Reflective practice: gaze, glance and being a youth worker

Youth work involves moral and ethical action, therefore reflective practice is “a vital prerequisite” (Banks, 2001:54). Whatever the formal arrangements and requirements, the fast-paced, dynamic situations typically encountered require negotiation of boundaries such that practitioners make their own decisions for action. A discussion of structural, occupational and institutional arrangements within the broader UK political landscape highlights implications, understood through identity-of and identity-as. Identity-of is an epistemological position, one of knowing the delineated pre-existent discipline and practices defining the role. Identity-as suggests construction of activities in ways that differ entirely or to some extent with this and taking a position in relation to external control. It underscores the significance of reflective practice and highlights opportunities arising from the ‘third space’ between the two. However, literature and practice of reflective practice relies on reflection-on-action, complicit with identity-of, discussed here in terms of gaze. A critique of reflective practice and reflection-on-action leads to an assertion of the need for a radical reflective practice via reflection-in-action, developing the idea of glance as a vehicle to aid exploration, an ontological approach to reflective practice that is more appropriate to youth work practice.