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Youth can be described as a transitional phase for the formation of identity. As young people often hold taken-for-granted assumptions regarding their future, disability may pose a challenge for their identity development. This paper analyses the retrospectively written autobiographical narratives by three young women who became disabled during their adolescence. The structure of the narratives is approached with sociologist Arthur Frank's typology of illness narratives and identity through data-driven content analysis. This paper suggests that chaotic stories may hinder the development of identity, as the identity is described as delayed, hidden, silenced or neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calls for renewed consideration of the way research subjects are selected in the study of subcultures. All too often, subcultural researchers limit themselves to the use of one or two of the orthodox sampling designs, such as 'convenience sampling' (selecting subjects who are readily available) or 'chain referral sampling' (selecting a readily available subject who refers the researcher to other subjects). While these designs certainly have their merits, especially in the early research phase of negotiating access and acceptance, they may impede insight into the diversity that exists within subcultural groups. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among punks and graffiti writers, this paper introduces a supplementary design, that of 'negative chain referral sampling', which consists of using group members' categorisations of subcultural anomalies as an opening to explore subcultural variation and tensions. This design is one that flips the logic of conventional chain referral sampling: if we are encouraged not to speak to certain subjects, for instance, due to their lack of authenticity or status, this forms the motivation for doing exactly that. Closer examination of subcultural anomalies may deepen our understanding of the boundary work, identity-making and social exclusion that occurs in all subcultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on 39 in-depth interviews with young people experiencing homelessness in a large Canadian city this paper explores the identity processes at the heart of how young people make decisions about getting by on the street. The paper integrates insights from cognitive sociology and narrative theories of identity to highlight an active, complex, and socially situated decision-making process. In particular, it explores the role played by three types of dispositional processes identified in the dual process and cognitive sociology literature: cultured capacities, dispositions, and cultural scripts. The analysis shows how the young people in the sample used their identity narratives to engage with and underwrite these dispositional influences and connect them back to an internalized sense of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on empirical data from two individual research projects, this paper extends the literature on child and youth incarceration and offers a previously unexplored analysis of experiences and transitions through institutional environments for young people. Different penal environments have different operational practices and treatment according to arbitrary age-determined constructions of childhood, youth and young adulthood, evidenced by decreasing safeguards. This article demonstrates the reduction of operative and supportive investment in those held, and the shifting perception from children that require 'training' to young people and young adults who are managed and whose particular needs are neglected. The arbitrary nature of transitions presents a paradox between developmental maturity as an individualistic ongoing process and arbitrary age-determined transitions. As such, it is argued that there should be a more developmental approach to caring for young people across penal environments which accounts for their ongoing maturity and complex needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pasifika peoples in Australia generally refer to migrants from the Pacific region (Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia) and their descendants. Despite their unique strengths and rich cultural heritage, young Pasifika peoples in Australia can experience challenges navigating different worlds. This paper describes the experiences of belonging and identity that shape Pasifika young people (16–24 years) living in the Logan area, SouthEast Queensland. A total of 30 talanoas with young people were conducted. The research revealed how, through habitual use of places and the performance of everyday life, Pasifika young people create a sense of belonging in place and form dynamic, multicultural identities, and places of belonging, accruing what has been termed 'polycultural capital'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the outmigration choices of young adults from peripheral to urban regions to attend higher education have been researched extensively, young adults' decisions to stay in, nearby, or return to, the peripheral home region have received less attention. This paper explores how young adults who are engaged in higher education re-imagine narratives related to notions of 'leaving' in their mobility biographies to justify their choice to stay in or return to their peripheral home region. We conducted in-depth interviews with postgraduate students in peripheral regions in Denmark and the Netherlands. Our findings confirm the existence of a mobility imperative for young adults in peripheral regions reproduced by both our participants and their social relations. However, we additionally find that young adults re-imagine narratives of 'leaving' which simultaneously correspond with contemporary discourses on place and residential mobility in the form of valuing (dis)connection to place, experiencing urban lifestyles, and life phase transitions, but which also open up possibilities for re-evaluating the attractiveness of often stigmatized peripheral regions. We suggest that narratives of 'leaving' during higher education help young adults to build what we call 'symbolic mobility capital' to mitigate the negative connotations related to living in a peripheral region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in 2019 with secondary school students in Kigali, Rwanda, this paper aims to shed light on the stance of Rwandan youth on recent policies and discussions about post-genocide reconciliation and peacebuilding. This article discusses the narratives articulated by Rwandan youth on three levels: positioning in relation to the Rwandan government, positioning the self and others in their communities and positioning the self in relation to 'Ndi Umunyarwanda' (I am Rwandan). The discussion