Structure And Agency In Young People S Lives

Structure and Agency in Young People’s Lives brings together different takes on the possible combinations of agency and structure in the life course, thus rejecting the notion that young individuals are the single masters of their lives, but also the view that their social destinies are completely out of their hands. ‘How did I get here?’ This is a question young people have always asked themselves and is often asked by youth researchers. There is no easy and single answer. The lives that are told, on one hand, and their interpretation, on the other, may have the underlying idea of 'own doing' or the idea of 'social determinism' or, more accurately and frequently, a combination of the two. This collection constitutes a comprehensive map on how to make sense of youth’s biographies and trajectories, it questions and reshapes the discussion on the role and responsibility of youth studies in the understanding of how people juggle opportunities and constraints, and contributes to escaping what Furlong and Cartmel identified as the "epistemological fallacy of late modernity", in which young people find themselves responsible for collective failures or inevitabilities. It can thus interest students, researchers and professors, youth workers and all of those who work for and with young people.

In the 21st century myriad earth systems – atmospheric systems, ocean systems, land systems, neo-Liberal capitalism – are in crisis. These crises are deeply related. Taking diverse and multiple forms, they have diverse and multiple consequences and are evidenced in such things as war, everyday violence, hate and extremism, global flows of millions of the dispossessed and homeless; and in the precarious, uncertain, and marginal existence of millions more. Rethinking Young People’s Marginalisation is concerned with the experience, affect, and effects of these earth systems crises on: • young people’s life chances, life choices, and life courses • young people’s engagement with education, training, and work • the character of young people’s being and becoming, their gendered embodiment, their participation in cultures of democracy, their resilience, and their marginalisation. Indeed, in setting out to rethink young people’s marginalisation, this insightful volume makes a contribution to troubling key concepts in Youth Studies, primarily: structure and agency; transitions and pathways; gender and embodiment, citizenship, risk, and resilience. It does this by drawing on a variety of critical, theoretical traditions, including Bauman’s engagement with the ambivalence of the human condition; Foucault’s studies of mentalities of government and genealogies of the subject; the critique of the politics of disposability and violence of neo-Liberalism undertaken by Giroux, and the authors of Kilburn Manifesto; Braidotti’s vitalist posthumanism; and Haraway’s figure of the Chthulucene. Analysing the ways in which young people engage in and develop new cultures of democracy, Rethinking Young People’s Marginalisation will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Youth Studies, Youth Sociology, Education Studies, and Critical Social Theory.

For many children and young people, Britain is a harmful society in which to grow up. This book contextualizes the violence that occurs between a small number of young people within a wider perspective on social harm. Aimed at academics, youth workers and policy makers, the book presents a new way to make sense of this pressing social problem. The authors also propose measures to substantially improve the lives of Britain’s young people in areas ranging from the early years to youth services and the criminal justice system.

Based in the philosophy of critical realism, this book employs a range of Margaret Archer’s theoretical concepts to investigate temporal and spatial aspects of Norwegian education. Stemming from Archer’s engagement as visiting professor from 2017 to 2019 in the Department of Education at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, the book explores a new area for critical realist theorizing by asking how different spatial contexts affect the workings of the system. The various chapters employ diverse sets of Archer’s theoretical concepts; from morphogenetic cycles and the emergence of educational systems at the macro level, to the exercise of reflexivity among individual school leaders and students at the micro level. In contrast to the focus on educational homogeneity and similarity among Nordic and Scandinavian countries, and promotion of the conception of the ‘Nordic Model’, this book draws attention to differences between these nations as well as regional differences within Norway. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in education, sociology, critical realism, educational sciences and pedagogy, education history and political science as well those with a specific interest in the Nordic region.

An intimate account of the personal and socioeconomic circumstances that affect state care leavers, this book voices the distinct yet interconnected experience of these young people to reinforce the increasingly prevalent Irish model.

During an election speech in 1957 the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, famously remarked that 'most of our people have never had it so good'. Although taken out of context, this phrase soon came to epitomize the sense of increased affluence and social progress that was prevalent in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. Yet, despite the recognition that Britain had moved away from an era of rationing and scarcity, to a new age of choice and plenty, there was simultaneously a parallel feeling that the nation was in decline and being economically outstripped by its international competitors. Whilst the study of Britain's postwar history is a well-trodden path, and the paradox of absolute growth versus relative decline much debated, it is here approached in a fresh and rewarding way. Rather than highlighting economic and industrial 'decline', this volume emphasizes the tremendous impact of rising affluence and consumerism on British society. It explores various expressions of affluence: new consumer goods; shifting social and cultural values; changes in popular expectations of policy; shifting popular political behaviour; changing attitudes of politicians towards the electorate; and the representation of affluence in popular culture and advertising. By focusing on the widespread cultural consequences of increasing levels of consumerism, emphasizing growth over decline and recognizing the rising standards of living enjoyed by most Britons, a new and intriguing window is opened on the complexities of this 'golden age'. Contrasting growing consumer expectations and demands against the anxieties of politicians and economists, this book offers all students of the period a new perspective from which to view post-imperial Britain and to question many conventional historical assumptions.

The rise of the health, beauty and fitness industries in recent years has led to an increased focus on the body. Body image, gender and health are issues of long-standing concern in sociology and in youth studies, but a theoretical and empirical focus on the body has been largely missing from this field. This book explores young people’s understandings of their bodies in the context of gender and health ideals, consumer culture, individualisation and image. Body Work examines the body in youth studies. It explores paradoxical aspects of gendered body work practices, highlighting the contradiction in men’s increased participation in these industries as consumers alongside the re-emphasis of their gendered difference. It explores the key ways in which the ideal body is currently achieved, via muscularising practices, slimming regimes and cosmetic procedures. Coffey investigates the concept of ‘health’ and how it is inextricably linked both to the bodily performance of gender ideals and an increased public emphasis on individual management and responsibility in the pursuit of a ‘healthy’ body. This book’s conceptual framework places it at the forefront of theoretical work concerning bodies, affect and images, particularly in its development of Deleuzian research. It will appeal to a wide range of scholars and students in fields of youth studies, education, sociology, gender studies, cultural studies, affect and body studies.

This book challenges the current state of childhood studies by exploring children and young people’s agency and relationships. It considers how recent theorisations of relationships and relational processes can move childhood studies forward, particularly in relation to re-thinking claims of children and young people’s agency and uncritical assertions around children and young people’s participation and voice. It does this by bringing together case studies of children’s inter-generational and intra-generational relationships from both the Majority and Minority Worlds. The main themes include negotiated power, agency across contexts and negotiations of identity. The chapters show both the heritage of childhood studies, particularly within the UK, and where it may be going. One of the key aims of the book is to add to the limited but growing cross-world dialogue that encourages cross-cultural learning from research and practice in both Majority and Minority World contexts leading towards a more integrated global approach to childhood studies. This book was published as a special issue of Children's Geographies.