This book represents the first attempt to step inside the holiday experience of young British tourists. Using ethnographic methods such as observation, open-ended interviewing and focus groups in San Antonio, Ibiza, this book reveals the ugly truth about 'how' and 'why' young Brits get involved in deviance and risk-taking when they go abroad, exploring vivid accounts of drug use, drug dealing, violence, prostitution, and injury.In contrast to existing knowledge and populist depictions, Briggs argues that the root of these behaviours is not pathological but rather it is more about how this social group have come to self validate what is expected of them in their leisure time and, as a consequence, how their attitudes are subtly guided and endorsed by the commodified social context of resorts which are only interested in making money at their expense. Exploring issues of youth culture, political economy, tourism and identity, this book will appeal to scholars in sociology, criminology, cultural studies, tourism and youth studies.

Teenage parenthood is recognised as a significant disadvantage in western industrialised nations. It has been found to increase the likelihood of poverty and to reinforce inequalities. This book explores, for the first time, the links between welfare state provision and teenage reproductive behaviour across a range of countries with differing welfare regimes. Drawing on both welfare state and feminist literature, as well as on new empirical evidence, the book compares public policy responses to teenage parenthood in each 'family' of welfare regime: Nordic, Liberal and Continental (Western European); analyses the different socio-political contexts in which teenage pregnancy is constructed as a social problem and identifies best practice in Europe and the USA. Countries included in the study are the UK, USA, New Zealand, France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Canadian province of Quebec and Russia. The contributors are all internationally recognised experts in the fields of welfare and/or gender studies. "When children become parents" is important reading for a wide audience of students, policy makers, practitioners and academics in sociology, social policy, social geography, education, psychology, and youth and gender studies.

Although many scholars are convinced of the apparent civic disengagement of youth, others suggest that civic participation of young people is stable and increasingly expressed through non-institutionalized forms of practicing politics. This book makes a key contribution to this discussion by asking whether the "decline or shift" paradigm is sufficient in understanding political participation of the youth. It argues that we need to move beyond this framework and develop a renewed reflection on the meaning of "civic and political engagement". It asks crucial questions such as: How can the young be educated into assuming civic and political responsibility? Why and how do young people engage in social and political action? How do the principal mediating institutions (education, media and the family) contribute to new or different forms of youth civic engagement? This text contains contributions from acknowledged specialists such as Constance Flanagan, Mark Elchardus, Marc Hooghe and Bert Klandermans and will be of key interest to students and scholars of youth and young citizens, civic & political involvement, European politics, youth studies, sociology, political participation and electoral behaviour.

This book focuses on the creation of new educational environment for youth; youth employment; crime and the juvenile system; health system; trends in health policy in the United states and other western democracies; and new environment for the transition of youth to adulthood.

Eighty Thousand Adolescents, originally published in 1950, illustrated by maps, photographs and diagrams, describes and interprets the results of a study of the young people of Birmingham. This study was made by the staff and students of Westhill Training College, under the direction of Bryan Reed, Youth Tutor. Visits were paid to some hundreds of youth organizations, and answers to a series of questions were given by over a thousand young people, both 'attached' and 'unattached'. Some of the questions to which the investigators set out to find answers were: In what kind of homes are young people growing up? How do they earn their living? How many take advantage of opportunities for further education? How do they spend their leisure? - and their pocket money? What do they read? What are their emotional, intellectual, spiritual and social needs? and how far do Education Authorities, Clubs, Churches, etc. meets these needs? In his summing-up Mr. Reed calls attention to the need for imaginative and instructed leadership, for a sense of purpose in the Youth Service, and for the integration of this Service in the wider life of the community. Today it is a fascinating look back at adolescent life in post-war Britain.

aFast Cars, Cool Rides is empirically rich, full of arresting observations and revealing verbatim quotes.a
--"American Journal of Sociology"

"Best shines a fluorescent street light on young people in high octane motion, making meaning and community through their cars. . . . Best's subjects articulate an intricate interplay of class, race, gender, and identity formation; she's given a great American institution its props."
--Donna Gaines, author of "Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids"

"Best's insights and observations should help youth workers and other adults understand this often powerful symbol."
--"Youth Today"

"How pleasantly jarring to be invited to enter Santa Clara Street, to feel the heat of the summer, to smell the alcohol on the breaths of the youth, to hear the bottles breaking on the sidewalk and to, most importantly, be treated to a fine analysis of the experiences of some of these cruisers."
--Daniel Thomas Cook, author of "The Commodification of Childhood: The Children's Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer"

"Has the potential to expand our knowledge about young people's great social power, their contributions to changing culture, and their influence in marketplace decision-making. . . . A compelling and thought-provoking read."
--Debra Van Ausdale, author of "The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism"

aIn Fast Cars, Cool Rides, Amy Best takes the inside lane on how and why young people use their cars as a means of cultural expression. Whether the school parking lot, auto-shop class, or the San Jose cruising scene, and whether the goal is personal freedom, racial solidarity, masculine power, or femininerebelliousness, the car is the vehicle for the job, affording youth the symbolic and material means to solidify their identities within the context of global consumer culture. An intelligent, well-written book on kids and their cars; buckle up and take this ride."
--Laura Grindstaff, author of "The Money Shot: Trash, Class, and the Making of TV Talk Shows"

