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Folk devils have to date been significantly overlooked in previous studies of moral panics. While several studies have called attention to this problematic (Thornton and McRobbie 1995, De Young 2004, Lumsden 2009), no specific theoretical framework has been proposed for reading this dimension of a moral panic. This paper argues that a moral panic erupted over the gothic subculture following the horrific Columbine High School massacre of 20 April 1999. This paper subsequently offers a theoretical model for understanding how goths as folk devils reacted to their representation by the mainstream news media after this tragic event. Until the early 2000s very little scholarship had been produced on the gothic subculture. Instead researchers interested in the study of youth chose to focus on other subcultures, such as punk and club cultures. Although studies by Hodkinson (2002) and Brill (2008) have contributed comprehensive insights about goth to youth and subcultural studies, the subject of how goths have been the subject of moral panics has not been addressed in significant detail. This paper seeks to address this neglect, while also providing researchers interested in moral panics and youth culture a conceptual framework for better understanding folk devil reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we draw upon our findings from a project in the South West region of England. The research involved a collaboration between a group of university researchers and Connexions service personal advisers and mainly comprised interviews with young people, who were in 'jobs without training' (JWT). A key aim of the research was to explore the experiences of this group of marginalised and socially disadvantaged young people over a period of 1 year, as they moved into and out of work. In this paper we address the main findings and questions raised by the research. We challenge some commonly held assumptions about young people in JWT and their perceived needs. We end with a number of policy and practice-related suggestions and recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on participatory research and how it can be understood and employed when researching children and youth. The aim of this paper is to provide a theoretically and empirically grounded discussion of participatory research methodologies with respect to investigating the dynamic and evolving phenomenon of young people growing up in networked societies. Initially, we review the nature of participatory research and how other researchers have endeavoured to involve young people (children and youth) in their research projects. Our review of these approaches aims to elucidate what we see as recurring and emerging issues with respect to the methodological design of involving young people as co-researchers. In the light of these issues and in keeping with our aim, we offer a case study of our own research project that seeks to understand the ways in which high-school students use new media and network ICT systems (Internet, mobile phone applications, social networking sites) to construct identities, form social relations, and engage in creative practices as part of their everyday lives. The article concludes by offering an assessment of our tripartite model of participatory research that may benefit other researchers who share a similar interest in youth and new media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policies and practices have maintained a high status internationally, nationally and locally, but limited literature relates to the perspective of social disadvantage in England, with a particular under-representation of young people. The research presented in this paper has been driven by the supposition that a lack of knowledge and research into the views of socially deprived young people, and a lack of engagement with them at a policy level perpetuates the notion that such groups not only have a lack of environmental concern, but may also be seen to be part of the problem. However, exploring the local environmental comprehension of young people allows the assessment of their potential value in local decision-making processes. This research is of continuing relevance, as environmental issues are increasingly highlighted as a major concern for those who experience social disadvantage. This paper presents the findings of a research project conducted in 2008 with socially disadvantaged young people in a youth club setting and makes use of environmental images based on a range of themes. The core aims of this paper are to increase understanding about the environmental views, concerns and knowledge of socially disadvantaged young people, to contrast this understanding with existing evidence relating to socially disadvantaged adults, and then to consider any implications for participation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a comprehensive evaluation of the Advance programme by Victoria University in 2007/08. Advance is a flexible school-based programme for young people to volunteer or implement a project of benefit to their communities in the state of Victoria, in Australia. It is a partnership between the Office for Youth, Victorian government secondary schools, and community organizations. Through participation in Advance, young people identify issues of concern or interest in their communities, and then work in partnership with community organizations to develop and deliver a community-based project or series of volunteering activities. Young people are encouraged to plan projects that build skills and make a difference in their community. This research collected data from nearly 1,000 young people. The paper reports on their perspectives of a programme that provided them with the opportunities to lead a programme and to engage in a curriculum that was underpinned by a strong pedagogy of experiential learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a reply to Woodman's (2009) recent argument that youth studies often incorrectly attribute the concept of 'choice biographies' to the work of Ulrich Beck. Drawing heavily on Beck's own words, this paper contends that youth researchers might not be making this association unduly. Consideration is paid to some conceptual issues outlined by Will Atkinson, which Woodman has not appeared to consider, that challenge Beck's rejection of the relevance of structural analysis. Further, a review of some empirical evidence countering Beck's theory of 'individualization' suggests that 'middle-ground' positions in youth sociology can arguably be justified. Finally, it is proposed that Woodman's defence of Beck is partly a reflection of an alignment of focus between Beck's theoretical repertoire and Woodman's preferred method for understanding the youth period - the concept of generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present our experiences of conducting focus groups with young people as part of a participatory approach to research design and participant recruitment. The research is a prospective, 10-year, qualitative, longitudinal project investigating young people's daily lives, relationships, and