of these narratives is based on the concepts of participatory spaces and positioning theory. The findings show that the legacy of the genocide, as well as the reconciliation process, is being performed through everyday actions by the youth. However, the limitations of participatory spaces prevent Rwandan youth from having their positions communicated, negotiated and diversified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the everyday lives of young people with a severe mental illness living temporarily at a social psychiatric housing facility in Denmark. In the paper we take a temporal approach to the analysis of this and we draw on Henri Lefebvre's work on rhythm analysis to investigate the differences between the rhythms of everyday life within the institution and the rhythms of what is perceived as the everyday life of 'ordinary' youth. We also show how digital technologies play a central part in these institutionalised everyday lives by creating connections as well as disruptions between different time-spaces. Centrally, we point to the positive and negative consequences this has for the young peoples' sense of self. Empirically, the paper is based on a four-month ethnographic fieldwork at the housing facility in 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways in which young people use digital platforms develop with experience, and are guided by changing understandings of what they should – and should not – be doing online. As such, young people continually develop tacit rules and understandings that guide their platform participation. While based on social interactions with peers and other online contacts these rules are also technologically situated through the architecture of the platform. Based on research with Australian teenagers, this paper explores the ways in which Facebook shapes the communicative practices of young people, and how these were experienced and interpreted by them. Using the platform as a framework for the study demonstrates that some aspects of the Facebook architecture were particularly significant in structuring socialities, particularly: notifications and login for establishing habitual digital practices and norms; the prominence of images to (re)present identity; and the use of metrics (i.e. 'likes' and 'friends') to negotiate identities and relationships. Each of the participants initiated a range of strategies and rules to negotiate the ways in which the technological and the social were experienced through the platform. The paper concludes by considering the dominant values and social relations implicated through Facebook – and how they often reproduce dominant offline values and power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modernity, responsibilization has become a tool for addressing public issues in citizens’ access to public goods, including the sphere of environmental protection. In Russia, having insufficient institutional, legislative, political, and discursive support, the emphasis has lately been put on the role of individuals in protecting the environment. Taking account of the ambivalent context of environmental activity, this paper aims to reconstruct the justifications that environmentally engaged youth in Moscow attach to their environmental engagement. We focus on the case of Moscow as a ‘bridge’ between the Western templates and the local institutional setting. The empirical basis of the research is 36 in-depth interviews with Muscovites, who are persistently engaged in caring for the environment. The empirical results show that the environmental engagement of the youth is justified as an anchor of one’s identity of a reflexive, autonomous, self-managing subject. The results allow to broaden the concept of responsibility and citizenship among the youth in the states where a clash between neoliberal policies of responsibilization and the actual institutional context can be observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Gap Year is a break in an educational career, principally taken between leaving school and beginning university. Previous research on the Gap Year has suggested it is a form of social class positioning or forum for undertaking transitions in identity during young adulthood. This paper extends this research into the context of higher education itself. The paper illustrates, by a detailed analysis of interview data, that significant identity work is undertaken by young people in their accounts of their Gap Year. It demonstrates that this identity work, involving talk of confidence, maturity and/or independence, is related to two forms of distinction: a life course distinction and a social distinction. The paper discusses the significance of this identity work for our understandings of the Gap Year, its place in young people's transitions to adulthood and for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the implications of the ‘Mosquito’ Ultrasonic Teenage Youth Deterrent device. It is used in Britain to exclude young people from public spaces despite contravening British law and European and International Human Rights legislation. The paper argues that the device is changing the relationship young people have with public spaces around them. Additionally, the paper discusses how the device has transformed the ways in which specific public space legislation is implemented and enforced to the extent that it can be viewed as a purchasable manifestation of the powers conferred upon police officers through legislative acts. The existing academic literature regarding the Mosquito is to be discussed and utilised. The device is examined against the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 and the Equality Act 2010. The paper argues that the device itself can be labelled as anti-social and contravenes several pieces of UK legislation with regard to anti-social behaviour and discrimination. Finally, the paper critically appraises the impact of combatting youth anti-social behaviour with a device which itself can be labelled as anti-social. