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What does it mean to be young in El Alto, a Bolivian shantytown? Based on ethnographic research, this article looks at cultural resilience among young people in a vulnerable urban context. It emphasises how young people value informal youth groups as a tool to valorise their own indigenous culture. This is echoed in the world of adults, implying that the collective is a value shared by all. By giving an insight into everyday life in El Alto, the article aims to shed light on issues of identity among second generation migrants, looking at the experiences of rural-urban migrants' children within Bolivia. The article begins by setting the scene and providing information on young people in El Alto. Later, the article focuses on one of the informal youth groups in the city, looking at the importance of dancing and music for their collective identity. This article is about youth and how they negotiate their rural-urban identity as children of rural-urban indigenous migrants. As my young informants often say, the model offered by their parents is described as "good" and "morally rich", while the one offered by the city is "bad" and "amoral". However, there is a tension. If they decide to follow the model of their parents, they will be excluded and discriminated against in the national context. By exploring the political-economic contexts in which youth are growing up in El Alto, the article sheds light on the long-term effects of migration, indigenous and urban identities and cultural resilience in an Andean indigenous city. (Contains 5 notes.)

The contradiction emerging between the lived experience of a minority of marginalised urban youth and the punitive operant conditioning of antisocial behaviour legislation is illustrative of the increasing gap between society's expectations of behaviour and the coming reality. In this paper, Loic Wacquant's sociology of advanced marginality is combined with Norbert Elias' concept of civilising and decivilising processes and applied to the dilemma of young offenders in a typical UK city. It identifies increasing educational exclusion and institutional abandonment in affected "neighbourhoods of relegation". This process is part of a general trend towards the desocialisation of labour, which ushers in a reactionary, violent decivilising process among the minority most affected, where use of violence becomes the foundation of repute for otherwise powerless individuals, or for gangs in their control of small urban spaces. By analysing this dilemma from the perspective of the "perpetrators" rather than the victims of knife crime, we seek to describe their praxis; that is, the nature of their habitus or consciousness. (Contains 10 notes.)

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. (Contains 2 tables.)

The local neighbourhood has an enduring significance for British urban, working-class youth in relation to their transitions, cultures and leisure practices. This paper examines these interrelated issues by drawing upon ethnographic research undertaken in "Manor", a deprived, multi-ethnic East London neighbourhood. It explores the transitions taken by black, white and mixed-parentage young males (and some of their female peers), transitions that were formed by the interaction of paid work opportunities with youth cultures and leisure practices ("road" and "grafter" cultures), ethnicity, gender and social networks. Even within a single deprived and stigmatized neighbourhood such as Manor, a number of transitions could be identified. These include "grafting" at manual, masculine "dirty work" in the construction industry; going to college allied to "clean", service-sector work; and an "alternative" route of "working on road" by undertaking a variety of low-level, illegal money-making activities. (Contains 10 notes.)

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. (Contains 4 notes, 1 figure, and 4 tables.)

In Nicaragua the rise of urban youth gangs has led the government to adopt a crime-control approach that focuses on containing adolescent violence. Yet efforts to foil youth gangs have been ineffectual, largely because the nature of gang membership is little understood. This article presents the results of a qualitative study of youth gang membership in the capital city of Managua. From participant observations and interviews with a cohort of youth gang members and a number of people closely attached to them, the study presents youth perspectives of gang membership in a way that underscores the dialectic between individual agency and the structural environments that impinge on youth choices. The study concludes by arguing that policies aiming to deal with urban youth gangs in Nicaragua must accommodate the perspectives of marginalized urban youth and draw upon their capacity for individual and collective agency. (Contains 8 notes.)