identities, and the ways these change over time. It adopts a multi-method approach in which each participant has a choice about which methods to be involved with. Part of the project planning and recruitment was completed through focus groups held in schools across metropolitan and rural West Yorkshire with young people aged 13. The focus groups enabled us to recruit participants from a variety of backgrounds. They were also an important medium through which to elicit the views of young people (which were perceptively and constructively critical) about project design, methods development, and dissemination events. The paper focuses on what we learnt from these focus groups and considers the value of engaging participants in designing qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apparent sexualization and exploitation of young girls by the consumer media is a much debated topic in the advanced liberal democracies. This paper will develop the argument that the 'consumer-media culture' has established itself as one of the most powerful influences in processes of self-formation for young people, and that a tweenie self can be understood as an artefact of consumption. We will identify and analyse the resources that the consumer media provides to tweenies - girls aged between 9 and 14 - as they seek to fashion a sense of self. The paper presents an analysis of the resources presented to this population of young girls/women by an Australian 'appearance' magazine, Dolly. We will argue that these identity resources are limited in scope, are dominated by images of young, slim and attractive females, and position the tweenie self as an artefact of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equal participation in paid employment is regarded as a basic entitlement within human rights discourse. Recent organizational studies highlight how the workplace can operate as a socially divided space for queer (or non-heterosexual) workers, depicting the workplace as a problematic site of sexuality-based discrimination and abuse. The aim of this paper is to locate the experiences of young queer workers as newcomers to the Australian labour market and to shed light on how young queer people negotiate sexually exclusive and inclusive workspaces. The findings from this qualitative study were developed from a series of interviews with 34 young people (18-26 years old) who primarily identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer (LGBQ) and were employed in a diverse range of industries. Based on their stories, this paper will argue that workplaces can function as both sexually exclusive and inclusive spaces. Within exclusive spaces, young people experienced a series of symbolically and materially violent practices that reinforced the boundaries of sexual normalcy in the workplace. Within inclusive spaces, young people gave weight to everyday 'micro-practices' of inclusion over wider workplace policy and procedures. Findings from this research hold significant implications for informing organizational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evidence from the biographies of samples totaling 1,215 young adults in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, who all reached age 16 between 1986 and 1992, and whose subsequent life histories coincided with their countries' transitions from communism. The evidence is used to examine whether new classes are being created in the new market economies and, if so, where the new divisions lie. Economic classes are defined as aggregates with typical and distinctive labour market and work situations. The evidence points to the creation of two such groups, a middle class and a lower class. Corresponding social differences in family and leisure careers are identified. The paper points out that these emergent class formations are different from those in the West, and gives reasons why they are less likely to become politically efficacious than were classes in the West's more mature market economies during the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a growing concern about gangs in Britain, academic research that focuses on gangs remains scarce. Drawing on data from the ESRC-funded ethnographic research YOGEC (Youth Gangs in an English City) project, this paper explores the negotiation of space and place by young people living in inner-city areas affected by gangs. Using a combination of fieldwork observations and focus group and interview data, this paper charts the experiences of non-gang-involved young people living in known gang areas. These young people's restricted use of space, arising as a result of gang rivalries and the policing of inner-city areas, results in exclusion, marginalization and victimization. We illustrate how young people are identified as 'high risk', and how they continually negotiate a range of risks bound up with the territory that they inhabit and subsequent spatial boundaries that are formed. In doing so, we provide an understanding of the lives of young people who reside in places and spaces inhabited by gangs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of young people's orientations, and expectations for the future, as they relate to family context and socio-economic background. It draws on data from both the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England and from 'Young Lives and Times', part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods. The latter study has generated both quantitative and qualitative data, and these are brought together directly in developing the arguments in the paper. The paper explores young people's perceptions of family life, and offers new evidence and analysis of the value they place on emotional support. Attitudinal data show that such support is seen as very important to future success alongside more individualistic, meritocratic, criteria. The paper then explores family contexts and youngsters' orientations to schoolwork, and their expectations for their future education. In respect of the latter, socio-economic background becomes key as a predictor of difference. Through strategically linking qualitative and quantitative data, the paper develops an analysis of individuals' orientations and expectations as these relate to proximate circumstances. Linking quantitative and qualitative evidence in this way helps provide insights into diverse subjectivities, and how they articulate with diverse, class-varying, normal expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the experiences of young mothers are examined in the contemporary context of a heightened emphasis on individuated personhood and suggestions of a vastly changed modern femininity. Sociological preoccupation with the features of post-industrial society has emphasized the declining influence of preordained and institutionalized structures. The declining influence of such structures in turn ushers in new requirements for personal agency and decision-making. Under the influence of such posited de-traditionalization, the family is widely conceived to be constituted less through obligation and more through negotiation. Understandings of the regulatory dimensions