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Apprenticeship programs are promoted to facilitate youth's transition from school-to-work, especially for those who might not otherwise attend postsecondary education. These programs may help youth achieve other markers of adulthood earlier. In this paper, we draw on qualitative interviews with Canadian young men in the skilled trades to explore whether they believe their educational choices have given them an advantage in their transition to adulthood. We also draw from the 2011 GSS, a nationally representative survey, and Cox modeling to examine three early adult transitions – home-leaving, first union, and first marriage – to determine if apprenticeship programs facilitate earlier transitions compared to other educational streams. Our respondents expressed that they transitioned to adulthood more quickly than their peers, due to early employment and avoiding student debt, however, many also had trouble finding stable employment and often took on debt related to their training. Using nationally representative data, we find tradesmen tend to leave home earlier than their peers, they form first unions at younger ages but marry slightly later than their more highly educated counterparts. Our results contribute to our understanding of how apprenticeship programs in Canada facilitate transitions to adulthood among a recent cohort of young men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the analysis of data collected from the National Canadian Homeless Youth Survey and addresses the question: why do some youth who received support from social service agencies that cater to the needs of homeless youth self-identify as being homeless while others do not? According to self-report survey data obtained from 1103 young people from over 50 youth homeless service centres from across Canada, findings show that youth who self-identified as being homeless shared several backgrounds and current situational characteristics not common among youth in the sample who did not consider themselves to be homeless. The findings illustrate the importance of past trauma and the intensity of day to day hardship in self-identifying as a homeless young person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on youth homelessness has documented the unique and complex ways that youth relate to one another on the street and engage with their social environments. This work draws from a varied set of concepts, including concepts from subcultural theory, the youth geographies literature, and Bourdieu's practice theory. However, little work to date considers how to integrate these different conceptualizations and perspectives on how young people experiencing homelessness engage culture and organize themselves socially in the course of their time on the street. This paper explores this question by using interviews and fieldwork with a group of 39 homeless and street-involved young people in Canada. Through this analysis, I outline a multilayered and practice focused perspective that focuses on the active way that young people engage and navigate the diverse social and cultural landscapes of street life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how young mothers in London, a mid-size city in Canada, utilize a drop-in centre service while attending an alternative programme to acquire secondary school credits. The central arguments made here are informed by key concepts in the field of girlhood studies. With its attention to the interconnections between gender, age, and generation as well as other aspects of social identity, girlhood studies provides crucial insight into the lived experiences of young mothers who straddle the space between girlhood and adulthood. We interpret the experiences of the young mothers who participated in this study in light of shifting meanings and expectations of girls and girlhood in the neoliberal era. Drawing on the concept of the ideal neoliberal girl subject embodied in the 'can do' and 'at risk' girl, this paper highlights the tensions in accessing a drop-in centre, which functions as both a site of security and surveillance, for a group of young mothers receiving social services. The findings revealed how girls who are mothers struggle to live in the present to assert a legitimate maternal identity even as they are prepared for the future through neoliberal public policies and other disciplinary practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese Canadian youth are usually represented as a model minority and are therefore rendered invisible in identity debates. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of capital, field, habitus, and distinction, this paper examines how racism affects the identity construction of Chinese youth in different school fields. Particularly, I raise and discuss a theoretical concept, racialized habitus, which is manifested as both intergroup exclusion and intragroup distinction. This theorization is grounded in interview data with 36 first- and second-generation Chinese Canadian youth in Alberta, Canada. This study indicates the continuing significance of research on racism. It calls for challenging racism as an act of distinction, habitus, and action, as well as a discursive practice of discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the impacts of the mobility that Nunavut Inuit youth experience with Northern Youth Abroad (NYA), a Canadian volunteer travel program that sends northern youth to southern Canada and Botswana. Using a case study approach and drawing from archival research and interviews with 10 former participants, a staff member, and a member of the board of directors, we argue that NYA illustrates how volunteer travel programs for Indigenous youth can yield distinct benefits for its participants in comparison to mainstream volunteer travel programs, particularly with regard to participants' sense of cultural identity and pride. By enabling participants to foster career goals and a deeper sense of cultural pride, NYA presents a counter-example to some of the common critiques of volunteer tourism programs, and illustrates the complex interconnections between cultural pride, well-being, and career advancement for Nunavut Inuit youth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Young people's financial lives have undergone change, with delays and struggles attaining stable employment, home ownership, and financial independence. Despite such change, research on the future thinking of young adults suggests the persistent significance of such financial milestones. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 36 young adults aged 18–32 in a mid-sized, prosperous Canadian city, inquiring into their goals and perceptions of their future financial lives in light of their current situations. Findings revealed young adults' overarching desire for financial security, notably through goals of a steady job, debt reduction, and home ownership. These findings affirm that during this transitional time of life, many young adults are involved in a search for security, hoping to attain financial independence and stability in a conventionally linear and upward fashion. This search for security and stability manifests differently across sociodemographic positions (namely age, gender, birthplace, and socioeconomic status), reflecting differing experiences of precarity, cultural representations of the life course, and positions along financial trajectories. Participants' visions of their financial futures also appear to connect to factors in the local context, including its relative prosperity, persistence of traditional gender roles, and a relatively modest cost of living compared to other urban centres in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource extraction has always played an important role in shaping Canada's economy and identity. Over the past several years, the province of Alberta has led the charge in helping Canada become a petro-state. Fort McMurray in particular has been significantly impacted by the rapid development of the oilsands in northern Alberta. This article explores how young people living at the center of this resource extraction project viewed the impacts that oilsands development had on the environment and the economy. In total, 60 in-depth interviews were conducted with young people aged 15-29. The findings indicate that young people perceived the need to balance environmental risks with economic growth but provided a range of risk justifications (i.e. companies were good environmental managers, oil was a societal necessity, people were hypocrites, and personal experiences) in articulating their understandings. This article utilizes young people's understandings to argue for a conceptual micro-level counterpart (intravidualization) to Ulrich Beck's theorizing on individualization and that place must be brought back into theorizing on social change, risk, and youth in contemporary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth are often perceived as passive and disengaged from civic and political life. However, many researchers have countered such discourses of youth passivity and isolation, highlighting young people's active and interactive political engagement through less traditional outlets, especially online. In this article, we are influenced by a poststructural orientation to agency to identify themes across the social change-oriented YouTube channels of eighteen young Canadians. The themes we have identified counter a dominant focus on youth civic disengagement, political apathy, and isolation, instead highlighting the diverse political issues young Canadian vloggers address, the strategies they use, their multiple subjectivities, the interaction and support of their online community, and the relevance of inequality. We show how YouTube has become an important venue for the production and dissemination of youth perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies suggest that street-involved youth may have more robust and diverse social networks than previously thought. However, the supports offered by their social relationships have not been studied in detail. We analyzed descriptive quantitative data and open-ended interviews with 130 street-involved youth aged 14-18 in Victoria, Canada, to investigate the perceived roles and supportive functions of their most-valued social relationships. Our results show that most participants were embedded in supportive social relationships. For a substantial minority, these were familial and friendship ties forged prior to street involvement. These off-street relationships were often viewed as reliable and stable long-term sources of social support, including emotional, instrumental and informational support, particularly in times of need. This was the case despite perceived relational difficulties and limited face-to-face contact. Approximately half located themselves primarily within new street-based relationships. In comparison with off-street contacts, street-based social ties provided more consistent, immediate social support, and there was greater diversity in terms of the depth and supportive functions of these relationships. However, street-based relationships were often not perceived as being particularly stable over the long-term. Only a small minority of participants reported having no social contacts to turn to for support. Our results highlight the distinct roles that on- and off-street social relationships play in supporting street-involved youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the cultural and linguistic strategies of immigrant youth to negotiate inclusion/exclusion, including language discrimination in Vancouver, Canada. My theoretical framework draws upon the Arendtian notions of ‘public space’, and ‘action and speech’ as well as Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘habitus’. My methodology is a critical qualitative approach. Fourteen immigrant youth, aged 15–25, were involved in this research. The findings of this study indicate that unlike second-generation immigrants, first-generation immigrant youth face cultural and linguistic challenges. Non-recognition of youths’ distinct linguistic and social capitals, the imposition of official languages and the regulation of the education and language market according to the dominant linguistic norms include forms of discrimination against Turkish minority youth in Canada. Taken together, the findings suggest that immigrant youths’ cultural and linguistic experiences of inclusion and exclusion cannot be dissociated from the wider politics of the nation-state, popular hegemony and social inequalities in the host society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term ‘young carer’ refers to those youth under the age of 25 years who provide substantial unpaid support to a family member due to factors including, but not limited to, familial or parental absence, disability, mental health issue(s) or problems with alcohol and/or other drugs. In the UK, national statistics have been integral to tracking the prevalence of young carers while serving as an important tool towards the development of (and justification for) a national legislative framework supporting these youth. In Canada, research and awareness for young carers remains in its infancy and available national datasets have yet to be examined in relation to youths providing unpaid caregiving. As a result, this research provides the first trend analysis of youth-based caregiving in Canada using census data for the 1996–2006 time-period. Methodological limitations of official statistics are also discussed in terms of conceptual and operational constraints limiting the full identification of all those potential young carers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]