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the identities of young people in an Australian rural town in relation to contemporary discussions of place and social change. The paper responds to dominant narratives in youth studies which position individualised, reflexive subjectivities at the centre of a homogeneous, placeless modernity with an emplaced analysis of contemporary youth identities. Young people's narratives reveal an attachment to place created in community activities and day to day farm life, articulated in the language of the ‘rural idyll’. Narratives about imagined future lives articulate classed and gendered competencies and dispositions acquired in and through place, reflexively mobilised in life planning practices. Therefore, whilst substantial social changes are reshaping youth identities across rural places, young people's responses to these changes are forged in the way that identities are emplaced, as well as articulated in reflexive orientations towards their future lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to study place dynamics in relationships between academically-oriented young people and their local rural places. With point of departure in rural settings with less obvious flagship attractions and cultural assets compared to urban high amenity settings, the paper contributes to the limited literature on the perception of place among academically-oriented youth, who in future potentially belong to the professional category of knowledge workers. Addressing identity, place and the concept of cool in relation to rural youth, we analyse the findings from 23 qualitative, in-depth interviews conducted with 49 young people in secondary education in two rural regions of Denmark to identify place dynamics in the relationships between these young people and their local places. The paper adds to the youth literature by demonstrating how rural youth produce, articulate and maintain identities and visions for desired futures with aspirations for urban lifestyles. Findings show that the interviewed youth's relationships to their local rural place are characterised by conflicting feelings of attachment, detachment, pride and entrapment, and that such feelings reflect on identity construction and seem to play an important role for future migration intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper strives to explain the enactment and persistence of violent territorial conflict between groups of young people (predominantly young men) from neighbourhoods of multiple disadvantage. Young people clearly recognise that participating in violent territorial conflict risks severe injury, restricted mobility and criminalisation. So what are these young people fighting for? Drawing on the findings of an empirical study of young people and territoriality in six locations across Britain, this paper explores the risks and rewards that young people attach to violent territorial conflict. It finds that the rewards of such behaviour are articulated by young people in terms of respect, protection and excitement. However, these accounts should not be accepted at face value. The enactment of violent territorial practices requires to be interpreted as being framed by the structural exclusions manifest, and the cultural responses embedded, in these neighbourhoods. Moreover, violent territorial conflict requires to be understood as a socio-spatial practice that serves to secure and fuse important aspects of individual, social and place-based identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the rejection of subcultural collectivity by postmodern scholars in the field of youth studies. The fluidity of neo-tribes does not fully reflect the lived experiences of many young people today whose subcultural being is neither transient nor irrelevant. Moving away from the notion of spectacular subcultures, this paper identifies cultural knowledge and creative engagement as significant factors in youth group affiliations. This inevitably causes problems for the researcher as such identifiers of subcultural belonging are almost impossible for an 'outsider' to appreciate. An attempt is made to incorporate the term subculture back into academic discourse whilst also investigating aspects of agency within hip-hop and grime cultures. Qualitative research was undertaken in five sites in and around the south-east of England. This work identified variations within a cultural form that is often homogenised by scholars. Distinctions are made between the relative passivity of consumers of youth culture, here termed 'peripherals', and those at the centre of their localised musical scenes. The 'purists', as they are identified in this paper, exert significant degrees of autonomy over their cultural participation and openly reject mainstream sensibilities in favour of claiming a sense of ownership and connection to their personalised variant of this globalised form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on findings from ethnographic research which explored the impact of the Connexions initiative on the lives of young people. The fieldwork took place in three drop-in centres for young people, all of which were delivery sites for Connexions. Utilising the theoretical concepts of identity and self-esteem, it grounded this exploration in an understanding of young people themselves, their hopes and concerns, the aspects of their lives that are important to them, their sources of self-esteem and their means of support when they experience difficulty. This paper highlights the importance of social capital in young people's lives and acknowledges that Connexions has the potential to enhance this capital. However, it also emphasises the significance of existing social networks and the personal capital of young people themselves, which assists their forward movement. In addition, this paper draws attention to the limitations of Connexions targets that aim to reduce the numbers of young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), a measure which fails to recognise the progress that certain young people feel they have made. [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]

There is burgeoning literature on cities that host major cultural events. However, there is surprisingly very little empirical research focusing specifically on young people and cities of culture, so we have limited knowledge in terms of how young people actually experience and interpret cultural events. Given this, we offer an important and timely contribution to such debates. Our spatial focus is Derry/Londonderry (D/L) in Northern Ireland. During 2013 D/L was the UK’s inaugural City of Culture (CoC). The bid document and legacy plans for CoC stated that young people would be ‘cultural assets’ during 2013 and the ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ of the CoC legacy [Derry City Council 2010.Cracking the Code. City of Culture 2013. Derry: Derry City Council, 2013a.Our Legacy Promise. Building on the Success of 2013. Derry: Derry City Council, 2013b.Legacy Plan 2013–2023. Derry: Derry City Council]. This paper unpacks and analyses the extent to which young people in D/L related to and engaged with CoC and, arguably more importantly, how CoC affected their plans and aspirations for the future. Our research problematises the claim that young people were the ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ of CoC; most strikingly, it shows that young people, despite offering very positive views, both expect and desire to live in cities other than D/L. As such, the debilitating long-standing trend ofeconomic migrationof young people will continue raising important