Faith-Based Youth Work: Critical Perspectives on Purpose, Practice, and Pedagogy

Christian youth work is the largest sub-section of the youth work sector, with Christian youth workers having outnumbered secular youth workers in the UK for decades. Despite this, faith-based practice remains critically under-theorised and existing frameworks struggle to capture what truly distinguishes Christian youth work from broader provision. Drawing on rich qualitative research with young people and youth workers in Northern Ireland, this book offers a bold new typology for understanding faith-based practice. Foregrounding the voices of those actively engaged in Christian organisations operating outside traditional church structures, it reframes youth work through the lens of communities of practice, revealing what is genuinely distinctive about faith-infused pedagogy and purpose. Providing a theoretically rigorous yet grounded framework, this book has relevance far beyond Northern Ireland – to wherever faith and youth work intersect.