Changing Landscapes For Childhood And Youth In Europe

Contemporary social transformations, characterised by multi-dimensional globalisation and technological change, have lent new impetus to the emergence of internationally oriented and interdisciplinary childhood and youth studies. Analysis of sharpened polarisations of chances and risks within and between generations in specific life circumstances meets up with the re-conceptualisation of childhood and youth as social constructions within the life-course. As such, insulated national discourses are no longer an adequate framework to address such issues: economic and cultural globalisation processes exert dual and reciprocal influences, restructuring societies and identities from within and without. This collection offers a three-fold thematic focus: on the social construction of the life-course, privileging gendered and family transitions and transformations; on the contours of (not) belonging, in particular bringing migration and poverty into the spotlight; and on the potential of virtual worlds for creating and enabling new positive and negative forms of individual, social and political action on the part of young people. This collection thus offers a particular snapshot of the current landscape of childhood and youth studies, and it provides a set of exemplars from diverse national contexts. Each chapter can stand for itself – but the contributions are ordered thematically, not according to the corner of the world from which they derive. As the introductory chapter explores, the intention is – via a loose vectoring of theme and context – to encourage multiple opportunities for reflection on relations between the specificities and commonalities of children’s and young people’s lives today. This volume joins the growing library of scholarly resources for international and interdisciplinary childhood and youth studies; it brings together well-established and young scholars writing from an unusual range of national and cultural contexts. The collection will be of interest not simply for specialist researchers and those in related fields, but equally as a teaching and learning resource for higher education professionals and students in social sciences and education, including courses that link theory and research with policy and practice.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.Policymakers throughout Europe are enacting policies to support youth labour market integration. However, many young people continue to face unemployment, job insecurity, and the subsequent consequences.Adopting a mixed-method and multilevel perspective, this book provides a comprehensive investigation into the multifaceted consequences of social exclusion. Drawing on rich pan-European comparative and quantitative data, and interviews with young people from across Europe, this text gives a platform to the unheard voices of young people.Contributors derive crucial new policy recommendations and offer fresh insights into areas including youth well-being, health, poverty, leaving the parental home, and qualifying for social security.

This book analyzes research on education, identity and community, exploring the ways in which learning can be characterized across 'whole-life' experiences.

No detailed description available for "Growing up in Europe".

Migration and its associated social practices and consequences have been studied within a multitude of academic disciplines and in the context of policies at local, national and regional level. This edited collection provides an introduction and critical review of conceptual developments and policy contexts of migration scholarship within an Australian and global context, through: political economy analyses of migration and associated transformations; sociological analyses of ‘settling in’ processes; multi-disciplinary analyses of migrant work; a historical review of scholarship on refugees; a Southern theory approach to cultural diversity; sociological reflections on post-nationalism; Cultural Studies analyses of public culture and ‘second generation’ youth cultures; interdisciplinary and Critical Race analyses of ‘race’ and racism; feminist intersectional analyses of migration, belonging and representation; the theorising of cosmopolitanism; a transdisciplinary analysis of gender, transnational families and care; and a comparative, transcontextual analysis of hybridity. An essential contribution to the current mapping of migration studies, with a focus on Australian scholarship in its international context, this collection will be of interest to undergraduates and postgraduates interested in fields such as Sociology, Cultural Studies, Geography and Politics.

This collection examines the relationships between a globalising neoliberal capitalism, a post-GFC environment of recession and austerity, and the moral economies of young people’s health and well-being. Contributors explore how in the second decade of the 21st century, many young people in the OECD/EU economies and in the developing economies of Asia, Africa and Central and South America continue to be carrying a particularly heavy burden for many of the downstream effects of the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis. The authors explore the ways in which increasing local and global inequalities often have profound consequences for large populations of young people. These consequences are not just related to marginalisation from education, training and work. They also include obstacles to their active participation in the civic life of their communities, to their transitions, to their sense of belonging. The book examines the choices that are made, or not made by governments, businesses and individuals in relation to young people’s education, training, work, health and well-being, sexualities, diets and bodies, in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism and of austerity.

This book offers an analysis of the complex and shifting conditions of being young as well as the new ways in which young people engage in politics in Turkey. It is based on a closer examination of young people’s participation in the Gezi protests in 2013. From the perspective of cultural sociology, this work presents a nuanced discussion of the roots and dynamics of young people’s unexpected engagement and spectacular appearance at the protests, with a theoretical focus on the concepts of youth and the political, by exploring questions such as: How did young people experience the protests? How did they reflect on being young? How did they define the political? Grounded in ethnographic field research conducted via in-depth interviews, this book demonstrates that what happened in the Gezi protests was not a sudden and miraculous transformation of apolitical youth into political subjects on the streets, as has often been argued in public discourse. Rather, the protests brought into view the changes which had already been taking place in young people’s lives in Turkey as a result of the effects of both local and global processes, i.e. the influence of authoritarian politics and social change characterized by religion in everyday life, as well as the implications of neoliberal policies in the restructuring of urban spaces.

In an era when many young people feel marginalized and excluded, this is the first comprehensive, critical account to shed new light on the trouble of ‘belonging’ and how young people in schools understand, enact and experience ‘belonging’ (and non-belonging). It traverses diverse dimensions of identity, including gender and sexuality; race, class, nation and citizenship; and place and space. Each section includes a provocative discussion by an eminent and international youth scholar of youth, and is essential reading for anyone involved with young people and schools. This book is a crucial resource and reference for sociology of education courses at all levels as well as courses in student inclusion, equity and student well-being.