issues for local stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the experiences of belonging of young Chinese internet users through an analysis of their online identity practices. Drawing on a qualitative research project about online citizenship practices of 31 young Chinese citizens from mainland China, I explore their experiences of belonging on two online platforms (Weibo and WeChat) and the identities formed and sustained through these experiences. The results show that young people experience different senses of belonging in different social media spaces. Their strategies in navigating these experiences are informed by (a) their perceptions of online spaces as private or public, and (b) using online identity performance as a supplement to or escape from identities in physical life. I argue that young Chinese internet users experience different senses of belonging by flexibly appropriating the affordances of social media platforms for communication and networking; these senses of belonging play a key role in forming and sustaining their identities, and are crucial for their wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how much we can learn about youth music and style groupings from the detail of the spectacular content and practices which most obviously distinguish such groups. First, I consider an apparent revival in theoretically driven interpretations of subcultural style, music and content in recent work on the goth scene, arguing that, for all their sophistication, such studies seem liable to reproduce some of the difficulties of earlier studies of spectacular symbolic meanings unless their findings are connected with other kinds of evidence. The paper then examines recent calls for greater focus on the minutiae of participants' sensory experience of distinct subcultural practices. I discuss case studies of promising work in the area, while emphasising the need to avoid reducing subcultures to the specificities of selected spectacular experience. Drawing the two parts together, 1 suggest many elements of subcultures are neither imprinted in spectacular sounds and texts nor discernable from the immediate sensations spectacular practices give rise to. In order to enhance our overall understanding it is important, therefore, that our examination of the distinct and extra-ordinary features of subcultures is contextualised in relation to broader understandings of a range of other properties and patterns which may be less distinct, unique or extra-ordinary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the aspirations of a group of young women in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia. It examines how their hopes and expectations are influenced by the reality of their everyday lives and the extent to which they are able to influence the course of their lives and become agents for change in their own communities. As with adolescents in lower socio-economic groups, the majority of young women in River Town have not developed life goals or clear strategies of how to achieve these goals. The choices that young women have are constrained by their narrow range of experience, which is characterized by early pregnancies and the potential threat of male violence. However, young women have articulated specific domains where they are able to control and structure their lives. This paper discusses the experiences of young women in this remote Aboriginal community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the manner in which web-based punk subcultural micro-media utilized the forum of the album critique in discursively negating the 'authenticity' of the American punk act Against Me! following their decision to sign with the major Sire record label. Conceptualizing punk subcultural collectivities as Bourdieuian 'fields' of consumption, a discourse analysis methodology is utilized to demonstrate that the impetus of the band's emergent stigmatization as 'sell-outs' stems less from anxieties surrounding punk's mainstream co-optation than the processes through which subcultural knowledge producers strive to authenticate proper conventions of taste - and distaste - in accordance with a symbolic economy of 'subcultural capital.' This paper also considers the manner in which Against Me!'s debut album with the Sire label strove to initiate a dialog critiquing the contemporary utility of punk subcultural conventions of proper artistic production. Demonstrating how this initiative contributed to differential accounts of the band's authenticity within the oppositional fields of 'restricted' and 'large scale' knowledge production, I argue that this case study reinforces Bourdieu's notions regarding the overarching function of authenticity claims within the wider field of cultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common theme in the literature on care-giving is the issue of 'hidden' carers, that is, people who undertake caring roles and responsibilities, yet do not identify themselves as carers. One reason people do not recognise themselves as carers relates to the nature of the caring relationship. When providing care for a family member, intra-familial bonds of love and reciprocity do not encourage parties to view the relationship as anything other than a 'normal' familial relationship. The lack of self-identification amongst young carers is complicated further by societal norms surrounding care-giving. Whereas adults are expected to provide care to other adults and children, young people are not expected to be care-givers but rather care recipients. As a result, many young carers remain 'hidden' and beyond the reach of services and supports designed to help them in their caring role. This paper draws on qualitative research with young carers and service providers to explore the issue of self-identification amongst young carers. The paper concludes with recommendations for identifying and supporting hidden young carers. [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]

In the context of a 'death' of class in popular and policy discourse, this paper argues that social class is still a major force at work in young people's lives, particularly in the context of schooling. We argue that young people's subcultural groups are classed, in the way in which they are constructed in discourse. Drawing on a data set of 68 interviews with white, middle-class young people in three different cities in England, we argue that class can be seen and felt in young people's constructions of the 'chav', where white, working-class young people's ways of being and doing in the context of schooling, stand in stark contrast to the normative middle-class subject, and become pathologized. [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]