This article explores what staying rural means for Finnish young people who envision, or consider, a future in sparsely populated regions. The article draws on a qualitative longitudinal study of youth from three different regions. They were followed through qualitative participatory research methods since the age of 15 (2015–2022). The article opens new perspectives on the processes of staying rural by drawing on new materialist framework. The article suggests that staying should be viewed as a dynamic process in which different temporalities, materialities, and agencies intra-act, and which is marked by continuous decision-making and movement. The article introduces the concept of material-discursive practices of staying to highlight that staying is not only about individual or even human conditions but an intra-action of matter and meaning. Particular attention is paid to three material-discursive practices of staying by Finnish rural young people: (1) transgenerational practices of staying, (2) educational and career-related practices of staying, and (3) the outspoken tendency of 'going against the grain' in relation to urban youth cultures and normative expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, the past two decades have been crucial for the growing popularity of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). This is largely due to the burgeoning presence and significance of EDM festivals as a performative site of a contemporary Indian youth culture. A salient feature capturing the zeitgeist of twenty-first century, urban, modern Indian youth is EDM's gradual permeation into the cultural fabric of India through crucial collaborations with cultural industries like Bollywood. It is a truism that the legacy of Goa Trance remains a dominant point of reference in the global imagination of the Indian EDM scene. This article, however, argues that the contemporary mode of Indian Electronic Dance Music Culture (EDMC) has largely developed independently of this legacy. The main proponent of contemporary EDMC in urban India has been the multiple greenfield EDM festivals held annually all over the country. This article draws on fieldwork data collected between 2016-2018 at Indian EDM festival sites. Using this empirical data, the article examines the 'performance' of Indian EDMC and considers whether it is viable to speak in terms of an Indian way of raving, as a variation of other 'local' ways of performing EDMC that may exist elsewhere in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following recent critiques of the metrocentric nature of global youth studies, this paper explores the role of place in current research on youth political action in Sweden. Drawing on Agnew's [2011. "Chapter 23: Space and Place." In Handbook of Geographical Knowledge, edited by J. Agnew, and D. Livingstone. London: Sage] concept of place and using qualitative interpretive review as our method, we examined three sets of research publications on three different aspects of youth political action in Sweden. Our analysis found that place was addressed differently in each set of publications: youth political socialization and civic engagement were approached as placeless, street protests were examined as place assumed and urban justice movements were studied as place-based. The first two sets of publications contribute to reproducing a metrocentric understanding of youth political action, where urban areas are constructed as the key settings for political action among young people, while rural or peripheral areas are assumed to work in the same way or are depicted as non-political. By contrast, the publications on urban justice movements offered an alternative by exploring political action as place-based. The need to study the place-specific ways that young people do politics is discussed, with its potential to further the understanding of how young people do politics from where they are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civic-science integrates science knowledge with civic practice but differs from the citizen-science prototype by reframing science as a public good and citizens as both recipients of and actors in policy. We draw from our studies of a civic-science model in which adolescents (majority African-American) collaborate with teachers and community partners to mitigate an environmental problem in their urban community. Based on students' reflections on what they learn from these projects we have developed Environmental Commons theory, referring both to the natural resources on which life depends and the public spaces where people negotiate how they will care for those resources and for the communities they inhabit. We contend that, to solve twenty-first century environmental and climate challenges, it is myopic to rely on elite groups of scientific experts and policymakers. Instead, a civic science skill set should be part of the preparation of younger generations to be informed citizens and youth from urban ethnic minority communities should be a high priority. From an eco-justice standpoint, these groups bear a disproportionate share of the burdens of environmental pollution and climate change yet historically have been marginalized by the institution of science and, until recently, relatively neglected by environmental movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools worldwide have long engaged in various forms of 'war education'. In China, an extensive 'Patriotic Education' campaign and an expanded 'National Defense Education' curriculum have led to an increase in youth-oriented military programs in the 2000s. Previous work on the implementation of these programs in Chinese schools has mostly focused on urban elite youth, while overlooking the reception of these programs