The book explores issues relating to contemporary youth cultures and citizenship within modern European societies. The papers presented discuss the structural inequalities and social disadvantage which often undermine youth citizenship, and consider how subculture activities influence the development of youth action, initiative and social responsibility. The case studies include: animal rights activists in Sweden; hip-hop music culture in France; rural youth in the UK; the influence of the media and mobile communications upon young people's experiences; the role of the family and peer groups; and gender issues and developments in the educational achievements of young women.
The challenges for young people making the transition to adulthood are greater today than ever before. Globalization, with its power to reach across national boundaries and into the smallest communities, carries with it the transformative power of new markets and new technology. At the same time, globalization brings with it new ideas and lifestyles that can conflict with traditional norms and values. And while the economic benefits are potentially enormous, the actual course of globalization has not been without its critics who charge that, to date, the gains have been very unevenly distributed, generating a new set of problems associated with rising inequality and social polarization. Regardless of how the globalization debate is resolved, it is clear that as broad global forces transform the world in which the next generation will live and work, the choices that today's young people make or others make on their behalf will facilitate or constrain their success as adults. Traditional expectations regarding future employment prospects and life experiences are no longer valid. Growing Up Global examines how the transition to adulthood is changing in developing countries, and what the implications of these changes might be for those responsible for designing youth policies and programs, in particular, those affecting adolescent reproductive health. The report sets forth a framework that identifies criteria for successful transitions in the context of contemporary global changes for five key adult roles: adult worker, citizen and community participant, spouse, parent, and household manager.
Published in 1997, this text is built around themes agreed upon for a conference which aimed to set the agenda for youth research over the next decade. These themes are: the shaping of trajectories and biographies - individualization, agency, structure; vulnerable groups excluded and included youth, polarization, marginalization; social construction of identity - identity, culture, gender, ethnicity; political and social participation and citizenship. The book brings together the work of British and Continental researchers.
Youth and the future What will become of today’s young people in Australia, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America? Will they be supportive of the world they live in? Or are they doomed to be criminal drop-outs? The authors investigate to which extent different and contradictory trends of social modernisation and economic progress determine the biographical development and social integration of young people in different countries and world regions. Thus, the authors look at the role young people themselves can play in the future; either as construc tive social actors or as a problematic – and partly excluded – group unable to face the challenges of a permanently changing world.
Two decades have now passed since the revolutions of 1989 swept through Eastern Europe and precipitated the collapse of state socialism across the region, engendering a period of massive social, economic and political transformation. This book explores the ways in which young people growing up in post-socialist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union negotiate a range of identities and transitions in their personal lives against a backdrop of thoroughgoing transformation in their societies. Drawing upon original empirical research in a range of countries, the book's contributors explore the various freedoms and insecurities that have accompanied neo-liberal transformation in post-socialist countries - in spheres as diverse as consumption, migration, political participation, volunteering, employment and family formation - and examine the ways in which they have begun to re-shape different aspects of young people's lives. In addition, while 'social change' is a central theme of the issue, all of the chapters in the collection indicate that the new opportunities and risks faced by young people continue both to underpin and to be shaped by familiar social and spatial divisions, not only within and between the countries addressed, but also between 'East' and 'West'. This book was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Youth Studies.
This edited collection provides the first in-depth analysis of social policies and the risks faced by young people. The book explores the effects of both the economic crisis and austerity policies on the lives of young Europeans, examining both the precarity of youth transitions, and the function of welfare state policies.
The essays in this collection represent a major contribution to our understanding of youth and transitions to key areas of adult citizenship, including employment, independent living arrangements and political participation. The education of children and young people in 'citizenship' usually emphasizes either rights or responsibilities, through the concept of 'active citizenship'. The central concern of the book is to address the tensions and contradictions between the teaching of active citizenship and the real life difficulties many young people face in the practical transition to being adult citizens in modern life.
Title first published in 2003. This timely and original book is the most comprehensive and authoritative analysis of Russia's risk society to date. Referring to the works of Douglas, Beck and Giddens, it considers a variety of theories of risk and applies them to young people in different risk societies, showing how these youngsters have adapted to cope with risk.
Taking a new approach to youth crime, this book argues that the transition from childhood to adulthood can be an isolating and disempowering experience for young people. Children and young people are inherently vulnerable because of their age and status – they are a minority group, with the potential for being exploited, discriminated against, dominated and disrespected by adults. Youth Offending in Transition explores how their treatment by adult society may lead young people to resort to crime as a means of gaining respect from their peers. Using concepts of capital and the narratives of young offenders themselves, this book is based on original research into the reasons why young people start and stop offending. It discusses the following topics: criminal theory and the significance of youth transitions to the ‘age-crime curve’ social identity and reputation amongst young people social inequalities and their influence on youth transitions the criminalization and discrimination of young people by adults the importance of social recognition in reducing offending.
This book confronts readers with questions emerging from the 'gap' between EU aspirations to reduce youth unemployment without increasing social exclusion - and what is actually happening in practice. Aimed at a diverse readership, it is based on a three year European Union (EU) project into education, training, guidance and employment (ETG) programmes for young adults across six countries. Insights are grounded in the lives and stories of disadvantaged young adults, and of those who work with them, bringing to life unintended impacts of well intended interventions. The authors consider the influence of shifting political and pedagogical ideologies in the EU on local practices and young peoples’ lives and choices. They also consider the impact of policy and performance management discourses ’on the ground’. This work uses rigorous yet innovative narrative forms to invite readers into a ’whole system’ inquiry into these complexities. Unemployed Youth and Social Exclusion in Europe will make an important contribution to reflecting critically on current policy and practice, as well as to academic understandings of unemployed youth, and restrictive and reflexive approaches to learning for inclusion across Europe.
