Services Typeset by Newgen Publishing and Data Services
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter, Devon

Learning Matters Ltd
20 Cathedral Yard
Exeter EX1 1HB
Tel: 01392 215560
www.learningmatters.co.uk

I would like to dedicate this book to my father and mother Rajinder Pal and Suraksh Kanta Soni.

Contents

Foreword from the Series Editors

Youth work and community work has a long, rich and diverse history that spans three centuries. The development of youth work extends from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with the emergence of voluntary groups and the serried ranks of the UKs many uniformed youth organisations, through to modern youth club work, youth project work and informal education. Youth work remains in the early twenty-first century a mixture of voluntary effort and paid and state-sponsored activity.

Community work also had its beginnings in voluntary activity. Some of this activity was in the form of rescuing the poor, while community action developed as a response to oppressive circumstances and was based on the idea of self-help. In the second half of the twentieth century, the state financed a good deal of local authority- and government-sponsored community and regeneration work and now there are multi-various community action projects and campaigns.

Today, there are thousands of people involved in youth work and community work both in paid positions and in voluntary roles. However, the activity is undergoing significant change. National Occupation Standards and a new academic benchmarking statement have been introduced, and all youth and community workers undertaking qualifying courses and who successfully graduate do so with an honours degree.

Empowering Youth and Community Work Practice is a series of texts primarily aimed at students on youth and community work courses. However, more experienced practitioners from a wide range of fields will find these books useful because they offer effective ways of integrating theory, knowledge and practice. Written by experienced lecturers, practitioners and policy commentators, each title covers core aspects of what is needed to be an effective practitioner and will address key competences for professional JNC recognition as a youth and community worker. The books use case studies, activities and references to the latest government initiatives to help readers learn and develop their theoretical understanding and practice. This series then will provide invaluable support to anyone studying or practicing in the field of youth and community work as well as a number of other related fields.

Janet Batsleer
Manchester Metropolitan University

Keith Popple
London South Bank University

Introduction

I am fascinated by how people negotiate similarities and differences with others around them, in their personal and professional lives. As a Youth and Community Practitioner, early on, I realised the importance of conducting yourself with self-assurance, trust and genuineness, which I believe is crucial when negotiating differences between yourself and especially those who are different from you. In relation to the processes, particularly of developing relationships with others who are different from you, it is essential that you have a clear understanding of yourself who you are, and most significantly, how you (in regard to your identity and culture) affect and impact on others, and understand how your perceptions, and the perceptions of others about you, potentially has a bearing on the nature of the relationships that you may develop. There is an old Buddhist saying, which I came across some years ago, that comes to mind at this point:

Someone who is confident in who they are, is more beautiful to the other.

It is therefore important to know who you are in relation to your individual identity, the result of all the myriad aspects of culture (including religious beliefs and practices, or not, as the case may be), that have helped to shape you. However, just as important, is the ability to appreciate and be open to difference. A Gandhian quote is helpful in this regard:

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my widows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. (Gandhi, 1921)

However, knowing yourself, let alone knowing others, is not easy. It is a study of a lifetime, and I find the metaphor of a journey of discovery useful in this regard. This book is intended to support you part of the way through this journey, and I sincerely hope it will do so. I believe the ability to question is perhaps one of the most useful tools that you can take with you on this journey.

Along the journey, you will have many contradictory thoughts and feelings, and perhaps these will be accentuated by the interplay between the personal and the professional self.

There is an intentional focus on the self in the approach I have taken in this book, yet in our professional lives, we are constantly encouraged to act professionally, that means to make a serious attempt at being objective. I actually believe that the personal and professional inevitably inter-sect in our professional lives it is unavoidable. In fact, perhaps it is only possible to be truly professional once you can understand how your self influences the circumstances that you find yourself in. As Davies (2006, page 70) succinctly stated:

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