Out-of school youth in high-unemployment areas: An empirical investigation

A total of 551 interviews were conducted with 16-20 year olds living in high unemployment areas in Liverpool, London, Manchester and Wolverhampton. The diverse ways in which the young unemployed react to their predicaments are described, and explanations are offered for why black youth tend to be less acquiescent than whites. Overall, however, the analysis emphasises the ability of the young people at greatest risk of unemployment to devise their own coping strategies. Counsellors and other careers workers are advised to take these into account: otherwise their efforts are likely to be discounted by their clients.     

EMPLOYMENT SERVICES FOR YOUTH

Youth unemployment has remained a social and economic problem for over a quarter of a century. Experience in the U.S. Employment Service and in schools and other agencies in the community indicates that special advocates, i.e., youth employment specialists, are needed to work with youth and employers if young people are to get their full share of the job opportunities and are to achieve maximum utilization of their talents as new entrants into the labor market.     

Hard times and European youth. The effect of economic insecurity on human values,social attitudes and well‐being

While economic downturns have adverse effects on young people's life chances, empirical studies examining whether and to what extent human values, social attitudes and well‐being indicators respond to sudden economic shocks are scarce. To assess the claim that human values are less affected by economic shocks than social attitudes and well‐being, two distinct yet related studies based on the European Social Survey (ESS) are conducted. The first employs a fixed effects pseudo‐panel analysis of the 2008–2014 ESS‐waves to detect whether changes over time in the socio‐demographic group's unemployment risk and national youth unemployment affect individual dispositions to varying degrees. The second study captures micro‐ and cross‐national effects in the 2010 ESS cross‐section. Unique for this set‐up is that we can test whether the findings hold for over‐time changes in youth unemployment within countries (pseudo‐panel), as well as for cross‐country differences in youth unemployment (multilevel). Both studies indicate that political trust, satisfaction with the economy and subjective well‐being are lowered by economic risk and hardship, while social trust and self‐rated health are less affected by changes in youth unemployment. Secondly, human values are immune to economic risk, underscoring that values transcend specific situations and are therefore resistant against sudden economic shocks.     

Staying on Track in School: Religious Influences in High- and Low-Risk Settings

Religious communities are known to instill standards of achievement in their young people, but this observation may not apply as well to disadvantaged youth and their culture. In this study, we explore whether religious involvement enables youth in low-income neighborhoods to stay on track in school, rather than falling behind. Using data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that adolescents in low-income neighborhoods do not differ in their church attendance patterns from their peers in higher-income areas. However, their religious involvement is more likely to contribute to their academic progress than it is among youth in higher-income neighborhoods, even with adjustments for key risk and protective factors. This cross-level interaction involving youth church attendance shows a consistent relationship with several other measures of neighborhood disadvantage. We explore explanations for church attendance's uniquely positive effect in impoverished neighborhoods and its broader implications.     

Explaining the Psychological Effects of Unemployment for Young People: The Importance of Specific Situational Factors

Evidence of the effects of duration of unemployment and gender upon the psychological response to unemployment is reviewed. It is suggested that many of the apparent contradictions in this evidence can be resolved by reference to situational factors which shape how stressful unemployment is for a particular individual. The study reported tested the effects of a stressful period of unemployment on the psychological well-being, self-esteem and life-satisfaction of young people. No sex differences in response to unemployment were found, and this is explained in terms of the similarity of their experiences. The relevance of these findings for counselling the unemployed is discussed.     

Family problems and youth unemployment

This study attempted to determine the extent to which family and personal characteristics relate to the employment situation of adolescents. Data were drawn from the Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development (USAD), which investigated, longitudinally, a national sample of Dutch youths aged 12 to 24 years in 1991. Specifically, two waves of a sample of 955 non-school-going respondents between 18 and 27 years old were analyzed. Parental divorce, parental unemployment (only for males), low parental affective involvement, and adolescent relationship problems were related to youth unemployment, but educational career and work commitment were not. For males, parental unemployment demonstrated the strongest correlation with youth unemployment. For females, only variables in the relational domain played a role in explaining unemployment; relationship variables were also important predictors of male unemployment. The results suggest that the family factors included in this study are better predictors of youth unemployment than are the classic individual (personal) variables.     

Shifting the Relationship Education Field to Prioritize Youth Relationship Education

The field of couple and relationship education is dominated by a focus on helping committed couples strengthen their relationship. This article reviews several lines of research to argue that the field should give greater priority to youth relationship education—individually oriented relationship literacy education for adolescents and young adults. Serious problems are common in adolescent and young adult romantic relationships and increasing numbers of youth follow paths from adolescence to marriage that make it harder for them to form and sustain a healthy marriage. Early evidence on the effectiveness of individually oriented youth relationship education provides some reason for optimism. The article concludes by exploring implications of this proposed shift in the field for practice and policy.     

