Using allegory to think about youth work in rich countries that fail some young people

This article explores the opportunities afforded by Ursula Le Guin’s allegory ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ for thinking about the role of youth work in modern cities and societies that are deemed to be successful but at the same time fail some young people. Using Melbourne and Australia as examples and following Le Guin the case is made that the prosperity of ‘liveable’ cities and ‘lucky’ countries coincides with the neglect and mistreatment of some young people. The same cultural, economic and political practices and processes that produce the beauty and abundance also produce the inequalities and hardships, and these include policies inspired by neoliberalism, processes of individualisation, and utilitarianism. Unlike the ones who walk away from Omelas youth workers can stay and fight adversity and injustice, however alleviating problems young people experience is more complex than it is often thought to be. One reason this is the case is because youth work is entangled with the same range of ethical, emotional, intellectual, political, and economic circumstances that generate thriving places and disadvantaged young lives, and inadvertently youth workers can reproduce the challenging and limiting conditions faced by some young people.     

Development of Ethnic Identity in Young Adults from Immigrant Families: “I Want to Hold Onto My Roots,but I Also Want to Experience New Routes”

This article explores ethnic identity development among young adults from immigrant families from diverse countries of origin. Based on in-depth interviews with young women and men, the authors examined the formation of ethnic identity through childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood. Analysis of the participants’ narratives revealed that, compared with fluent bilinguals, limited bilinguals reported weaker connections to their heritage culture. Most participants progressed through the model of ethnic identity formation, which was influenced by their family socialization and community context, and reported integrated or bicultural ethnic identities. Practitioners may use the experiences shared by our participants to inform their work with second-generation immigrant youth in varying stages of ethnic identity development.     

How Runaway and Homeless Youth Navigate Troubled Waters: The Role of Formal and Informal Helpers

Most adolescents navigate the transition from adolescence to young adulthood with relative success. However, runaway and homeless youth experience formidable obstacles in their paths and engage in dangerous behaviors that threaten their well being and long-term prospects. This study is part of a larger exploratory research effort aimed at understanding how runaway and homeless adolescents navigate the troubled waters of their adolescence to make successful developmental transitions into young adulthood. The focus of this paper is to report findings related to the formal and informal helping resources that enable runaway and homeless youth to resolve difficulties, deal with hazards, and achieve some level of self-defined success in young adulthood. This study utilized a qualitative research design, and the primary data collection method was in-depth interviews with 12 formerly runaway and homeless young people. The constant comparative method was used to analyze the data. Evidence emerged regarding who provided help, the types of help provided, conditions that facilitated acceptance of help, and advice to helping professionals. The findings illustrate the experiences youth had with helpers that they found valuable and experiences they perceived as detrimental.     

Young women in a male periphery — Experiences from the Scandinavian north

This paper deals with the migration of young women from rural areas in northern Scandinavia. The way from adolescence to adulthood is discussed and the notion of a male periphery is presented. An attempt is made to shift focus in studies of rural youth migration. The emphasis here is on the socially constructed space that the young women leave. Is one reason behind the rural migration pattern to be found in the male periphery? The periphery is dominated by male economic and leisure activities. Women in the rural areas are less visible, and their activities are not as valued as the male activities. Young men tend to follow in the footstep of their fathers, while young rural women break with the mothers on their life paths. There are few modern role models for the daughters in the periphery. A study of young women and men in Troms county in northern Norway is used to illustrate the women's paths from adolescence to adult life. Young women in rural Troms do, to a much larger extent than the young rural men, take higher education. They have ambitions of highly qualified jobs, either in towns or in their home localities. The young rural women break new ground by continuing in higher education. The young men run the risk of being left behind as losers.     

青年压力来源与社会支持系统优化策略

现代社会给青年提供了前所未有的发展机遇,也使青年承受着超出以往任何时代的生存压力．2011年,对山东城市在业青年进行的社会心态调查显示：当前青年的压力主要来自经济压力、工作压力、子女教育压力三个方面。研究表明：传统的家庭支持系统是青年应对经济压力和人生重大选择的主要支持力量,非正式社会支持系统和家庭共同构成青年情感支持的主要力量,正式的社会支持系统对青年的支持作用尚未得到充分发挥。建立相对完备的社会支持系统,需要从社会保障、组织覆盖、舆论影响、心理疏导等方面提升优化。     

Adolescent Transitions to Young Adulthood: Antecedents,Correlates, and Consequences of Adolescent Employment

