S2 Ep21: Professor Howard Williamson: A career studying young people and issues affecting youth

Ed Talks

Howard Williamson (1972) is currently a Professor at The University of South Wales and has spent his career researching and teaching on the subject of young people and issues that affect them, from working as a lecturer to a government advisor in countries all over the world. Howard never had a plan for his career - opportunities have just presented themselves based around his area of expertise.
A thread that has run through his life, however, is his work with the Milltown Boys, who were the subject of his first book "Five Years" which was a groundbreaking study of youth, poverty and crime in 1970's Britain. Howard talks about how he first met the Milltown Boys when he was a student, and also about the subsequent work he did with them in "The Milltown Boys Revisited" (published in 2004) and "The Milltown Boys at Sixty" (published in 2021).
In fact, he describes his work with the Milltown Boys as a second education: "I have been immensely privileged in my life, largely from having two educations – one in an elite and prestigious secondary school, and one on the streets of Milltown."
He talks about how he always had a rebellious streak as a young man, and how King Edward's School helped to "consolidate this rebelliousness" - he believes that going to the school gave him a confidence to approach any situation, and he's as comfortable in a government meeting room as he is in a local youth centre.

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