"Amy Best once again proves herself a most astute observer of youth cultures. This exciting study of diverse American car cultures brims with insight about identity formation, commodification, and the making of diverse modern selves."
--Janice M. Irvine, author of "Talk About Sex: The Battles Over Sex Education in the United States"

"Social observers from Tom Wolfe to George Lucas have seen Californians' car-cruising as emblematic of our larger society and social structure. Amy Best studied the scene in San Jose. In her eyes, young people's actions and attitudes toward cars reveal links among gender, ethnicity, material culture, and contemporary social structure."
--Joel Best, author of "Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists"

Bass booms from custom speakers, pick-up trucks boast lowered suspensions, chrome rims reflect stoplights, and bare arms dangle from open windows. Welcome to Santa Clara Street in San Jose, California, where every weekend kids come to cruise late at night, riding their cars slow and low. On the surrounding, less-traveled streets you can also find young men racing customized cars to see who has the "go," not just the "show." And, in the daylight hours, in a nearby suburb, you might find a brand new SUV parked in the driveway, a parents' Sweet 16present.

In Fast Cars, Cool Rides Amy Best provides a fascinating account of kids and car culture. Encompassing everything from learning to drive to getting one's license, from cruising to customizing, from racing to buying one's first car, Best shows that never before have cars played such an important role in the lives of America's youth as they do today. Drawing on interviews with over 100 young men and women, aged 15-24, and five years of research--cruising hot spots, sitting in on auto shop class, attending car shows--Best explores the fast-paced world of kids and their cars. She reveals a world where cars have incredible significance for kids today, as a means of transportation and thereby freedom to come and go, as status symbols and as a means to express their identities. But while having a fast car or a cool ride can carry tremendous importance for these kids, Best shows that the price, especially when it can cost $30,000, can be steep as working-class kids work jobs to make car payments and as college kids forgo moving out of Mom and Dad's house because they can't pay for rent, car payments, and car insurance.

Fast Cars, Cool Rides offers a rare and rich portrait of the complex and surprising roles cars can play in the lives of young Americans. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a cool ride.

Drawing on case studies from around the world, contributors to this ground-breaking book explore a major contemporary paradox: on the one hand, young people today are at the forefront of political campaigns promoting social rights and ethical ideas that challenge authoritarian orders and elite privileges. On the other hand, too many governments, some claiming to be committed to liberal-democratic values, social inclusion and youth participation are engaged in repressing political activities that contest the status quo. Contributors to this book explore how, especially since 9/11, governments, state agencies and other traditional power holders around the globe have reacted to political dissent authored by young people. While the 'need' to enhance 'youth political participation' is promoted, the cases in this book document how states are using everything from surveillance, summary offences, expulsion from universities, 'gag laws' and 'antiterrorism' legislation, and even imprisonment to repress certain forms of young people's political activism. These responses diminish the public sphere and create civic spaces hostile to political participation by any citizen. This book forms part of The Criminalization of Political Dissent series. It documents and interprets the many ways contemporary governments and agencies now routinely use various techniques to repress and criminalise political dissent.

In an adult-dominated society, teenagers are often shut out of participation in politics. ""We Fight to Win"" offers a compelling account of young people's attempts to get involved in community politics, and documents the battles waged to form youth movements and create social change in schools and neighborhoods. Hava Rachel Gordon compares the struggles and successes of two very different youth movements: a mostly white, middle-class youth activist network in Portland, Oregon, and a working-class network of minority youth in Oakland, California. She examines how these young activists navigate schools, families, community organizations, and the mainstream media, and employ a variety of strategies to make their voices heard on some of today's most pressing issues - war, school funding, the environmental crisis, the prison industrial complex, standardized testing, corporate accountability, and educational reform. ""We Fight to Win"" is one of the first books to focus on adolescence and political action and deftly explore the ways that the politics of youth activism are structured by age inequality as well as race, class, and gender.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Preface.

aComing from multiple disciplinary perspectives and employing diverse methodologies, the contributors emphasize the girlsa and young womenas strength in creating safe spaces with family, friends, and mentors; claiming their sexuality; and developing personal and public resistance strategies. Taken together, the essays are a valuable contribution to the field of gender studies, urban ethnography, and adolescent development, and would appeal to various readers, including activists and undergraduates.a
--"Choice"

aThis new edition of Urban Girls is a rare gem. In fact, you won't find another book that comes even close to offering the range and depth of understanding you'll read in these pages. This is a book about the complexity of urban girlsa lives that situates their struggles, hopes, and dreams in relationships with friends, families, schools, neighborhoods, and community centers. Anyone who wants to have a real conversation about policies and practices that support girlsa strengths and resilience should read and use this book.a
--Lyn Mikel Brown, author of "Girlfighting"

aOffers a significant contribution to the field of gender and adolescent development. Using cutting edge theory and research, it opens windows into the lives of a diverse group of adolescent girls. By emphasizing the social context of these girlsa lives, the contributors illustrate the complex interplay between individuals and the relationships with which they engage and the choices they make.a
--Lauren E. Duncan, Smith College