by non-urban, non-elite populations. The present study addresses this issue by examining youth perceptions and experiences of military training courses in urban and rural high schools. Drawing on the analysis of Chinese publications in the 2000s and on data from field interviews with students of different backgrounds, the study finds that youth military training constitutes a contentious program. Although the Chinese government promotes the program as crucial for military strengthening and the fostering of a patriotic spirit, PRC academic and media writers provide alternative rationales for the program, which at times undermine the logic of government articulations. Meanwhile, interviews with youth document divergent attitudes and even resentment towards the program, especially among city youth. This finding casts doubt on the assumption that military-training courses necessarily contribute to the increased 'militarization' of Chinese youth and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To challenge deficit discourses and victim narratives of youth marginalized due to their race, gender, class, age, and/or sexuality, child and youth service providers can build on young people's agency by implementing creative, radical, and social-justice-oriented services. Youth activism programs offer such opportunities by supporting young people in understanding and working toward dismantling the marginalization they face. These programs can also offer supplemental learning opportunities usually missing from schools, stimulate positive identity development, foster youth civic agency, and motivate young people to agitate for social change. However, while many studies have described what youth do in activism sites, what youth learn from activist engagement is less evident in the literature. In this study, we analyzed focus group data from adolescents participating in six adult-supported youth activism community programs, in an urban United States context (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), to investigate what youth learned as they developed critical consciousness, or the skills required to analyze and then act on oppressive social phenomena. Rooted in a Social Justice Youth Development framework, findings suggest that through their participation, young activists developed increased self-, social-, and global-awareness, while also learning additional important skills (e.g. technical skills, interpersonal skills, and the benefits of creating a network). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work builds upon and extends critical youth studies scholarship concerned with strategies for engaging with young people as active change agents with arts-based research to advance theory and practice for democratic and emancipatory research with young people. In this paper, we share a collaborative self-study where we critically reflected upon our distinct experiences doing arts-based participatory youth research. We applied a critical analysis to our pedagogical and research practices in a systematic manner to garner insights, strategies, and tools that can enhance and improve them. We conceive of 'places of possibility' as literal and metaphorical spaces where young people are afforded the tools and resources necessary to imagine alternative realities, identities, and systems than what currently exists, primarily through art and creative practices (Goessling, K. P. 2017. "Youth Learning to be Activists: Constructing 'Places of Possibility' Together." Critical Questions in Education 8 (4): 418–437. doi:17/10/goesslingfinal.pdf). We examined our art and creative practices for generating pedagogical places of possibility at three intersections: (1) creative practices as pedagogy, (2) moments of encounter, and (3) thick participation. Our findings provide strategies and tools for designing transformative research spaces with young people that are humanizing and liberatory places of learning and knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the extent to which ethnic minority and ethnic majority students in highly diverse urban schools identify with Flemish and European identity. In doing so this paper aims to discuss to what extent these sub-national and supranational identities can function as shared identities within the multiple identity belongings of teenagers and what the impact is of teacher support and perceived discrimination in schools on these phenomena. The analysis is based upon a survey among Belgian native and Moroccan origin students in the 5th and 6th year of secondary education in Antwerp, one of Europe's most diverse cities. The results show that Moroccan students identify more strongly with a European identity than with a Flemish identity, while Flemish native students identify more strongly with Flemish than with European identity. This results in a large 'identity gap' with respect to Flemish identity but a much smaller gap with respect to European identity. In addition, our results show a positive effect of teacher support on Flemish and European identity for Belgian students, while it only has a positive effect on European identity for Moroccan students. The broader implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports on a mixed methods study that sought to analyse determinants of youth labour market and educational disengagement in Peru. It begins by questioning the widespread focus on NEET – youth not in employment, education or training – as a measure of youth vulnerability in countries with extensive informal labour markets where labour precarity can be as problematic as unemployment for young people's futures. A broader category of 'urban vulnerable' youth, including both NEET and precarious workers, is proposed and used as the basis for analysing the