of neo-liberalism and the post-feminist sensibility are drawn on to consider how young women are implicated in this landscape of de-traditionalization and individualism. This paper reports on Australian empirical research with young women who are mothers that reveals the continuation of supposedly outmoded but evidently enduring features of traditional motherhood. Significantly, though, these supposedly superseded gendered features of family life are now encountered amidst the requirements of reflexive modernity, and it is argued that they are responded to in ways that reflect transformations in the experience of the personal; particularly the construction of individualized biographies of reinvention through motherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the complexities involved in young people's attempts to move away from criminal activity. This paper draws on qualitative data from a study that aimed to identify how young people negotiate transitions away from offending. The paper argues that an analysis of the subtle shifts in young people's perceptions and interpretations of their situation sheds light on the complex nature of desisting from crime. To do so, the paper focuses on the role of relevance in order to explore how these subtle shifts in thinking enable young people to reinterpret their lives and move towards desistance. By way of undertaking this analysis, this paper draws on Alfred Schutz's phenomenological approach to the nature of relevance to explore how young people shift between their known world of 'doing crime' and an unknown world of being 'straight and legitimate'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the orientations and assumptions underpinning policies for disadvantaged young people (DYP) in Australia. We argue that policy interventions for young people generally exhibit a binary divide, some policies fostering leadership and creative endeavours targeted on 'high-functioning' young people, especially within educational and arts milieus, while other policies, focusing on DYP, take a remedial orientation. The basis for this binary divide is, we argue, flawed social constructions of young people, constructions that pathologise or privilege behaviours, attitudes and lifestyles. The consequences for DYP are that remedial policies, designed to get and keep young people 'on track', are often ignoring deeper developmental needs. Using recent research findings from arts programmes for young people, the paper argues for a broader policy orientation, including developmental needs, to strengthen remedial policies and programmes and open the potential for pathways to resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective youth participation in social development and civic life can enhance young peoples' health and well-being. Yet many obstacles stand in the way of such involvement. Drawing on 105 interviews, 52 focus groups and fieldworker diaries, this paper reports on a study of a rural South African project which sought to promote effective youth participation in HIV/AIDS management. The paper highlights three major obstacles which might be tackled more explicitly in future projects: (i) reluctance by community adults to recognise the potential value of youth inputs, and an unwillingness to regard youth as equals in project structures; (ii) lack of support for meaningful youth participation by external health and welfare agencies involved in the project; and (iii) the failure of the project to provide meaningful incentives to encourage youth involvement. The paper highlights five psycho-social preconditions for participation in AIDS projects (knowledge, social spaces for critical thinking, a sense of ownership, confidence and appropriate bridging relationships). We believe this framework provides a useful and generalisable way of conceptualising the preconditions for effective 'participatory competence' in youth projects beyond the specialist HIV/AIDS arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to explore how we might understand young people's agency in sexuality research using visual methods. It is concerned with troubling the perception that power is held by the adult researcher and denied to youthful participants who simply submit to their authority. Rather than attempting to cast moments of young people's agency as examples where the relations of ruling are reversed, this paper endeavours to tease out the nuances inherent in young people's agency. This examination is undertaken in relation to selected episodes from research investigating the sexual culture of secondary schools using photo-diary and photo-elicitation methods. To elucidate the mechanisms of young people's agency, Butler's and Davies' work on the process of subjectification is drawn upon. Using a post-structural theoretical framework, it is argued that young people's agency involves a simultaneous mastery and submission, which is a consequence of the process of subjecthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, renewed interest in the principles of youth participation during the last decade has led to an increase in the development of youth participation policies, in both the government and non-government sectors. At the same time, the internet is being increasingly utilised to promote and implement the aims of these youth participation policies. This paper asks, what is the relationship between youth participation policies, the internet and young people's political identities? Is the internet simply a vehicle for participation policies - a mechanism for governments and organisations to extend their reach to otherwise disengaged youth? Or is it a space where young people are authoring new forms of participation and political identities? It is argued in this paper that the internet is significant in shaping the relationship between youth participation policies and new political identities in the following ways: it is a unique and autonomous platform for the realisation of project-based political identities; it is a legitimising space for new political practices of young people; and, though it can address some barriers to participation, there is little evidence to suggest that it challenges the economic structural disadvantage that can exclude certain groups of young people. Drawing on empirical research conducted in Australia, this paper provides insights into Australian young people's experiences of participation, their attitudes to participation policies, and the role of the internet in their participatory activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been many debates in the literature about the extended transition to adulthood many young people are experiencing in late modern times. However, not all young people make this prolonged transition and, for some, resources within their family and community networks are insufficient to enable an extended transition into stable, independent adult roles. The findings presented in this paper are drawn from a large participatory research project investigating the impact of decriminalisation on the health and safety practices of sex workers in New Zealand. This paper utilises the talk of 17 