The antecedents, correlates, and consequences of adolescent employment were investigated in a sample of 251 low‐income, African American youth that were followed since birth. The youth (age: M at preschool = 4.89, SD= .70; M at adolescence = 16.44, SD= .66; M at transition to adulthood = 19.36, SD= .76; and M at early adulthood = 27.67, SD= .75) were the firstborn children of African American teenage mothers who gave birth in Baltimore in the 1960s. Analyses examined the antecedents and correlates of age of entry into employment and stability of employment during adolescence. The associations of adolescent work experiences with subsequent adult education and employment outcomes also were considered. Findings indicate that among this sample of low‐income, African American youth, those who repeated a grade in school during middle childhood were more likely to enter the workforce at later ages than their peers who did not repeat a grade. The small subset of adolescents who never worked (n= 12) appear to be markedly more disadvantaged than their peers who worked. At the transition to adulthood, adolescents who entered the workforce earlier were more likely to complete high school than their peers. In addition, stable employment during the adolescent years had more beneficial effects on young men's chances of attending college than young women's postsecondary education. This pattern of findings is consistent with ethnographic accounts of adolescent employment among poor, minority, urban youth.     

Private and public experience captured: young women capture their everyday lives and dreams through photo-narratives

Recent studies about young people suggest a need to change the way researchers and policy-makers have traditionally understood the concepts of youth, transitions to adulthood, educational participation and the need for young people's voice to be heard. For many young women the taken-for-granted features of everyday life such as family, social, education and paid work are the priorities in their lives. Yet those priorities are frequently masked in large-scale studies, resulting in homogenising the diversity of young people's experiences and abstracting educational engagement from other parts of their lives. The study reported in this paper approaches the issue of young women's construction and defining of their identities in interaction with the broad institutional milieu that is part of their everyday experiences. This approach seeks to understand this lived experience through the use of photo-narratives. The paper explores a rationale for this approach in methodological and ethical terms. It allows for an exploration of the complexity of young women's multiple identities and the changing nature of young people's engagement with post-compulsory senior secondary education.     

The potential educational benefits of extending foster care to young adults: Findings from a natural experiment

Research has demonstrated the employment and earnings benefits accompanying educational attainment, and the relatively poor educational attainment and economic well-being of young people who transition to adulthood from foster care. Policymakers' concern over these poor outcomes has long been reflected in U.S. child welfare policy, most recently in the provisions of the 2008 Fostering Connections to Success Act allowing states to claim federal reimbursement for extending foster care from age 18 to age 21. While the policy of allowing youth to remain in foster care past age 18 has promise as a strategy for helping them continue their education, empirical evidence of its impact is lacking. Using data from a longitudinal study of youth (n = 732) who transitioned to adulthood from foster care, this study takes advantage of between-state policy variation in the age at which youth are required to leave care to assess the relationship between extended foster care and educational attainment at age 26. Distinguishing between not having obtained a high school diploma or GED, having only a high school diploma or GED, and having obtained at least one year of college, each additional year in care is associated with a 46% increase in the estimated odds that former foster youth will progress to the next level of educational attainment, controlling for a range of youth characteristics measured at ages 17–18. Background characteristics including youth's gender, race, employment, parenting, educational performance and aspirations, and indicators of behavioral health problems are also associated with educational attainment in early adulthood.     

Youth transitions and interdependent adult–child relations in rural Bolivia

There are few studies which document youth transitions from school to work in rural areas of the majority world. This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork in a rural community in Bolivia, considers how young people make decisions about different types of school-to-work transitions which include migrating to continue their formal education, working in the community, or seeking migrant work in the regional town or in neighbouring Argentina. The paper explores how young people negotiate structural constraints over their choice of transition, including the rural location, economic resources, parental attitudes and family background, gender, birth order, social networks and role models. Importantly the paper highlights that underlying young people's choice of transition are interdependent household relations. In the majority world, in this case in Bolivia, rural young people may achieve economic independence sooner than those in the minority world, but long-term family interdependence tends to be maintained throughout the life-course. This paper suggests that the notion of negotiated interdependence is a more appropriate way to understand youth transitions and relations between young people and adults in rural areas of the majority world.     

Supporting a strong sense of purpose: lessons from a rural community

Many rural youth leave their small home towns, at least temporarily, to pursue education and work opportunities after high school. A strong sense of purpose will likely help these young people navigate their transition to adulthood away from the comforts of home. A case study of high school students in a remote rural county in the Pacific Northwest using survey and ethnographic data showed that traditional out-of-school activities (for example, sports, theater, band, Future Farmers of America) and community-based activities (for example, community symphony, community classes, community events), along with work experiences, were all important for developing a strong sense of purpose. The case study points to the important role small rural schools can play in supporting youth and connecting them to activities that foster a strong sense of purpose. In addition, this article discusses the importance of paying attention to the development of a sense of purpose alongside traditional measures of academic achievement and social competence.     