factors that influence young people's trajectories. Key factors and shocks in youth trajectories are identified through qualitative life histories, and are tested using cross-section and panel survey data. Findings from the study have implications for the analysis of youth labour market vulnerability in the Global South, as well as for the policies that seek to address this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of this article are threefold. They lie in arguments about young people as either politically apathetic or as heralds of new forms of technologically enabled politics; in political arguments about the rise of the right in the UK, especially in places with a visible minority population; and in the debates about unruly urban youth in public spaces, especially their involvement in urban unrest in English cities in August 2011. These three sets of arguments are explored through a study of political and civic engagement by young men on the margins of the labour market. The focus on men is deliberate. Young men, as the key actors in most forms of public unrest and 90% of those arrested after the urban ‘riots’ in English cities in August 2011, are more likely to engage in various forms of visible protest than other groups in society, including young women. It is also evident that young men on the margins of the labour market or without waged work are likely to be those with most time and perhaps the strongest inclination to become involved in various forms of political action, as they seldom involve themselves in different forms of domestic labour, whether in their parental or own households. Our aim is to critically assess these arguments in an ‘ordinary’ English town, recognising that quiescence and apathy are harder (and less interesting) to observe than protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to determine whether uncontrollable stress related to levels of subjective well-being (SWB) in a group of ethnically diverse urban adolescents. Additionally, the researchers examined what types of coping skills were utilized in the face of high levels of uncontrollable stress. Finally, a moderation model was proposed, wherein active coping was hypothesized to exacerbate the inverse relationship between uncontrollable stress and SWB. A group of 147 diverse, urban adolescents were surveyed. Data were analyzed using correlational analysis, hierarchical multiple regression, and stepwise multiple regression. Results revealed that uncontrollable stress was significantly related to negative affect (NA) and active coping strategies were associated with positive affect (PA) and NA. Active coping did serve as a moderator of the relationship between NA and uncontrollable stress, but in an unpredicted direction. Higher levels of uncontrollable stress were related to higher levels of NA and the use of active coping strategies was associated with higher levels of PA. The finding that active coping did not exacerbate the relationship between NA and uncontrollable stress suggests that adolescents may benefit psychologically from exercising agency over stressors in their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Internet cafe (wangba) continues to enjoy high popularity among urban Chinese youth, mostly members of China's only-child generation, despite the derogatory connotations the wangba carries, official control and widely diffused access at home. Based on observation at wangbas and in-depth interviews with urban youth, I explore from the Internet cafe goers' perspective what wangba going is all about. The study shows that the wangba serves as a heterotopian third place for the goers. They are there, often against the will of various authorities, for a sense of freedom, relaxation, community, and equality as well as fun, which can hardly be found elsewhere in their lives. The meanings they assign to the wangba are closely related to their social-biographical situations as urban only children typically under great parental expectations in a society characterised by sharp social stratification, fierce competition, lack of security, consumerism, corruption and unfairness in the distribution of resources. In this sense, the wangba is seen as a necessary space for existential reasons, in sharp contrast to the negative portrayal of the wangba as a mere den of iniquity in both official and popular discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploration of young people's environmental transactions and their strategies for negotiating the urban environment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, reveals the implications of the post-industrial landscapes of gentrification and disinvestment, informal economies, and current public policy and discourses for the public spaces adolescents traverse everyday and the private spaces of their mental lives. In order to explore young people's understanding of their neighbourhood, their experiences in it, and their construction of self, I have developed the concept of 'street literacy'. Street literacy is a conceptual framework that describes the dynamic processes of experiential knowledge production and self-construction in a specified context, public urban space. This paper, theorizes how the environment, and in particular, the street, is a significant context for learning. The discussion will report on findings from work with junior high school students and their final collaborative research enterprise, the 'Streetwise Guide to the Lower East Side by Teenagers for Teenagers'. Analysis will focus on the contradictory nature of teenagers' 'Rules to the Neighbourhood' and consider the social and psychological repercussions for street literate young people, who have mastered the skills of survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]