Heavy metal music has long been researched as a risk factor for youth development. Over the last decade, however, there has been a significant shift towards studies that are more sympathetic to metal fans, but still we know very little about young people's pathways to forming metal identities. What is the allure of metal as an identity choice? What can be gained from the early embodiment of metal identities? To explore these questions, this paper reports on findings from qualitative research with metal youth in Australia that captured rich, narrative reflections on 'becoming' metal. The results show that metal was vitally important when participants felt vulnerable to bullying and exclusion by popular peers at school. But crucially, the young 'metalheads' were able to disrupt power relations at school by embodying 'chosen' heavy metal identities as a strategic response for countering 'unchosen' marginal school-based identities. The politically transformative properties of subculture at the level of the individual are revealed through ways that the metal youth, as self-described outsiders, were able to act alone to challenge dominant school norms and enter into social relationships on their own terms, protecting themselves from social threats to their mental health and well-being in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The language of young people is often viewed very negatively by some sections of the mainstream media and by some social commentators in the UK. While this is nothing new – older generations routinely despair of how the youth of today are ruining the language – what is different now is the added element of ethnicity, whereby young people of various ethnicities are perceived as using some kind of ‘ghetto grammar’ or ‘Jafaican’ which carry often explicit connotations of ‘sounding black’. This paper challenges the mainstream view by firstly introducing the linguistic take on this emerging Multicultural Urban British English, and then exploring the views of young people themselves on how they use language by taking qualitative data from a linguistic ethnography project involving 14–16-year-olds in a non-mainstream urban educational setting. The young people provide insights into their language that are in complete opposition to the views so often expressed in the media, and which instead suggest that linguistic features that were previously strongly associated with specific ethnicities are being used in new and innovative ways. Refreshingly, it would appear that for many young people ethnicity is simply not a consideration, at least in relation to language. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) research there is increasing health-related scholarship on trans lives, with a growing awareness of the impact of health inequalities on trans well-being. The aim of the paper is to provide greater understanding of transgender young people’s views of what is needed to promote their emotional well-being and resilience by undertaking specific analysis of data collected as part of wider research with young people (n = 97). The study utilised participatory qualitative methods with a cross sectional design generating data via a focus group with trans youth (n = 5), followed by thematic analysis. Findings suggest that both individual and collective capacities or resources enable and sustain resilience and well-being for trans young people. The adversity trans youth face is present in school, the community and in healthcare, but they are able to find places where they feel safe and connected to others. Practitioners, teachers and school nurses are well positioned to facilitate structural change in alliance with trans youth to promote resilience. Research results were utilised to inform health improvement, commissioning and service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper explores processes of identity construction in young people of foreign origin living in Italy. The aim was to understand how youth construct their selves in the global era, characterized by an increase in the possibility of choosing but also in the perception of uncertainty; how they perceive this uncertainty, whether as a chance to construct multifaceted and continually changing identities or as a source of insecurity and loss for their identity. Drawing on 46 in-depth interviews, the research reveals that young people of foreign origin are continually shaping their identities mixing different cultural repertories related to their – or their parents’ – homeland, to the host country, global cultures and youth cultures. Several patterns of identity emerge and they are linked to different perception of uncertainty. A typology of these patterns was developed: young people constructflexible identitiesorhyphenated identities, or move from afixed identityto anundefined identity. These types of identity are respectively associated with the perception of uncertainty as aresource, as aconstraint, finally with a strategy ofreducing or eliminating uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how taste and distaste, body image and masculinity play into young people’s perceptions of risk related to steroid use. Data are drawn from a qualitative study on risk-taking among 52 Danish youths enrolled in high school or vocational training. A number of ‘risky’ practices such as drug use, fights, speeding, etc. were discussed. In contrast to these practices, which were primarily described in relation to ‘physical risks’, steroid use was understood as part of an ‘identity’ or ‘lifestyle’ in a way these other risks were not. Few interviewees had used steroids, and the large majority distanced themselves from the practice. Reasons for not wanting to use steroids were related to (1) perceiving the drug to be part of a broader lifestyle and identity that they are not interested in committing to or embodying and (2) finding the body image, physicality and associations with steroid use ‘fake’, ‘gross’ and distasteful. We draw on recent developments in feminist sociological theory related to the gendered body as both a performance and process to understand steroid use as a practice through which the body and self is produced. More than a one-dimensional ‘risky’ practice, we argue that gendered and embodied identities are crucial to understanding the dynamics of steroid use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on young men in the British army and their attitudes towards, and experiences of, Phase One basic training. The research, which took place in 2008–2011, used a longitudinal design. Using mixed methods, the findings draw on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 26 young trainees, and interviews and quantitative survey data with 1518 recruits, with an average age of 19.6 years. It reports on recruits’ motivations for enlisting and then tells a story of socialisation, transition and change from both civilian to soldier and from adolescent to