Youth policy: diverse but not equal yet

Abstract

Before achieving a successful conceptualization of youth policy, a good understanding of social differentiation is needed. This study looks at the often contradictory discursive aspects of youth policy in official documents and the academic world; analyzing further the obstacles of inertia and socio-cultural barriers that lay before the those concerned with the task of modernizing national youth policy in Russia. This discourse goes on in an alarming context of increased drug, alcohol abuse and the criminalization of youth in Russia, in a society still adapting to Post-Soviet realities. Unfortunately, the legal system, in regards to this issue, is concerned far more with punishment rather than re-socialization; leaving young offenders on the edge of society and facing stigmatization. Returning from punishment centers, young people are being embraced by subcultures or criminal groups rather than being re-socialized by the state youth policy. Clearly, the paternalism of Soviet Youth Policy is leaving its mark in Russia with many youth workers failing to understand youth culture and ignoring tactics toward social integration. Much work must be done to move toward an ‘inclusionary’ youth policy; a drive to integrate various aspects youth society into one. This means more work with migrant, disabled and orphaned youth and moving away from more rudimentary patriotic-style youth work based more on slogans and calls to action. In this, a rift is revealed between the suggestions of the academic world and the actual practical policies of the state. In spite of much progressive legislation in Russia, there is a marked absence of practical mechanisms for their realization. Modernization of youth policy in Russia is seen to be impossible in isolation; social policy and educational policy must be in harmony with it. To achieve real social inclusion, Russia must engage in root and branch reform across a whole range of social policies.