Spectacles of intimacy? Mapping the moral landscape of teenage social media

This paper explores young people's expressed concerns about privacy in the context of a highly mediated cultural environment, mapping social media practices against axes of visibility and participation. Drawing on interdisciplinary conceptual resources from both the humanities and social sciences, we use ‘spectacles of intimacy’ to conceptualise breaches of privacy, mapping an emergent moral landscape for young people that moves beyond concerns with e-safety to engage with the production and circulation of audiences and value. The paper draws on data from a methodological innovation project using multi-media and mixed methods to capture lived temporalities for children and young people. We present a model that captures a moral landscape shaped by emotional concerns about social media, the affordances of those media and affective discourses emerging from young people's use of the media.     

Situational political socialization: a normative approach to young people's adoption and acquisition of political preferences and skills

Research on young people's political socialization has had an adult-centered top–down bias in which young people are considered incomplete and in need of the right upbringing. The article attempts to balance this bias. The aim is to introduce and argue for another normative approach – situational political socialization. Four theoretical elements constitute its basis: (1) the political, (2) contingency (the principle of the public sphere), (3) space and place, and (4) situation. In the contingent western digital media society marked by cultural dissemination, individualism, and the erosion of traditional institutions, situational political socialization represents a normative basis for a research approach which is open, action-oriented and contextualized, viewing young people as political actors in their own right.     

Journey towards independent living: a grounded theory investigation of leaving the care of Girls & Boys Town,South Africa

The journey out of care and towards independent living is a challenge for many care-leavers. There has been little research into the social processes involved in this care-leaving journey. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory investigation into the care-leaving journeys of nine young men who had, several years previously, been in the care of Girls & Boys Town in South Africa. Working from a resilience perspective, with an ecological emphasis, four central social processes emerged that together explain the care-leaving experiences of the participants. These processes are striving for authentic belonging; networking people for goal attainment; contextualised responsiveness and building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. These four processes are located within contextual boundaries and at the social environmental interface. The paper presents these processes in detail, drawing on selected narratives of the participants and integrated with additional theory. It is hoped that this paper may contribute to theory building concerning care-leaving processes and enhance youth care practices for youth in care and leaving care.     

The sociological landscape of youth confinement

This article examines key sociological questions that are raised by the confinement of children and young people. Globally, there are approximately one million children held in confinement, and there is an emerging body of qualitative sociological research in this area. This article examines the role that social constructions of childhood innocence and evil play in shaping the processes of protection and removal, and how these constructions play a role in mediating state strategies of punishment and rehabilitation. The article also draws from an emerging body of qualitative sociological research to examine the role of youth confinement institutions in socializing vulnerable young people.     

Implementing an Ally Development Model to Promote Safer Schools for LGB Youth: A Trans-Disciplinary Approach

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students experience ongoing bullying, harassment, and lack of safety in school. Specialized instructional support personnel (SISPs), such as school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists, are in a unique position to advocate for LGB students and to implement an ally development model. The purpose of this article is to describe the current climate for LGB students, to discuss the current barriers facing SISPs in advocating for change, and to provide a model of ally development for use at each level of the K–12 system.     

网络时代青年参与社会治理:价值、困境与对策

在互联网对社会的渗透日益深入且全面的今天，青年通过网络参与社会治理已经成为时代趋势。在新冠肺炎疫情的防控治理过程中，青年借助网络工具自发组织起来，积极参与社会治理，实现了从以前在官方组织引导下通过传统途径参与到主动运用互联网平台自发组织参与的创新。当前，青年在参与社会治理的过程中，还存在着专项管理缺失、社会信任度不高、发展性供给保障不足等问题。伴随网络时代的进一步发展，为了更好地发挥青年在社会治理中的作用，激发青年参与社会治理的积极性，需要从完善专项管理、转变观念态度、增强资源供给三个方面寻求破困之道，从而助力社会治理模式创新，提升国家治理效能。     

‘All Those Stories,All Those Stories’: How Do Bosnian Former Child Refugees Maintain Connections to Bosnia and Community Groups in Australia?

Abstract

This article draws on oral histories from my PhD research to explore how six teenagers, now adults, remember their arrivals in Australia as child refugees from Bosnia. It examines their relationships with other people from Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia, including community groups, and how these relationships have changed over time. In examining these narratives, issues of intergenerational differences are highlighted, with interviewees positioning their experiences in relation to both their parents and their second-generation peers. Finally, it explores how former refugees maintain their relationships with family and friends in Bosnia, suggesting that these transnational connections provide them with as much familiarity and comfort as they do feelings of alienation.     

习近平关于青年工作重要论述的科学指引与实践要求

习近平关于青年工作重要论述既是对马克思主义青年观一脉相承的理论发展，也是结合中华民族优秀传统文化和中国青年工作的特点所形成的实践创新。通过习近平关于青年工作重要论述理论来源和基本内涵提供的科学指引，从历史维度明确了强化青年时代责任的要求是增强对中国道路、中国理论和中国制度的认同感和责任感，与时代同向同行；从现实维度明确了提升社会适应能力的要求是构建全员全程全方位的育人格局，增强意识形态建设；从青年成长个人维度明确了完善综合素质的要求是在对青年特性和社会地位正确认识的基础上激发其奋斗热情。由此形成进一步发展青年事业的实践路径，即通过筑牢意识形态防线，增强新时代青年的使命担当；优化青年人才培养和选拔模式，提高青年适应社会发展的能力；提升青年综合素质，实现人的全面发展。     

Building home on a fault line: Aging out of child welfare with a serious mental health diagnosis

Youth aging out of foster care are at high risk for homelessness. This research explains how and why homelessness occurs among youth with serious mental health struggles after aging out of residential and transitional living programmes. Using a longitudinal constructivist grounded theory design, we analyse 20 in‐depth interviews exploring youth's transition experiences and perceptions of transition success within 4 months of emancipation and at 6 and 12 months postemancipation. Monthly 15‐min check‐ins prevented attrition. A three‐phase transition process was observed driven by participant desires and actions to cultivate psychological home through establishing physical home alone away from social networks. Pre‐emancipation, the promise of home was privacy and opportunity for self‐redefinition. Shortly after emancipation, home became a physical and social space to be, a valuable resource to share and a demonstration of personal transition success. However, later in the year postemancipation, maintaining physical home proves nearly impossible given the risk context. Findings speak to how and why youth aging out appear overly self‐reliant upon emancipation. Cultivating a psychological sense of home has practice implications for child welfare providers who aim to prepare youth to live independently postemancipation.     

Rethinking mediated political engagement: social media ambivalence and disconnective practices of politically active youths in Hong Kong

Social media have been widely credited for facilitating young people’s political engagement, most notably by providing a conducive platform for political expression. There has been comparatively little attention, however, to the possible pitfalls for young people when they engage in politics on social media. In this study, we seek to redress the overemphasis on the strengths and connectivity of social media by attending to how young people negotiate their drawbacks and disconnectivity. Through in-depth interviews with young participants of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, we examine the choices and motives regarding mediated (non-)participation among a group of politically active youths. Our findings revealed that these young people’s social media ambivalence emerged from the major participatory experience. Despite their active and open informational sharing and political expression on social media alongside their in-person participation during the eventful protest, many young participants became wary of such expressive use owing to their perceptions of de-energization, disconnectedness, and disembodiment. Instead of completely withdrawing from political activities on social media, these politically inclined and technologically savvy youths embraced “disconnective practices” – passive engagement (lurking), selective expression (moderation and exposure-limitation), and offline participation (embodied collective action) – to avoid the overwhelming, fractious, and inauthentic conditions of mediated participation.