with young and sometimes vulnerable populations.
Katherine Dempsie, 19, lives in Edinburgh and has been a part of Young Edinburgh Action since it began. She loves travel and drinking tea.
Myada Eltiraifi, 18, studies social sciences at college in Edinburgh and hopes to study international relations at university. She is involved in Young Edinburgh Action and is a youth adviser with the TRIUMPH research network based at University of Glasgow, UK.
Renata Franc is a senior scientific adviser and team leader at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia, and Professor of Social and Political Psychology, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests include youth, social and political attitudes and values, political and social participation, intergroup relations and quality of life. She has particular expertise in survey research and quantitative data analyses. Currently she works on two European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 projects focused on youth: CHIEF (Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe’s Future) and DARE (Dialogue about Radicalisation and Equality).
Darpan Raj Gautam is a student of international studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. He moved to Denmark at the age of ten and has been living there for ten years. As he is interested in development work, he works in a youth club, where his main focus is the development and engagement of young people in activities to help divert them from criminality and destructive choices.
Barwaqo Jama Hussein is a student of political science at Aarhus University, Denmark. She used to live in Tingbjerg, a social housing area outside Copenhagen. She is a founding member of Tingbjerg Youth Community, an organisation that aims to change the public view of young people living in this area.
Sabine Israel is a PhD researcher and data analyst at GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. Her most recent work within the EU Horizon 2020 project PROMISE focused on unequal social participation opportunities of young people. With an MSc in public policy from the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance and a PhD focusing on poverty and social inequalities in Europe, her interest lies in evidence-based policy evaluation at the intersection between political structure and living conditions.
Alessio La Terra is a philosopher and political activist. He graduated from the University of Bologna, Italy, with an MA in philosophy in 2017 and is currently studying to become a high school teacher in philosophy and history. His research interests focus on contemporary central European philosophy and on the history of scientific thought. His MA thesis has been published under the title I Limiti Terreni dello Spirito [The Earthly Limits of the Spirit] (Il Capitello del Sole, 2018).
Claire Levy is a PhD researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and Senior Lecturer in Film at Bath Spa University, UK. Her research focuses on participatory methodologies and the embodied ways young people engage with their locality. She is a documentary film-maker and her work often focuses on experiences of young people. She is also editor of Streetsigns, an online magazine published by the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Jonas Lieberkind is Associate Professor of Educational Sociology at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research is based on both theoretical and empirical studies of society, politics and citizenship education. In particular, he has focused on current tendencies among young people, their attitudes towards society, and research questions concerning students’ political socialisation. He is part of the Danish research team that conducts the International Civic and Citizen Education Study.
Nicola De Luigi is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Bologna, Italy. His research activities focus on two main fields – youth studies and social policy – addressing the following issues: gender inequalities in the transition from education to the labour market, educational processes and labour market changes, youth politics and participation in urban spaces. He is the author of many journal articles and works with research institutes and networks at both national and international levels.
Anna Markina is a researcher in the School of Law, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her research focuses on youth delinquency, the juvenile justice system, youth imprisonment and intervention programmes. She has conducted qualitative research with young people on probation and parole, in prisons and reformatories, addressing the rights of the child, the effectiveness of interventions and young people’s response to them. She is a member of the steering committee of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study.
Gráinne McMahon is a feminist academic at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She researches feminism and human rights activism and social movements, and young people’s social, political and civic participation. Her work centres voice and experience in challenging the patriarchal, elitist and racist structures that oppress, in particular, women and people of colour. She is the research lead and a trustee for RAPAR, a human rights organisation in Manchester, UK, and is active on social media: @grainnemcmahon.
Christina McMellon is a researcher and youth worker currently based at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, UK. She is committed to exploring meaningful ways for young people to participate in all research and particularly research related to mental and sexual health. She loves travel, the sea and good stories.
Cecilie K. Moesby-Jensen is Assistant Professor of Social Work and Disability at the Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Aalborg, Denmark. Her research field is social work with vulnerable children and young people, and she is currently involved in a study on the meetings between statutory caseworkers and children and young people with autism spectrum disorders and their families. She lives in Copenhagen and is vice-chair of a non-governmental organisation dedicated to encouraging children with disabilities to join sport clubs.
Rhetta Moran is a praxivist, most interested in creating and sustaining people and things – initiatives, projects and organisations – in ways that are always alive to the relationship between theory and practice. As a writer and action researcher, she has over 30 years’ experience of working from local to global, across all sectors, to centralise the involvement of vulnerable people in the development of constructive changes and solution making. In 2001, she initiated RAPAR (www.rapar.co.uk).
Rein Murakas works as a consultant researcher and an analyst for Estonian and international research projects. His main research fields include youth problems, inequality, financial behaviour, entrepreneurship, social policy, health, methodology and the use of social science data sources.
Anne Mette W. Nielsen is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Youth Research, Aalborg University, Denmark. Her research interests include young people’s participation and agency in education, community projects and cultural institutions. She is currently engaged in research about young people on the edge of society and their participation in formal and informal arenas.
Barry Percy-Smith is Professor of Childhood Youth and Participatory Practice at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He has extensive experience in the theory and practice of youth participation and has published widely on these issues, including A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation: Perspectives from Theory and Practice (co-edited with Nigel Thomas, Routledge, 2010). His main interests are in children and young people as active agents of change, and participatory approaches to learning and change in organisations and communities.
Ilaria Pitti is Senior Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy, and Vice-President (Southern Europe) of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 34 Sociology of Youth. Her research is located at the crossroad between
