The cooperation between youth work and schools: building bridges between informal, non formal and formal education

Within the more general non-formal education sector, youth work in Europe is recognised as a field of practice specialised in socio-educational work with adolescents and young people. It comprises a range of activities carried out by voluntary or paid youth workers who operate between the informal sphere of everyday life (leisure, peer group, etc.) and the formal institutional sphere of the school system. The aim of this paper is to explore the limits and potential of youth work as an active agent in building forms of co-operation between school and other informal and non-formal educational and learning environments and places. Particular attention is paid to the difficulties and possibilities of develop-ing more dialogical forms of cooperation based on a willingness to create new learning environments in which the potential of formal, non-formal and informal learning is recognised and fully exploited.