street-based sex workers who entered the industry under the age of 18 years, as well as using data from a survey of 772 sex workers in New Zealand. For young people entering the industry prior to the age of 18, the period of adolescence was short-lived and their inability to gain support through either their family or the government meant that they opted to work in the sex industry to survive. Unsupported transitions into adulthood are characterised by a high degree of risk with limited employment options. This research highlights the need for policy-makers to develop holistic, multi-sectorial policies for young people which are not based on age-specific frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on life history interviews with young adults in the UK to consider Manuela du Bois-Reymond's claims about the increasing prevalence of 'trendsetter learners' across Europe. Du Bois-Reymond has argued that certain groups of young adults are at the forefront of developing new forms of learning in response to what they perceive to be the failings of formal education - namely the disjuncture between theory and practice within the education that they are offered and a lack of respect from many of the teachers with whom they come into contact. These young adults, she contends, are the 'trendsetter learners', creating youth cultural capital that helps them to realise self-determined ways of living and learning. In considering some of these claims, this paper draws on data from the 'Young Graduates and Lifelong Learning' project funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council. Between September 2005 and January 2006, 90 in-depth life history interviews were conducted with graduates from six higher education institutions. Our findings suggest that the degree of autonomy, freedom and creativity in young people's patterns of learning that underpin du Bois-Reymond's analysis is over-stated. We argue that, while du Bois-Reymond's work makes an important contribution to conceptualising the ways in which young Europeans engage with learning, her dichotomy between 'trendsetter' learners and their 'disengaged' counterparts overlooks: complexities inherent in this relationship, the social status attached to particular forms of more traditional education and training, and the structuring nature of much workplace learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the development of 'vocational habitus' as five apprentices in the carpentry trade move from high school to an apprenticeship training centre and then into the workplace. After a year, three students were continuing with the apprenticeship while the other two were not. This paper explores how individual and structural factors came together to produce these outcomes through an analysis of data from interviews with the students, their parents, and trainers. Analysis of the data suggests that signs along the way foreshadow outcomes - for example, students' prior experiences in school and part-time work, expectations regarding training and work in the trades, family support, social capital, and locations within the field. Findings suggest that more support could be provided for young people who are likely to experience difficulty with transitions, and more explicit attention could be given to helping students recognize tensions between fields while developing a 'feel for the game'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple and conflicting identity pressures that young women in western society face have been remarked upon in the literature. Adolescence is a time when identity development activity intensifies, and this process can present young people with challenges. In this paper a social constructionist and interpretive frame is applied to such challenges faced by young women, arguing that they are refracted through socially constructed lenses that operate at a range of levels from the structural to the individual. The paper considers the experiences of two different cohorts of young females who participated in research based in two provincial communities in New Zealand. It explores the way in which both groups appeared to segment their sense of self into a present and a future self, emphasising relationship; the key source of their current sense of well-being in the present, and juxtaposing this with an independent, autonomous self in the future for whom relationships appeared to assume secondary importance. Findings from two studies are examined to identify the ways in which younger females articulate their imagined futures. Rather than seeing their imagined futures as predictive, or constituting a type of plan that they expected to work towards, we see these future narratives as expressing their understanding of their present time worlds and the possibilities they see for girls and young women like themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports results from an ethnographic study of African-American youth subculture in a New Orleans high school. The paper contends that youth subculture remains an important construct to situate stylistic resistance among subaltern groups like urban black youth that confront demands for conformity from representatives of institutional authority with alternative cultural solutions. The core argument is that resistance to demands for conformity among members of this subculture stands as a challenge to institutional power enforced by agents of media, school, police, and the prison that label as deviant stylistic expressions such as wearing sagging black pants and braided hairstyles. However, care must be taken not to reify youth subculture affiliation as overly inclusive and resistant, and instead focus on the variable commitment of participants to dominant culture or subculture. Subcultural styles like wearing sagging black pants manifest an ambiguous cocktail of resistance and acceptance of hegemonic ideals and reveal the contradictory fashion and behavioral codes of contending status orders that validate identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with exploring how in late modernity the 'youth question' is being addressed by public policy and what impact this is having on understandings of childhood and youth. Historically the youth question has been shaped by adult anxieties over youth delinquency and their problems of social integration. In late modernity, this is still the case but new approaches to tackling social problems are emerging. Public policy influenced by the emerging 'science of prevention' has developed new forms of interventions, which are seen in the expansion of risk factor analysis in prevention policy. This paper explores the development of this new approach to the youth question, highlighting its history, its influence and its underlying assumptions. The concluding discussion will show how this area of public policy development is leading to greater levels of regulation and intervention and is widening the net in terms of defining young people as the future problem generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular music is increasingly being viewed by local, state and national governments as a useful form of creative