Long-Term Unemployment Among Young People: The Risk of Social Exclusion

The European Union considers long-term unemployment among youth an impediment to their full integration into society. The Commission of the European Union has, therefore, supported research into the mechanisms by which youth unemployment leads to social exclusion. This paper provides a brief summary of the project's findings. These imply that theories and previous research concerning social exclusion and social support can help explain the effects of youth unemployment although the phenomena vary from country to country. Results also suggest that the construct of social exclusion leads to interventions that reduce the personal and societal costs of youth unemployment.     

Respecting religion in youth music subcultures: inclusivity,individuality and conflict avoidance strategy

Drawing on fieldwork with young Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians involved in the secular punk rock subculture, this article examines strategies for building respectful relationships between religious and irreligious young people in youth music subcultures. Although punk rock developed as a secular and often anti-religious youth subculture, and although a thriving Evangelical subculture has developed with its own popular music scenes at odds with secular values, a significant number of young Christians have become active participants in punk. Arguing for the importance of musical and subcultural identities among contemporary youth, this article analyses examples of creative inclusivity and respectful relationships across religious boundaries, as well as examples of conflicts over spiritual values. Outlining strategies for building religious inclusivity and resolving religious conflict in youth subcultures, it is shown that where young people’s creative capacities and individual autonomy are respected and enabled by subcultural peers and secular or religious youth workers and institutions, strongly held religious views can still be welcomed within even strongly secular youth subcultures.     

What We Know and Where We Go from here: A Review of Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Youth Hookup Literature

In this paper, we acknowledge and critique the absence of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) experiences in the recent proliferation of scholarship on “hooking up” among youth (aged 16 to 24). Although previous research has documented that LGB youth hookup at high rates (up to three-quarters of LGB youth), and oftentimes more than heterosexuals, the most basic aspects of hookups (e.g., motivations, experiences, and outcomes) have not been comprehensively explored. This is pertinent because young adulthood, in particular, is a time when young people explore their sexuality. Most scholarship on hooking up has focused on White heterosexual college students, mostly due to sampling constraints and impediments, and so we are left with a critical gap in our knowledge about LGB youth—a population that is typically at higher risk for sexual, mental, and emotional health issues. We begin by reviewing the literature on hooking up among heterosexual young adults as organized by four themes: hookup definitions/frequencies, contexts, motivations, and outcomes. We do this to explicitly highlight and contrast what little is known about LGB youth hookups. We then provide a research agenda that projects how future researchers can advance this area of scholarship and begin to fill its gaps, while considering the hookup experiences of diverse LGB youth.     

Taking stock of youth organizing: an interdisciplinary perspective

Youth organizing combines elements of community organizing, with its emphasis on ordinary people working collectively to advance shared interests, and positive youth development, with its emphasis on asset-based approaches to working with young people. It is expanding from an innovative, but marginal approach to youth and community development into a more widely recognized model for practice among nonprofit organizations and foundations. Along the way, it has garnered attention from researchers interested in civic engagement, social movements, and resiliency. A growing body of published work evidences the increasing interest of researchers, who have applied an assortment of theoretical perspectives to their observations of youth organizing processes. Through an appraisal of the current state of this still-emerging area of practice and research, including case examples, the authors identify common elements of the practice of youth organizing--relationship development, popular education, social action, and participatory research and evaluation--and conclude with a discussion of promising future directions for research and practice.     

Youth, family and employment

Some of the functions and dysfunctions of youth employment in contemporary society are discussed. The focus then shifts to a third variable: family dynamics. The research indicates that youth unemployment prolongs residence with parents. The younger the youth, the more tolerant are the parents of the unemployment. It was also found that a daughter's lack of employment in the summer months is more acceptable than a son's; that debts are part of the lifestyle of youth after age 18; that males incur more debts than do females; and that parents are the major source of financial loans.     

(Dis)comfort in the city: How young travellers in London negotiate mobility within the city

Conflicting claims are made about the extent to which Travellers in Britain remain outsiders in urban society (McGarry 2017; Sibley 1981). This paper sheds light on this question by addressing a neglected aspect of Traveller mobility, namely the day-to-day traversing of urban spaces beyond their (typically segregated) trailer sites. Focusing on public transport, it draws on eighteen months of ethnographic research with young people from Traveller backgrounds from a London-based youth group to understand the nature of the encounters they have as they go out and about in the city. The paper is interested in the place of affect in these encounters, and more generally, affect's role in shaping – or failing to shape – young Travellers' behaviour. The paper considers discomfort experienced through the mobility of young Travellers; it argues that young Travellers are encouraged by their elders to discipline and regulate emotional responses in encounters with non-Travellers and that this constitutes evidence of their continuing outsider status.     