man. Drawing on Goffman's theory of the ‘total institution’ the research is centred around two contexts – the outside training ranges and the indoor barracks. It argues that the army has a set of highly effective structures and processes that socialise individuals into the culture of the military organisation. By the time they pass out of Phase One training, recruits are in the possession of a set of norms, values, knowledge and skills, and have not only been transformed into competent members of the military organisation, but have also begun to take on and construct new forms of self-image and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comedy Central’sSouth Parkhas proved a bone of contention for traditional guardians of youth culture. From the denunciations of pressure groups on one hand, to academics attempting to claimSouth Parkfor various political positions on the other, it is ironic that a show addressing the failure of official pedagogy has had so little attention paid to its young fans. Academics argue over the ‘message’ ofSouth Park, in a socio-political sense, or denounce it for irresponsibly embracing post-political cynicism. Yet as Mendes et al. have argued, to draw a false division between youth entertainment and some pre-conceived notion of the political realm is a fallacy: young people’s engagement with and meaning-making practices derived from popular culturearepolitical in themselves. This paper uses a politically informed conception of discourse analysis developed from Laclau and Mouffe to code the top-ratedSouth Parkfanfics from Fanfiction.net, a site whose primary demographic is teenagers, in pursuit of the messages young people perceive and make of the show. This project prefers concrete data over impressionistic views of ‘young people’, and attends to what teenage fans make of and do with the text, rather than imagining them as passive consumers absorbing inherent messages. [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]

Young people engaging in graffiti are often portrayed as the anti-thesis of the ‘good citizen’. As politicians and the media fight the ‘war on graffiti’, these young people are tagged as criminals and misfits, overlooking the ways this arts practice reclaims their ability to tell stories and unhinge traditional ways of practicing citizenship. Using ideas from Michelle Fine et al.’s social psychology of spatiality as a conceptual lens, this paper explores the tensions, contradictions and binaries these young people find themselves caught between, particularly; art or vandalism, professional or amateur, artist or criminal, and legitimate or illegitimate citizens as young people and transgressors of ‘normal behaviour’ in public spaces. Using multiple methods, including ‘hanging out’ and participatory visual methods, this study explores how young graffiti artists’ experiences in and out of a legal ‘street art’ programme, speak back to ‘normative’ conceptualisations of citizenship. Their experiences of differential belonging and contested citizenship, which are played out in public spaces (and beyond), highlight the importance of alterative arts programmes and the creation of sanctioned spaces in negotiating young people’s ‘right to the city’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sex education and relationship strategy of the U.K. allows parents to withdraw their children from sex education, which has left many young people especially those from Black Minority and Ethnic communities with low or no sex education. Similarly, the government's policy environment enables faith schools to teach these subjects under the tenets of their faith. This empirical research was carried out in South-West London using 12 qualitative interviews with women and men (ages 18–20 years) discusses young women's experiences of their first sexual encounter who navigate their reputations, relationships as well as negotiate safe sex in the absence of appropriate relationships and sex education. Sex education not only brings into focus sensitivities around gender but also tensions around religion in the U.K. Evidence from the study suggests that despite the importance placed by the Indian community on maintaining virginity, young women asserted that religion and culture did not prohibit them from exploring their sexuality. In this study, the priority is to present young women's voices and experience of sexual encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the previous seven years the application of a social generation paradigm or ‘theory’ has gained increasing currency as a method in analysing young people's relationship with the life course. Whilst not a new concept or approach its resurgence and reconfiguration to ‘new’ times has seen some writers positioning it as a ‘new orthodoxy’ or ‘consensus’ within youth studies. In this it is seen as providing a conceptual framework that better helps us understand the complexity of circumstances and conditions that shape youth identities in late modern society. In this paper we examine and explore the underlying assumptions and claims that are made by those advocating the social generational paradigm, raising questions and seeking further clarification on a number of key themes. We accept youth studies needs to move beyond ‘old models’ that define and understand social context as a simply a tension between ‘structure or/and agency’ or as a ‘flavour’ to social action. To conclude therefore we propose the need to have an approach that is ecological and both accepts ‘social change’ and ‘continuity’ as critical parts of the life course, one that recognises the nature and influence of power and social reproduction, especially for different social classes, in shaping the experience of being young. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While African youth now feature among the most-researched phenomena in African Studies and Africa-focused social sciences, scholarship continues to shy away from the field's most daunting challenge. As the oversized analytical category ‘youth’ cannot tame the diversity and the ambiguity of the phenomenon ‘youth’, it remains difficult to develop tangible theories and reduce the fuzziness that characterises the current debate. In this paper, I review the most recent advances in the field of African youth studies and outline three comparative approaches to respond to the methodological challenges of diversity and ambiguity. Demonstrating how these comparative approaches can be used for youth-specific inquiries on different levels, I argue that comparison is effective in urging researchers to connect theory, methodology and empirical data more explicitly, to pay particular attention to the respective contexts that mark young people's attitudes and behaviour, and to address diversity as a puzzle rather than a ready-made