Common differences: Youth research in Europe. An Analysis based on published English and Spanish journal articles

Abstract

This article proposes to give a comparative overview of European youth research findings, focussing on the current youth-specific discourse among researchers in Europe. The aim is to demonstrate whether there is a uniform perception of youth, or at least a point of view shared by the various countries, and whether, furthermore, the research perspectives of the European Union correspond in respective countries. The comparative overview will include countries of the European Union. The analysis is based on selected English language periodicals and on Spanish publications relating to youth in specialised journals. The following limitations have to be borne in mind. No judgements or evaluations are made concerning the state of youth research in individual countries. Nor do we claim to classify empirical youth research in Europe1. The range of publications relating to European youth research is far broader and more extensive than the selection of periodicals we have taken into account. Our investigation of these periodicals is meant to give a representative illustration of the main topics of youth research in Europe.