Protected or Unprotected Sex: The Conceptions and Attitudes of the Youth in Bolgatanga Municipality,Ghana

The youth in Bolgatanga municipality in Ghana have relatively less knowledge of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) compared to the youth in other parts of Ghana. More fundamental knowledge is needed of the factors that influence young people to have protected and unprotected sex in specific social and cultural contexts, in order to protect them from adverse consequences, such as sexually transmitted diseases (STIs), HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies. This study therefore analyzed the conceptions and attitudes of the youth toward protected and unprotected sex, and particularly condom use, in Bolgatanga municipality. Semi-structured and focus group interviews were held with 71 young males and females and 17 adults. The results indicated that many of them lack a comprehensive knowledge of STIs, contraceptives and pregnancy, while a group of them had a negative attitude towards contraceptives. Not all parents, schools and organisations provide young people with a comprehensive education about SRH, and some even discourage such education because they believe it would encourage young people to have sex before marriage. In addition, young people also inform each other about SRH issues, sharing stories and personal experiences with their peers. The information they exchange is not always correct, however; sometimes it merely reflects their own personal preferences. The unequal power in the sexual relationships of young people—related to the traditional value system that gives men, but not women, “sexual freedom, both in and outside marriage”—is another determining factor for unprotected sex.     

Religion as capital: Christianity in the lives of Anglo-Indian youth in India

Religion is an important marker of identity for India’s Anglo-Indians. It distinguishes them within the principally non-Christian context and is integral to socializing youth to their distinct Anglo-Indian culture and heritage. This can be observed in Anglo-Indian practice—attending Christian schools, church-going, celebrating religious festivals, making pilgrimages—which forms a significant part of a matrix through which young Anglo-Indians learn how to perform their Anglo-Indianness. Our recent research (2013–2014) looked at the role of religion in the lives of Anglo-Indians intergenerationally and transnationally, through a survey, interviews, and participant observation. The results suggest that the performed religiosity of Anglo-Indian youth in India yields certain benefits for this group. It constitutes a capital which has the potential to make an enormous difference to their lives—socially, culturally, and otherwise. For example, Christian practice provides them with access to élite Christian educational institutions and the career possibilities that follow from such education. This article describes our research, focusing upon the findings related to Anglo-Indian youth in India. In particular, it argues that in various ways, the practice of Christianity both acts and is recognized by young Anglo-Indians as a source of capital in their lives, which is not to say that religion is practised for the purpose of acquiring capital. Rather, religious practice is a part of being Anglo-Indian that in India accrues capital.     

'It's who you know, not what you know!': Penetrating the credentialling ideology

The kinds of messages teachers give students regarding the value of credentials in the job-getting package during a period of high youth unemployment are explored. The response made by students to the credentialling ideology promoted in schools, and their construction of the job-getting formula, are also described. The validity of the two versions of job-getting strategies is considered in the light of evidence provided by a number of empirical research projects. The superiority of student knowledge in this area is used to present a case for a critical and democratic education which appropriates and legitimises the student voice.     

A review of the literature on Pacific Island youth offending in New Zealand

This review examines the current literature on Pacific youth offending in New Zealand. Pacific Island youth offenders are over-represented in the rates of violent offenses, despite not being overly represented in youth offending statistics. A major concern is that the Pacific population has the largest percentage of children and young people under 15 years old in New Zealand. Therefore, this is an issue to be faced by Pacific and wider communities in New Zealand. We focus on risk factors of offending, and its current impacts on Pacific Island youth in New Zealand. A literature review was conducted to explore some of the risk factors for offending looking at New Zealand studies and government reports. This was followed by a review of overseas literature regarding Pacific youths and their offending behavior. Following this, ethnic minorities were included in the literature review from New Zealand and international perspectives. Expectedly, results in this area are sparse. However, a number of efforts have been made to address this gap in the literature which this review included. The findings in this review make future recommendations for Pacific youth with offending behavior. These include that ethnicity should be taken into account when addressing research on youth offenders; data relating to the youth offender such as social and demographic history should also be considered for a more collaborative approach to researching and understanding this population; and more targeted studies towards this population are needed to improve the overall health of the Pacific Island population in New Zealand and overseas. Finally, existing programs and interventions currently in place for our Pacific youths with offending behavior needs to be evaluated to ensure it continues to meet the dynamic needs of our Pacific youth population.     

Youth mentoring: The American Dream comes to the UK?

This paper examines the ways in which the North American experience has influenced youth mentoring programmes in the UK and focuses on the theoretical assumptions about young people which have underpinned mentoring interventions. A more critical approach to this North American 'legacy' is required if the value of this form of intervention is to be accurately assessed. The paper argues that an over-reliance by mentoring interventions on developmental paradigms has curtailed their capacity to take account of the wider social context in which young people are making their transitions to adulthood. It is suggested that alternative theoretical frameworks which address the complexity and multiplicity of youth transitions hold more promise for understanding and theorising the role of mentoring in the UK setting. A recent Scottish study of informal mentoring processes attempted to open up these theoretical possibilities by using a framework which recognised young people as active participants and agents. This study revealed that a range of models of mentoring may be in place within informal mentoring relationships. The paper argues that findings from this study demonstrated a need for a more critical approach to the 'classic notion' of mentoring as exclusively a one to one relationship between an adult and a young person. Since mentoring is now a highly popular form of intervention with 'socially excluded' young people these questions about the theoretical base for the concept require urgent attention.