The `Inventing Adulthoods' study seeks to document transitions to adulthood reported by over 100 young people living in five contrasting communities in the UK over a five-year period. A principal a...

Critical moments: Choice, chance and opportunity in young people's narratives of transition

This paper is concerned with questions of identity, citizenship and social change as these are experienced by young people in the UK today. In the course of recent changes to the context and content of youth transitions the notion of citizenship has come to the fore as a means of discussing young people's move into independent membership of society. Debates about citizenship in the UK currently encompass a range of complex themes - competency, responsibility and active (community) participation which go beyond an understanding of citizenship as a simply technical or legal term. In this paper we adopt a broad conceptualization of citizenship in order to explore the identity work that young people engage in as they negotiate their way through to social majority. In particular, we consider how young people's need for space, and their emergent sense of place, are aspects of a citizenship identity which young people 'learn', work at and negotiate over in their leisure time.

Self, Space and Place: Youth identities and citizenship

—Jeffrey Arnett’s concept of emerging adulthood is critically examined by reviewing and evaluating elements of its theoretical framework and by referring to relevant empirical studies, which support the major arguments presented. Several limitations to Arnett’s model are found and an alternative perspective is offered that might complement his stage theory and provide a stronger theoretical baseline for future research.

Conceptualizing Emerging Adulthood: Inspecting the Emperor’s New Clothes?

The article begins by observing that, over the last decade, the idea of youth participation has once more become a popular part of contemporary political talk both in Australia and in many Western societies. Indeed most Western governments now advocate enhanced youth participation as part of a discourse about modern citizenship, so much so that it has become a policy cliche to say ‘increased youth participation’ will ‘empower’ young people, help build community and remedy a range of social problems. It is also noted that, if the idea of participation itself is an old idea central to the liberal democratic tradition, the current ‘rediscovery’ of youth participation is arguably part of that political orthodoxy. Drawing on selected State, national and Commonwealth government youth documents, the question is asked whether the official enthusiasm for youth participation has much to do with democratic practice. It is argued that the recent government enthusiasm for youth participation is problematic for three r...

Mixed messages: youth participation and democratic practice

The concept of social exclusion may be used to connect the experiences of individuals and social groups to broader social and economic processes (linking ‘biography’ to ‘history’). This paper draws on recent empirical studies of young people in rural areas of Britain and other European countries to illustrate how social exclusion may operate in rural areas, particularly in the transition from education to employment.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2004.00261.x

Young People and Social Exclusion in Rural Areas

This book is intended as a key text for advanced undergraduates in social policy, social work, and youth/community work. It can also be used as a supplementary text for sociology of education/work/stratification, criminology, education, and personal reference for researchers and practitioners.

Bob Coles

Papers

Youth And Social Policy: Youth Citizenship And Young Careers