‘If you want to have a future and a life,do an apprenticeship’: the expectations and realities of tradesmen’s transition to adulthood

ABSTRACT

Apprenticeship programs are promoted to facilitate youth’s transition from school-to-work, especially for those who might not otherwise attend postsecondary education. These programs may help youth achieve other markers of adulthood earlier. In this paper, we draw on qualitative interviews with Canadian young men in the skilled trades to explore whether they believe their educational choices have given them an advantage in their transition to adulthood. We also draw from the 2011 GSS, a nationally representative survey, and Cox modeling to examine three early adult transitions – home-leaving, first union, and first marriage – to determine if apprenticeship programs facilitate earlier transitions compared to other educational streams. Our respondents expressed that they transitioned to adulthood more quickly than their peers, due to early employment and avoiding student debt, however, many also had trouble finding stable employment and often took on debt related to their training. Using nationally representative data, we find tradesmen tend to leave home earlier than their peers, they form first unions at younger ages but marry slightly later than their more highly educated counterparts. Our results contribute to our understanding of how apprenticeship programs in Canada facilitate transitions to adulthood among a recent cohort of young men.     

The Influence of Parental Financial Socialization on Youth’s Financial Behavior: Evidence from Ghana

How youth manage their money may influence their transitions to adulthood. This may be particularly true for youth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where many youth and young adults lack access to economic opportunities. Parental financial socialization is associated with youth financial knowledge, attitudes, and behavior in research studies conducted mostly in the US, yet little is known about the financial lives of youth living in SSA. Propensity score analysis and robust standard errors with multiple regression were used to examine the relationship between parental financial socialization and youth financial behaviors among a sample of 3,623 youth ages 12–19 and a parent or other adult guardian living in eight out of 10 regions of Ghana. Findings indicated that both parent- and youth-perceived parental financial socialization was a strong and consistent predictor of youth financial behaviors, as was receipt of earned income. Practitioners interested in empowering youth through financial education and inclusion programs might consider how to involve parents and other family members in programs and capitalize on opportunities for youth to have some earned income while they learn how to manage money.     

An empirical test of a model of academic expectations among youth in residential care

In the last decade accumulating evidence across many countries points to the poor educational outcomes of youth formerly placed in care and their under-representation in higher education. Academic expectations in late adolescence are considered a key marker for educational attainments in young adulthood. Although these expectations were studied extensively, they have seldom been examined among youth in substitute care. The goal of the present research was to develop and test a model to predict academic expectations of Israeli adolescents placed in residential facilities. The study sample consisted of 1360 adolescents from 34 youth villages who responded to self-report questionnaires tapping their academic expectations, current academic achievements and various aspects of their family, school and facility's environment, expected to be associated with their academic expectations.Structural equation modeling indicated that parents' level of education was indirectly related to youths' expectations, an association mediated by youth's current academic achievements and parents' aspirations for their children's educational success. Higher levels of teacher and staff support were also found to contribute to higher academic expectations; however, whereas teacher support effects were mediated by youth achievements, staff support was found to have direct, as well as moderating effects, on achievement-expectations relationship.The findings suggest the importance of an integrative approach in the efforts to promote educational expectations among adolescents in residential facilities. Such an approach, encompassing the multiple adult functions responsible for youth development within such settings, could be an important step in enhancing the chances for future academic success of this vulnerable group.     

EU-Mediterranean youths in the crisis: substitution vs. income effect

The economic crisis that erupted in 2008 has had particularly adverse effects on the youth labour market outcomes in the European Union Mediterranean economies. So far little evidence is available on the reaction of the young to the adverse conditions their household members faced due to the crisis. Youths could have decided to prolong or stay in education instead of participating on the labour market (substitution effect) or they could have decided to increase their participation (income effect). By using the EU Labour Force Survey data, we explore the probability of young adults changing their labour market status from (i) inactivity to employment, (ii) inactivity to unemployment, (iii) employment to education, and (iv) unemployment to education in response to labour market outcome changes in their households: (i) both parents losing the job; (ii) one of the parents losing the job, (iii) both parents becoming inactive, (iv) one of the parents becoming inactive, and (v) both parents remaining unemployed. Estimated probit models include seven EU Mediterranean countries during the 2006–2015 period. Results support both income and substitution effect, without clear identification of the dominance of one effect over the other.     

