new chapter & a neuroqueer lens on digital youth work

I have recently published a chapter titled Neuroqueering Digital Youth Work: Reimagining Participation, Inclusion, and Digital Literacy Through a Neuroqueer Lens [in Applications and Practices for Empowering Neurodivergent Learners (IGI Global, 2026). While the chapter is situated within an academic collection, it emerges directly from my practice in digital youth work, my engagement with youth work policy and research, and my own lived experience as a neurodivergent academic.

The writing process took place in the period following my ADHD diagnosis, a time in which I was re-evaluating how I participate in, contribute to, and navigate academic and professional environments. This shift in perspective prompted a more critical engagement with the norms and structures that shape not only my own working life, but also the conditions under which young people asccess and participate in digital youth work.

From practice to theory (and back again)

My work in digital youth work spans practitioner roles, academic research, and contributions to policy and training. I have observed the field being framed in multiple ways: as an innovative extension of traditional youth work, as a space for creative and community-led learning, and, at times, as a policy tool for addressing broad social and economic objectives. The latter often emphasises employability, productivity, and the acquisition of narrowly defined “digital skills.”

In my chapter, I reflect that “dominant structures in education and youth work continue to reproduce neuronormative and heteronormative ideals—particularly in how youth digital participation is framed through constructs such as employability, digital literacy, and social integration.” This analysis is indebted to the work of critical youth work scholars who have examined the tensions between policy-driven agendas and the relational, needs-led ethos of youth work practice.

The concept of “neuroqueering,” developed by Nick Walker and others, involves a conscious resistance to and subversion of the social norms that dictate acceptable ways of thinking, behaving, and engaging. In this chapter, I employ neuroqueering as a lens through which to reimagine digital youth work, not as a space where neurodivergent and queer young people are merely accommodated, but as one shaped by their needs, perspectives, and modes of engagement from the outset.

As I note in the text, “a neuroqueer approach to digital youth work is a liberatory practice — one that centres fluidity, self-determination, and diverse, non-normative modes of engagement.” Here, my thinking builds on Walker’s framing of neuroqueering as an embodied practice of resisting neuronormativity, as well as the contributions of authors in critical disability studies (e.g., Goodley, 2014; Kafer, 2013) who have insisted on valuing difference as generative rather than deficit.

This approach is fundamentally concerned with structural transformation rather than individual adaptation. It challenges the idea that “inclusion” can be achieved simply by adjusting existing programmes. Instead, it requires reconsidering the premises of those programmes, including the assumptions about what constitutes valuable participation or learning in digital spaces.

Having received my ADHD diagnosis before beginning the chapter, I entered the writing process already in the midst of rethinking my relationship to work, learning, and institutional expectations. This reflexive awareness made the concept of neuroqueering particularly resonant, as I was actively questioning long-held patterns of overcompensation, masking, and adapting to timelines and working practices that often conflicted with my own cognitive and creative rhythms.

In this respect, the chapter became both an academic argument and a personal exploration. The process of articulating a neuroqueer framework for digital youth work was inseparable from my own efforts to construct ways of working that honour rather than suppress neurodivergent modes of thinking and doing. This led to a conclusion that encapsulates both the theoretical argument and my own practice: “participation isn’t a checklist. Inclusion isn’t assimilation. Digital literacy isn’t a ladder to climb — it’s a constellation of ways to connect, create, and care.”

The chapter is deliberately positioned as an opening rather than a conclusive statement. It offers a set of provocations grounded in research, practice, and lived experience, with the intention of sparking further dialogue among practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and young people themselves.

There are significant constraints. Funding requirements, policy priorities, and institutional structures can limit the extent to which digital youth work can be radically reimagined. Yet without envisioning and articulating alternative approaches, the field risks remaining tethered to the same logics that have historically excluded or marginalised certain groups.

My engagement with digital youth work has continually reinforced that meaningful participation is not a static achievement but an ongoing negotiation. It is shaped by relationships, contexts, and power dynamics that shift over time. For neurodivergent and queer young people, the ability to define the terms of engagement is not an optional enhancement but a prerequisite for genuine inclusion.

As the field evolves, the challenge is to sustain spaces where these terms are open to renegotiation, where the value of participation is not contingent upon conformity, and where learning is recognised as taking multiple forms — many of them not easily measured or predicted.

I would like to acknowledge the editors of this collection for creating an environment in which I could explore these ideas without pressure to conform to conventional academic style or pace. Their openness to experimental, reflective, and situated writing made it possible for me to bring both my scholarly and lived experience to the chapter in a way that felt authentic and sustainable.