`Theories of Change' has proved a popular approach for both evaluators and commissioners of complex social programmes, but the ways in which theories of change (ToC) evaluations have been implemented show considerable variation. This article draws on the ongoing work of the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund (NECF) and argues that the literature which discusses the ToC approach has neglected the process by which theories of change are constructed by stakeholders (and the implications of this for evaluation), while consistently describing such theories as `underdeveloped'. The authors argue that programme theory evaluations have relied on a process that emphasizes the importance of obtaining clarity at the outset, but that the detail of such theories and their implementation can only be obtained over time. An alternative approach is outlined, which the authors argue allows for a better understanding of programme theory, and hence knowledge and learning, to emerge.

The skills and knowledge required by practitioners to develop relationships with young offenders that will engage and sustain them in intervention programmes is a core theme of the ‘effective practice’ literature. Yet this question of how to secure young people’s engagement is scarcely examined in research on interventions with young offenders, despite an apparent preoccupation with ‘what works’. The article discusses this disjuncture between the research and practice literatures, arguing that prevailing orthodoxies regarding what constitutes valid research evidence prevent certain questions about what works and how from being studied. It is suggested that both the practice literature and alternative research methodologies can provide rigorous evidence in response to these questions.

A B S T R AC T Image-based research is well developed within visual anthropology and visual ethnography, but it is little used outside of these disciplines. This article discusses an innovative research project which sought to use the outputs of a community development arts project as a source of visual data for the evaluation of an area-based health initiative. The use of such material in applied research required the development of a method unique to the project, and the aims, process and outcomes are discussed. In particular, the article details the difficulties encountered and the attempts made to overcome such challenges. It ends by suggesting there is scope for the development and application of the method, if it is developed within key guiding principles. K E Y W O R D S : applied research, evaluation, image-based research, qualitative, theories of change, visual Qualitative Research

Although enjoying a period of renewed government policy interest and favourable research funding, youth studies has recently come under considerable intellectual attack, much of it from within. A common theme is that the major conceptual approach of most British youth research over the past twenty years - the sociological study of youth transitions - is not helpful in approaching ‘the youth question’. The paper locates these recent critiques in terms of the development of ‘two traditions’ of youth research in the UK; a development which has served to separate structural and cultural analyses and so to limit the theoretical potential of the field. A recent qualitative study of young people growing up in Teesside, Northeast England is then discussed. Close analysis of the biographies of two of its participants are used as the basis for a reconsideration of the nature of transitions amongst ‘socially excluded’ youth and a discussion of some of the limitations of recent critiques of youth studies. The paper argues that the sort of research, methods and analysis employed here provide one example of how interests in the cultural and structural aspects of youth might be integrated. It concludes by reasserting the theoretical value of a broad conceptualisation of transition in understanding the social, economic and cultural processes that define the youth phase.

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