answer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is an important and defining element in young people's lives. When conceived properly, it has the potential to transform opportunities and life chances. It hardly comes as news that in recent times the authors have witnessed the inappropriate intrusion into education of notions of school reform that while they might arguably be in the national economic interest, are highly questionable from the vantage point of young people. In this paper, the authors present some counter-narratives from a group of young Australians who have ‘disengaged’ or been ‘shoved’ out of school and who resumed learning under a very different set of conditions to those that exiled them. Through the comments from young people, the authors construct an account of how they came to be categorised as ‘at-risk’ in the first place, what this pathologising meant to them, and how an alternative approach that invested them with power enabled a more positive identity formation to occur. Notwithstanding its altruistic intent and more humane approach, the authors remain unconvinced on the larger question of ‘re-engagement to where?’ for these young people, and whether the fundamentals have been sufficiently unsettled to enable them a different trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artefacts containing national or ethnic symbols, such as flags and maps, are frequently used by 14-year-old youth in a multiethnic, suburban municipality in Stockholm. Appearing as ornaments or trinkets to outsiders, to the initiated they are distinctive group markers displaying multiple political and ideological affiliations. As visual symbols these artefacts invoke communicative, but non-verbal, processes: they interpellate viewers who answer with their reactions. Thus these objects serve to both banally reproduce nationalism and ethnicity and to serve as identity markers. These identities are primarily inclusive and non-aggressive. The symbols do not seem to be a sign of resistance to mainstream Swedish society in line with much work in the field of youth culture. Instead, they are used as a proud, visual display of additional identities complementing a Swedish identity. Ethnicity research often covers linguistic markers or ethnic and national identities. In contrast, the area of youthconsumptionof nationalism, in the form of objects featuring national, ethnic and religious symbols, is as yet not well documented. Based on a year-long fieldwork in a junior high school, this paper documents ways in which minority group students handle material artefacts and what these symbols involved mean to them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between the experiences of parents and youth within racialized immigrant families to gain a better appreciation of intergenerational dynamics, drawing on interviews and preinterview surveys with 47 immigrant youth and their parents. Our thematic analysis of data explores the diversity of families' immigration experiences, labor market challenges for parents, shared family discourses of sacrifice and opportunity, and differences in youth responses to the high expectations of parents. We conclude that the life course transitions experienced by parents have important consequences for their children; immigrant youth feel a strong sense of intergenerational obligation, and this obligation is problematic for a significant minority of youth. Our qualitative findings thus temper the optimistic picture of these youth presented in large-scale studies of their aspirations and attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A person's identity is shaped by one's life experiences. Aside from family, school forms the major backdrop of the everyday experiences of children and plays an important role in shaping identity. This paper examines education and the development of identity among school-age migrant children enrolled in Beijing's schools. Marginality is the theme running through this analysis. The marginalisation of migrant children in Beijing is defined and sanctioned by the outdated household registration system that excludes them from enrolling in public schools. Many attend segregated migrant children's schools. Even after the government has relaxed its rules to allow migrant children into the public system, they suffer discrimination based on their low social status and rural origin, each reinforcing the other. These experiences shape their sense of identity. They want to stay in Beijing but know they are not accepted. They call themselves as members of their home regions, but would have difficulty fitting into their home communities and have no intention of living there. This study helps us understand how school interactions shape the identity of migrant children not only in Beijing but of the estimated 20 million migrant children in China's other major urban centres albeit with some differences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In moving the first significant steps into a meaningful graduate career, young adults need to elaborate strategies, which consist in identifying and activating what seems useful in one's own context of reference. Specifically looking at the meaning of being young adults in two countries belonging to different welfare systems and thus diverging regimes of transitions to adulthood, i.e. Italy and England, this paper analyses how two groups of early career professionals conceive of and forge the specific position they occupy in the life cycle in the course of developing particular strategies of career construction. The findings of 60 in-depth interviews compare and contrast a first dimension of young adulthood accounted for as a favourable condition to delimit, emphasise and be collocated within in order to maximise its potential. This is the case of young adults based in England, who 'squeeze' their youth to enact career strategies. The second dimension is constructed as a penalising condition not to be associated with, in an effort to reduce the discomfort it causes. It is the case of young adults based in Italy, who work out their strategies while feeling caught in the blurred and indefinite condition of youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hobbema, Alberta, Canada is a community comprised of four First Nations. As with many of Canada's Aboriginal communities, Hobbema's population is young. High rates of socio-economic disadvantage, violence, family dysfunction, and substance abuse are linked to colonization, residential school policies, and discrimination. Crime rates, including gang-related crime in the area, are disproportionately high. In 2005 two police officers created the Hobbema Community Cadet Corps, a program which offers youth a pro-social alternative to criminal activity and gang involvement. The program provides youth with the opportunity to learn the