ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of anti-oppressive practice as a defining feature of youth work. The chapter focuses on oppression, and the distinction between anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice is important to note. The chapter examines how one can challenge individual discriminatory attitudes and behaviour, and 'interrupt' oppressive group norms. The terms prejudice, discrimination and oppression are routinely and interchangeably used in youth work practice. Cultural imperialism has also been identified by anti-racist and feminist thinkers and activists, who have argued that oppression occurs when 'the state promotes a single national culture'. According to Mullaly, exploitation 'refers to those social processes whereby the dominant group is able to accumulate and maintain status, power, and assets from the energy and labour expended by subordinate groups'. Young people often experience temporal forms of marginalisation with active policies designed to exclude them from public spaces or media portrayals that reinforce negative stereotypes that inflate public fears.