activity for at-risk youth both within and outside young offender institutions. This paper examines a music programme operating for a group of predominantly black youth within one North American detention centre, and considers the range of benefits observed in fostering individual creativity, self-esteem and social communication. Popular music programmes - in this case, rapping and basic music sequencing and composition - offer a highly practical and direct means of allowing youth offenders to express a particular form of creativity in connection with their existing music and cultural interests. This paper considers the relative success of one programme and the implications for drawing upon hip-hop music, with its themes of deviance and resistance, as a creative vehicle within a broader environment of 'offender to citizen' discourses for the youth involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the socio-political context of the neoliberal subjectification of youth in a particular moment of South Korean history 1997-2001, the confluence of the Asian Debt Crisis and the ascendancy of the nation's first civilian president with no affiliation to the military, Kim Dae Jung. The changing value of underemployed youth, suddenly represented as 'deserving welfare citizens' and valuable human capital, demonstrated the vast penetration of neoliberal values in South Korean society, conspicuous not only in state policies on welfare and industry but also in people's daily lives. Based on the author's observations of Seoul city managers and underemployed youth working in a Public Work Program during the period, this paper analyzes discourses related to the neoliberalized view of the value of youth during this period, including discourses on 'venture companies,' 'flexible labor,' 'new intellectual,' and 'the human capital of youth.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The militarization of children and their active participation in conflict continues to be a global phenomenon affecting hundreds of thousands of children. Yet many of the realities of child soldiery remain unclear and continue to be under-researched. In particular, the process of militarization and how it impinges on the identities and actions of children who are drawn into conflict remains poorly understood. Similarly, the experiences of children undergoing demobilization and a return to post-conflict, non-militarized social circumstances are essentially undocumented. Through the use of a life-history approach, this paper examines the making and unmaking of two Sierra Leonean child soldiers, one female and one male, in relation to the militarization of social systems and subsequent efforts to demobilize belligerent social groups. The paper reviews the turnings and epiphanies of these children's lives - particularly how these children became implicated as combatants in Sierra Leone's civil war, the manner and degree to which they assumed a militarized 'identity', and their subsequent efforts to re-adapt to civilian life in a context of post-war demilitarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Corrosion of Character Richard Sennett contends that the storied nature of human experience is stunted by 'conditions of the new economy'. He argues that individuals are unable to develop 'coherent life narratives' in the absence of job security. Thus, continuous employment somehow provides coherence: at least, enduring relationships with a single employer - which were possible under the auspices of organised capitalism - facilitate continuity in adult life more broadly. This paper draws on Linde's typology of 'coherence strategies' and in-depth interviews with young adult workers to demonstrate that young Europeans construct coherence by piecing together episodes of employment, unemployment and education in their biographies. Thus, the unfolding of the narrative is perhaps less likely to be enhanced by a sustained relationship with a single employer than discontinuous episodes of employment as part of the reflexive 'project of the self'. Nonetheless, the degree to which young adults reflexively engage in life as a project is structured by their position within social hierarchies. This paper puts forward contrasting reflexive strategies, which are discursively appropriated by young adults depending - in part - on their labour market experience, in order to construct coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how young people living in a violent neighbourhood construct understandings about danger, violence and safety. Reporting findings from a qualitative study that investigated these issues with 8–14 year olds in a South African neighbourhood, the paper identifies how young people attempted to stay safe through reliance on adult protection, avoidance and escape, peer support and retaliation. Through close examination of three discussions between the young people, the paper considers tensions and troubles in their talk about violence, risk and safety, and discusses the complex ways in which they managed these tensions, the implications for their safety and vulnerability, and how these changed over time in gendered ways. Finally, the paper considers the implications for interventions that aim to keep young people safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that young people's subcultural styles and identities are closely bound up with social class. We show that youth subcultures have been explained in a number of ways since emerging as a subject of serious study in the second half of the twentieth century, and that these explanations are located within a broader social scientific discourse. Fieldwork data collected through interviews with young people in Edinburgh and Newcastle indicate that, rather than being a free-floating lifestyle choice, young people's membership of subcultural groupings is largely determined by social class. In particular, the study shows that young people labelled as ‘Chavs’ or ‘Charvas’ should be understood as a subcultural group with specific social class affiliations. The paper concludes by considering some implications of these findings for theory, for further field research and for practical action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bound to the notion of teenage apathy is the concern that young people are increasingly disengaged from political and community issues and lacking in social capital. Voting is often regarded as the ultimate form of civic engagement, which implicitly excludes young teenagers from consideration through their status as non-voters. Teenagers’ alternative forms of participation are rarely valued as legitimate acts of civic engagement. As a result, many of the dominant writers on social capital neglect teenagers’ abilities to generate and utilize social capital. Drawing on a three-year research project undertaken with over 600 teenagers aged 13–16, this paper uses three illustrative examples to highlight the ways in which teenagers deploy their social capital in order to transform people and places in two key ways. Firstly, teenagers’ alternative forms of civic engagement are highlighted, demonstrating the ways in which