Understanding Youth: Perspectives, Identities & Practices

The lives of young people in the UK, as elsewhere in the world, have changed in dramatic ways in recent years. Important changes have taken place in the social structures and processes shaping young people’s lives, including changes in schooling and in higher education, the loss of the traditional youth labor market, and shifts in the nature of family and intimate relationships.

Understanding Youth: Perspectives, Identities and Practices addresses the changing context and nature of youth, encouraging readers to understand different conceptualizations of youth, issues of identity and the key social practices that give shape to young people’s lives in the contemporary period.

Key Features:

• Introduces the key perspectives, identities, and practices involved in understanding youth
• Offers a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to young people’s lives
• Draws upon rich biographical case studies of young people, emphasizing young people’s own voices
• Provides a comprehensive overview of youth in the late modernity
• Presents a clear and accessible approach to complex issues

This invaluable book will be essential reading for students and practitioners concerned with youth and youth work, and of particular relevance for undergraduate courses across a range of social science and education disciplines focusing on youth in changing times.