The increasing relevance of European rural young people in policy agendas: Contributions from community psychology

Our paper aims to provide a short guide on how community\r\npsychologists can contribute to the improvement of rural\r\nyoung people's prospects. After briefly introducing the\r\ndemographic trends of these young people in continental\r\nEurope for the past decade, we list the current challenges\r\nfaced by rural European young generations, as well as the\r\nopportunities emerging for them from the twin transition\r\nthat can inspire the community psychology field. We then\r\ncontextualize community psychologists' interventions in this\r\ndomain according to an ecological-systemic standpoint and\r\nby embracing a Participatory Action Research (PAR) per spective on research and practice. We further detail the\r\nreasons for adopting a PAR approach in research and prac tice to address rural young people's challenges and opportu nities. Finally, we highlight four potential intermediation\r\nmissions to uphold community psychologists' rural youth\r\ndevelopment input, based on the adopted theoretical and\r\nmethodological standpoint. We conclude that our short\r\nguide can facilitate community psychology professionals'\r\ncomplete understanding of rural young generations' pros pects, in line with the expected increase in the need for\r\nrural young people's participation. Our proposal may also\r\nhave long-term benefits for rural communities by contribut ing to the redesigning of intergenerational relationships and\r\nsecuring critical mass.