many (re)shape their environments by, for example, campaigning for skate park facilities. Secondly, teenagers’ alternative understandings of community, many of which are associated with lifestyle choices, are explored. In doing so, the paper brings to the fore the significance of teenagers’ social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is located in a larger study of girls' empowerment within the everyday context of school cultures. While much feminist research has focused on the 'perils' of feminine adolescence, we are interested in how girls successfully navigate the transition from girlhood to adult womanhood. Thus the sample for this paper includes girls who consciously positioned themselves against an 'emphasized femininity' that made their classmates popular, but that has been blamed for girls' lowered self-esteem, dissatisfaction with their bodies, and disordered eating. Because their self-positioning carried the risk of marginalization within peer cultures, we ask 'What makes their alternative self-representations possible?' We are particularly interested in whether their transgressive identities signal a rewriting of girlhood as a social rather than personal project, and how feminism might operate to support girls' empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is based on a multidimensional comprehensive survey of 3180 young people aged 17–35 from Serbia in June 2003. It examines the process of becoming an adult in a transitional society undergoing profound social crisis. The paper focuses on different aspects of transition, notably on family transition. The ‘structured individualisation’ hypothesis was tested in several dimensions: the pace at which independence is gained, the milestones of transition, resources available and norms related to the process. The findings show that the individualisation process is hindered by a combination of structural and cultural factors. The structural constraints are related to the lack of resources stemming from unemployment and housing problem. The cultural constraints stem from paternalistic family relations related to infantilisation and retraditionalisation in the family domain. Young people use the only strategy available in the process of transition: they postpone the key life events that would normally bring them to adulthood. The basics of individualisation—becoming independent from their families of origin—occurs approximately 10 years later among young people in Serbia than is the case among their peers in most Western European societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forty years ago, between 1962 and 1964, fieldwork was carried out on the research project ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’. Using archived materials relating to the little known Norbert Elias project, this paper has two aims. First, to introduce this largely unknown aspect of Elias's work to a wider audience. Second, to explore in detail Elias's contributions to the project by piecing together his ideas and hypotheses from archived materials. During the early stages of the research, Elias suggested that the transition from school to work constituted a ‘shock’ experience and that young people would experience initial difficulties in adjusting to their new role. He suggested that difficulties would emerge in their relationships with older workers, with family and with their new income. For the first time this paper presents Elias's ‘shock’ hypothesis, and his thoughts on school to work transitions. The paper concludes by reflecting on the value of the shock hypothesis and the possible impact that the ‘Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles’ project may have on Elias's standing in British sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a qualitative research project that explored the influence of basic skills on the school-to-work transitions of young adults. Large numbers of young people have poor skills yet it is a neglected area of study. We document how skill competencies act as barriers to learning and labour market opportunities, illustrating that some individuals are ‘reticent’ about accessing opportunities and that individual decision-making and agency are important to transitions. The paper illustrates the relationships between decision-making and the structuring effects of prior learning experiences and indicates therefore how structural conditioning and agential processes are linked and together shape transition routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that a particular form of Selfhood has come to dominate the horizons of identity in the Western democracies at this time—I refer to this form of personhood as the entrepreneurial Self. The paper argues that the figure (population) of ‘Youth at-risk’, in its negativity, illuminates the positivity that is the entrepreneurial Self. That is, the discourses that construct Youth at-risk reveal the truths about whom we should, as adults, become. The paper engages with Foucault's theories of government, of (Neo)Liberalism as a problematisation of the practise of Liberal welfare government, and of the ways in which certain psychological discourses articulate with (Neo)Liberal views of enterprise to produce a view of the Self as the entrepreneurial Self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of youth out-migration from rural areas has attracted renewed governmental attention in the context of recent rural economic adjustment and decline across advanced industrial nations. While this trend is well documented in demographic and economic research, youth researchers have sought to extend this analysis beyond descriptive patterns of migration to an understanding of how rural–urban migration is positioned within a complex of youth transitions, as well as an understanding of the subjective experiences of youth migration. This paper contributes to this literature in its focus on young people's experiences of geographical out-migration and social advancement. Based on in-depth interviews with young people from rural Tasmania, this paper draws attention to the emerging differences between young people and their peers, their family and their community on leaving their hometown, and the strategies employed by young people to manage these spatial and cultural differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the social sciences, not many theses have been as contentious as the underclass thesis. Nevertheless, whether as a heuristic device to study society or as a target of ideological or academic attack, the underclass thesis has been used a focus of attention by a wide spectrum of researchers, politicians and journalists. In post-industrial societies the debate on the existence, nature and causes of the underclass has been raging on for decades. There is a plethora of ideological, policy, ontological and methodological disputes around it. This discussion takes the underclass thesis to the streets of Harare in Zimbabwe. It explores the possibilities of the formation of an underclass among the inner-city youth of Harare. Using indicators developed by Roberts and other scholars, the paper suggests something different