value of group identity, discipline, and camaraderie. It also provides opportunities for recreational activities and travel otherwise unavailable to many in this impoverished area. This paper provides a description of the HCCCP, an overview of its activities and structure, and situates it within the crime prevention through social development framework which emphasizes the importance of building protective factors and reducing risk factors surrounding youth. Finally, a preliminary evaluation which highlights some of the challenges faced by program instructors is offered. The authors caution against relying solely on individualizing imperatives in attempts to deal with social structural issues of the types faced by citizens in Hobbema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been argued by R.W. Connell that gender equality requires the willing co-operation of men and boys. This study of youth masculinity and singing examines the process through which young people are socialised into the norms of the commercial music industry. It is argued that this industry, which is extremely influential on identities and attitudes, remains patriarchal in its power structures. This patriarchy both constrains and shapes the identities of boy performers and perpetuates the construction of females as 'fodder' for music that requires little cultural capital for its appreciation. The paper draws on case studies of boy performers aged between 11 and 14, together with survey work in schools of young people who were asked to listen to the commercial CD recordings made by the young performers. It concludes that, from an initial position of innocence, boy singers and their female fans become socialised into a complicit masculinity that unwittingly perpetuates patriarchal hegemony. Connell's aspiration for men and boy's participation in gender equality is rendered an unlikely hope by the power relationships discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an exploratory, small-scale qualitative research enquiry into the perceptions and experiences of young people in communities afflicted by deprivation in Glasgow, Scotland's largest city. The context within which we address this focus contains a culture reputed to involve sectarianism, territoriality and gangs. Glasgow has a reputation for being a 'hard place'. The official crime statistics are consistent with comparatively high levels of violent crime impacting upon this culture. We adopted semi-structured interviews in order to explore young people's perspectives as well as those working with them in youth venues. Most of the data collection took place in 'youth centres' close to the two stadiums of the major Scottish football clubs, namely Rangers and Celtic. Social capital theory is incorporated into the analysis of the results. The findings suggest that territoriality is the dominant parameter shaping their experience of and perceptions regarding neighbourhood areas, a conclusion endorsed by recent research about religious intermarriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much has been written on national identity in Northern Ireland, the identity preferences of adults and the young have rarely been compared directly. This paper addresses this omission by examining the relationship between national identity and community relations within both the adult (aged 18 years and above) and the young adult (aged 16 years) population. This study used the 2006 Life and Times Survey, and the results show that the adoption of a Northern Irish identity and a positive view of community relations is increasingly common among Protestants. Nevertheless, this change does not herald a new era in community relations; rather, irrespective of whether differences both within and between the two religious communities are considered, among those who adopt a Northern Irish identity, it is young Protestants who are least positive in their views. One tentative explanation for this finding is the much lower levels of cross-community contact among the young Protestant population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Youth Pathways Project tracked the life-course trajectories of street-involved young women (n=75) in Toronto over a one-year period. At first contact, 60% of these women had been pregnant, and 29% of those had children. In the interim leading up to the final interview 12 months later, five participants became pregnant and five had given birth. This paper examines the narratives of these 10 recently pregnant and/or newly parenting young women. Our focus is on the ways in which pregnancy and parenting are discursively constructed as a turning point away from street involvement and drug use. Using the concept of identity talk, we examine young women's descriptions of pregnancy and parenting. We note that risky practices that may have precipitated pregnancy are minimised, while the positive and transforming aspects of pregnancy and parenting are emphasised. Pregnancy and parenting are linked with short-term goals of personal change and leaving the street, but the long-term implications of motherhood, including poverty and poor health, are not addressed by participants. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of the subjective meaning of pregnancy for street-involved young women. We suggest that these insights are important as part of an overall health promotion strategy for this vulnerable group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on qualitative data from young men and their female partners in their twenties, this paper critically reviews debates about young people's perceptions of their futures. It argues that the anticipation of either a 'destructured' or a 'standardised' life course does not simply vary between different categories of young people; rather, it shows young people's experience of tension between these two trajectories. Moreover, in the case of estate agents and firefighters, interviewing both members of a couple revealed gendered differences in how future trajectories were being realised, women tending to direct and 'manage' young men's orientations towards 'adulthood', often by asserting chronologised milestones. In that our sample drew young men from three occupations with cultures seen as more or less stereotypically masculinised or feminised (firefighters, estate agents and hairdressers), our data also show class and occupational differences and, among estate agents and firefighters, their reflection in the gendered negotiations that contributed to couples' everyday heterosexual lives. At the intersection between gendered patterns of work, consumption, and fertility, then, young estate agents and firefighters and their female partners sought to plan shared lives that nonetheless cleaved to sometimes competing priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]