Abstract

The article will trace, into a brief historical perspective, the complex path that led to the development of public policies for young people in the Italian context. The first part proposes a framework for youth policy within the various European countries, highlighting the different relationship between the definition of the category «young», the identification models and action programs. Afterwards is presented a reconstruction of the evolution of youth policies in Italy beginning from the local experimentation of the early young projects initiated in the second half of the Seventies, until the opening of national sector policy at national level by establishing a special ministry. It is proposed a reading of the events taking into account the recursive relationship between the structural conditions (social and cultural) of context in a given period and the re-structuring of the field made by the concrete interactions between the actors involved, institutional and not institutional.