is happening among the inner-city youth. While not proclaiming the existence of an underclass, the paper traces the emergence of a distinct inner-city social group to both structural and cultural factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data on the construction of masculinity among 965 boys aged 15–18 years, in six schools, in Melbourne, Australia. The data are part of a much larger research project on teenage boys and spirituality, and this paper presents data within the component of spirituality, which in the research is termed ‘connectedness with the self’. The boys responses to the question ‘What kind of man do you want to be?’ are presented in three categories: personal integrity and relationship values; success oriented values; and physical/personality values. It is argued that the dominance of personal integrity/relationship values in the boys’ responses suggests that a key component of their spirituality is a growing tendency to challenge the hegemonic ideal of masculinity, and to look towards a future where masculinity is defined in more varied and fulfilling ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A whole flurry of new thinking and research about young people in the USA has been stimulated by Jeffery Arnett's theory of ‘Emerging Adulthood’. This argues for recognition of a new stage of the life-course between adolescence and adulthood reflecting the extension of youth transitions to independence brought about by globalization and technological change. Although the perspective aligns with developmental psychology's conception of ‘stages of development’, its appeal extends across the social science disciplines and policy domains. However, the rich theorizing of the same manifestations of social change in young people's experience in European Youth Studies appear to have been largely overlooked by Arnett. This paper attempts to redress this balance by drawing into the framework of Emerging Adulthood a wider set of theoretical concerns with structural factors and exclusion mechanisms to which (late) modern youth are subjected. The argument is exemplified by age-30 cohort comparisons across three British longitudinal studies starting in 1946, 1958 and 1970, demonstrating rising opportunities accompanied by increased social inequality. The paper concludes with a re-appraisal of the concept of youth as a phase of the late modern life-course in which the properties Arnett attributes to Emergent Adulthood are just one significant feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses two cases studies to analyse what has happened to young people and their life-stage transitions in those parts of the former communist bloc where all the main industries stopped when communism ended and remained shut-down over 10 years later. Our evidence is from two such places—Telavi in eastern Georgia and Vanadzor in north-central Armenia. Interview surveys gathered information from samples of 200 25–29 year olds in each of the cities, focusing on their experiences while in transition to adulthood. The respondents’ life-stage transitions had been roughly co-terminous with their countries’ transformation into independent states, market economies and multi-party democracies. Information was also obtained from documentary sources and interviews with key informants—regional and city council officers, and education and labour office personnel. The paper describes how approximately two-thirds of the young adults who were surveyed were unemployed when interviewed and had never held proper jobs. As a result, cash incomes in both cities were extremely low, as were rates of participation in most forms of out-of-home leisure that cost money. Family transitions—into marriage and parenthood—were occurring at older ages than in the 1980s but these were still happening. This leads into to an examination of the young adults’ typical responses to their circumstances. There were two main responses; patience and migration away. In conclusion, it is argued that, all other things remaining equal, the most probable future trends in places such as Telavi and Vanadzor are gradual population decline until the numbers of residents are compatible with the shrunken economies, and socio-cultural regression to quasi-traditional ways of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory paper seeks, first, to offer some critical sociological comments on the common-sense, or rather ideological, claims surrounding two supposedly emerging ‘crises’: namely, the alleged poor health and declining sport and physical activity participation levels of young people. In this regard, it is suggested that while young people are, in fact, doing more sport and physical activity than at any other time in the past, this process has, and continues to, co-occur with other prominent social processes (e.g., rising levels of overweight, obesity and sedentariness). Second, the paper begins to make sense of this seemingly ‘irreconcilable paradox’ by arguing for the need to make use of a sociological perspective that views the complexity of young people's lives ‘in the round’ and by locating them within the particular social interdependencies or relationships in which they are inescapably involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on evidence from the evaluation of the piloting of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) in England, to explore the extent to which a financial incentive to remain in full-time learning prevents young people entering the ‘not in education, employment or training’ (NEET) group. Evidence from the evaluation would suggest that paying young people to stay on at school has made a positive impact on preventing some young people entering the NEET group. However, the EMA was less successful in attracting young people back into full-time education once they had entered the NEET group. In addition, while it might have been argued that the success of the EMA in increasing post-16 participation and retention rates has been achieved through ‘poaching’ young people from government-supported training, the statistical evidence from the evaluation of the EMA pilots indicated that this was not the case. Finally, the paper explores the decision-making strategies employed by young people and their access to information, advice and guidance before they leave compulsory education, in order to highlight the particular difficulties faced by young people who subsequently enter the NEET group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates assumptions surrounding the practices of leaving home and going to higher education in England and Wales. As more students from non-traditional backgrounds are encouraged to go to university, this is leading to greater diversity in students’ experiences of university life, and one of the key aspects of this is that more students are choosing to stay at home for the duration of their studies. This paper explores how and why students make the decision to stay at home. While recognising the financial advantages of living at home we argue that the decision cannot be reduced to economic expediency, but reflects young people's access to legitimate