Why youth leave care: Understandings of adulthood and transition successes and challenges among youth aging out of child welfare

Child welfare policies and practices are changing to allow more youth to remain in care beyond age 18. Yet, the majority of youth do not stay. Given recent evidence suggesting that remaining in care may be beneficial, there is a need to understand why youth leave. Using data gathered from in-depth interviews with young people aging out of care, this paper explores this question, relating it to youths' understandings of adulthood and the successes and challenges they face during their transitions. We find that youth leave care because of misunderstanding and misinformation about the requirements for remaining in care, as well as because of a desire for autonomy and independence. Specifically, many youth equated adulthood with independence, and thus felt that they needed to leave care to achieve adulthood. Unfortunately, these efforts to be independent often hinder youths' development of supportive relationships, which they reported to be one of the greatest challenges in their transitions. Based on these findings, we conclude by challenging the conflation of adulthood and independence, as well as of childhood and dependence, calling for connected autonomy as a goal for child welfare involved young people of all ages.     

Diasporic youth culture of K-pop

This study examines how diasporic Korean youth engage with the recent global circulation of South Korean pop music (‘K-pop’). It explores how young diasporic Koreans negotiate K-pop as an ethnic and/or global cultural form in their transition to adulthood. Drawing on interviews with young people of Korean heritage in Canada, the study addresses how a diasporic sound, which connects the nostalgia for the ancestral homeland and the global mediascape, is appropriated for young people’s identity work. By examining diasporic Korean fans’ consumption of K-pop, this study suggests a perspective for understanding the recent K-pop phenomenon as a diasporic youth cultural practice.     

The Role of Social Support in the Transition From Foster Care to Emerging Adulthood

Many youth leave foster care with disrupted relationships with their family and others in their social networks. Previous research has documented the severe adversity that former foster youth face in the transition to young adulthood. Perhaps some difficulties are at least partially related to a lack of social support that results from frayed relationships. This article reviews the literature on social support, particularly as it relates to foster youth, for the purpose of examining the role that formal and informal supports play in the transition to adulthood. The implications of this literature for successful transitions for former foster youth are discussed, as well as ways child welfare workers can engage youth and their families, and help them develop supportive social networks.     

Exploring youths' perceptions of the hidden practice of youth work in increasing social capital with young people considered NEET in Scotland

This small-scale research explores the generation of social capital in young people growing up in one urban area and one rural area in Scotland via community-led youth work projects that aim to re-engage young people categorised as NEET (Not in Employment Education or Training). By looking at their varied and complex biographies, it considers young people's experiences and perceptions of their communities and their transitions from education to the workplace. Using social capital as a theoretical lens, we examined the impact that youth work can have not just on these important transitions but also upon the young people themselves. By visiting two different sites of engagement we were able to explore whether the type of initiative (media or sports) or place (urban or rural) had an impact on the generation of capital for young people. The youth work practice in both areas acted as a glue between the young people and their communities, creating opportunities where the two could be bound together and relationships created. This occurred in both sites regardless of the area or type of initiative and confirmed in this study that youth work acts as a site of capital building.     

Social Inequalities in Youth Volunteerism: A Life-Track Perspective on Danish Youths

Civic participation among today’s youth is a topic of widespread concern for policy-makers, academics, and the publics of Western countries at large. Though scholars have increasingly become aware of deep-rooted social inequalities in access to volunteering in the adult population, differences in opportunity structures that facilitate participation among young people are rarely recognized. In this paper, I put forward a ‘life-track perspective’ on youth volunteerism that highlights crucial within-group differences among youths. I present empirical findings from a unique Danish national survey with multiple waves enriched with national register data. The study sheds light on the changing importance of longstanding dividing lines—gender, social class, and education—in volunteering trends among the young. While young people are seemingly more gender-equal in their volunteering behavior than older cohorts, higher education as a gateway to volunteering is of much greater importance among the young. This educational ‘elitism’ in volunteering has, furthermore, intensified among young people between 2004 and 2012.     

Great Expectations Unmet: The Impact of Adolescent Educational Expectations on Deviant Coping During the Transition to Adulthood

Previous research has shown that during adolescence, holding high expectations of college education serves as a protective factor for delinquency and substance use. Little is known whether the protective factor of college expectations extends into young adulthood, especially among ambitious youth who do not earn a degree. Using longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this research focuses on the longer term effects of adolescent educational expectations on deviant coping. This study finds that failing to realize realistically high expectations of college education during the transition to adulthood increases an individual's likelihood of deviant coping during the transition to adulthood.