cultural capital and family and peer endorsement of leaving home as an expected process and outcome of going to university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a systematic review of qualitative research to explore the resilient mothering practices that young, British, working-class mothers employ to care for their children. The synthesis of studies of UK mothers under the age of 20 demonstrates how young working-class women must mother in impoverished circumstances, at the same time as being discursively positioned outside the boundaries of ‘normal’ motherhood. Consequently, they utilize the only two resources to which they may have access: their families and their own personal capacities. Engaging with debates regarding the extent of the transformations of the social in late modernity, the paper discusses the most prominent of the young mothers’ practices: investment in the ‘good’ mother identity, maintaining kin relations, and prioritization of the mother/child dyad. The paper argues that, while the young mothers’ practices display reflexivity and individualism, they are also deeply embedded in, and structured by, social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research presented in this paper is a study of the values underpinning the curriculum and teaching of current Australian degree-level youth work courses, The paper looks at the implications that values raise for the introduction of competency-based training in the youth and community services sector. The paper raises some of the potential risks for the status of youth work as a profession. The research investigates values in professional youth work education by using a qualitative, interpretative framework of inquiry and using a strategy of purposeful case study sampling and literature review. The data collection involved four case studies focusing on degree level youth work courses in four universities in three states of Australia. To facilitate the triangulation of data, a number of sources were used: students, lecturers, curriculum designers, curriculum documents and sector literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To access education and training or look for work many rural youth, as young as 15 or 16 years, are encouraged to leave home and move to urban centres where there are greater opportunities. The aim of this paper is to highlight the particular impact rurality and changing social policies have on young rural women in the process of leaving home. Drawing on qualitative data generated in a three-and-a-half year longitudinal study of 26 young women growing up in small rural communities in northern Tasmania, this paper examines the housing careers of these young women to identify the benefits and risks associated with various independent living arrangements. This discussion helps to put some biographical flesh on the bare bones of demographic patterns of leaving home. It also highlights some of the complex interconnections between decisions made in one arena of life, such as leaving home, and consequences in other areas, such as looking for work or continuing with education and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often argued that economically marginalized young women occupy a school and post-school underclass, and that this underclass has a particular culture associated with it. Such views provoke a profound ambivalence in many of those who work with such young people. On the one hand, they are anxious to acknowledge the culture of the communities to which marginalized young women belong. On the other hand, they wish to avoid the pernicious implications of underclass theories that suggest disadvantage is the result of the culture and values of marginalized social groupings. This paper offers an overview and feminist critique of the structuralist and cultural or behaviourist strands of underclass theory. It focuses particularly on the work of Charles Murray, a major proponent of the culturalist perspective and the representation of the single mother in this discourse. It then considers how a less punitive theorization of marginalized cultures might be achieved by drawing on and adapting concepts from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. The paper reflects on how such ideas might serve as a way of exploring how gender impacts on the forms of cultural capital available to young women in difficult economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sexual health of people, particularly young people, in Northern Ireland is currently poor. Yet there has been little research conducted on sexual attitudes and lifestyles. This paper is based on data from the first ever major research project in this field in Northern Ireland. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, it targeted young people aged 14-25. A combination of a self-administered survey questionnaire, focus group discussions and one-to-one interviews was found to be most suitable for the collection of sensitive data on sexuality in a country where the social and moral climate had previously prevented studies of this nature. Information was collected on sexual attitudes and behaviour generally. This paper focuses on one crucial issue: the age of first sexual encounter. It explores the attitudes of young people to that experience and the use of contraception. Many of the findings match those of similar large-scale surveys in England and Wales, including the modal age of first sexual encounter and the influence of peer pressure on decision-making about first sex. There were significant gender differences in both behaviour and attitudes. It is hoped that the research results will influence future education and health policy, which has all too often been based on ignorance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on young people leaving the parental home has tended to focus most closely on charting and explaining the age at which young people leave, and exploring the incidence of returning after a period of living either 'semi-autonomously' or independently. The majority of these studies have been quantitative and fairly static in approach. This paper develops an approach to the topic that is more qualitative in its orientation and that views housing biographies as essentially dynamic. Using primary data from the United Kingdom, the paper constructs five 'ideal' typical housing pathways followed by young people: a chaotic pathway, and unplanned pathway, a constrained pathway, a planned (non-student) pathway, and a student pathway. The paper then gives particular consideration to the characteristics of the student pathway, and compares the experience of students studying away from the parental home with the long-term housing biographies of their non-student peers. The paper concludes that the typical student housing experience--including a supervised leaving of the parental home and a 'sheltered' spell in the private rented sector--constitutes an essential education in housing that enhances the housing and labour opportunities of graduates compared with other young people who have not studied away from the parental home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]