Urban Girls, published in 1996, was one of the first volumes to showcase the lives of girls growing up in contexts ofurban poverty and sometimes racism and violence. It spoke directly to young women who, often for the first time, were seeing their own stories and those of their friends explained in the materials they were asked to read. The volume has helped to shape the way in which we study girls and understand their development over the past decade.

Urban Girls Revisited explores the diversity of urban adolescent girls' development and the sources of support and resilience that help them to build the foundations of strength that they need as they enter adulthood. Urban girls are frequently marginalized by poverty, ethnic discrimination, and stereotypes suggesting that they have deficits compared to their peers. In fact, urban girls do often "grow up fast," taking on multiple adult roles and responsibilities in contexts of high levels of adversities. Yet a majority of these girls show remarkable strengths in the face of challenges, and their families and communities provide many assets to support their development. This new volume showcases these strengths.

Contributors: Amy Alberts, Natasha Alexander, Murray Anderson, Elizabeth Banister, Cecilia Benoit, Kristen Boelcke-Stennes, Ana Mari Cauce, Elise D. Christiansen, Brianna Coffino, Catherine L. Costigan, Karin Coyle, Anita Davis, Jill Denner, Sumru Erkut, Kenyaatta Etchison, Michelle Fine, Yulika Forman, Emily Genao, Mikael Jansson, Chalene Lechuga, Stacey J. Lee, Richard M. Lerner, Nancy Lopez, Ann S. Masten, Jennifer McCormick, Jennifer Pastor, Erin Phelps, Leslie Prescott, Jean E. Rhodes, Ritch C. Savin-Williams, Anne Shaffer, Renee Spencer, Pamela R. Smith, Carl S. Taylor, Jill McLean Taylor, Virgil A. Taylor, Maria Elena Torre, Allison J.Tracy, Carmen N. Veloria, Martina C. Verba, and Janie Victoria Ward.

Contemporary young people are situated within a complex and disorienting set of social changes that are reshaping how youth is constructed, governed and experienced across the globe. Historically, it has been taken for granted that youth primarily concerns time, especially with regards to personal and social development. In Spaces of Youth, Farrugia shows that the concept of developmental time has become a regulatory framework that is used to govern aspects of globalisation, including the formation of labour forces and the boundaries of liberal citizenship regimes. Interrogating this context, this volume explores the changes in the social organisation of youth within the spatial dimensions of work, citizenship and popular culture in a global context. Thus, Farrugia establishes a new interdisciplinary research agenda into youth and spatiality, including young people from across the global north and the global south, and which situates young people within the key dynamics of contemporary globalisation in its economic, political and cultural dimensions. An enlightening and timely volume, Spaces of Youth is an important resource for post-graduate and post-doctoral researchers across all social scientific disciplines interested in space, youth, globalisation, work, citizenship and culture.

Riot grrrls, punk feminists best known for their girl power activism and message, used punk ideologies and the literacy practice of zine-ing to create radical feminist sites of resistance. In what ways did zines document feminism and activism of the 1990s? How did riot grrrls use punk ideologies to participate in DIY sites? In Writing a Riot: Riot Grrl Zines and Feminist Rhetorics, Buchanan argues that zines are a form of literacy participation used to document personal, social, and political values within punk. She examines zine studies as an academic field, how riot grrrls used zines to promote punk feminism, and the ways riot grrrl zines dealt with social justice issues of rape and race. Writing a Riot is the first full-length book that examines riot grrrl zines and their role in documenting feminist history.

This book places changes in leaving and returning home in the context of the major events of 20th century America. The authors examine the reasons children ultimately leave home to live on their own and how the pattern has changed throughout the 20th century. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, Goldscheider and Goldscheider have constructed these patterns for when children leave home and what the most important criteria for doing so are to different groups in America, including men, women, Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, and different religious groups and social classes.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"In this volume, Amy Best offers critical youth studies an epistemological compass, a collection of essays that spans across nations, methods, sexualities, ethnicities, generations and age, reflecting provocatively on how we create knowledge with, for and by youth. This book promises to be a classic for the next generation of scholars perched to engage critically, respectfully, theoretically and provocatively with youth, to inscribe a twenty-first century signature on critical youth studies."
--Michelle Fine, co-author of "Working Method: Research and Social Justice"

"A powerful and compelling book that represents cutting-edge new directions in critical youth studies. This is a passionate call for a critical moral consciousness that will create more humane spaces for today's youth in our complex global culture."
--Norman K. Denzin, co-editor of "The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research"

From youth culture to adolescent sexuality to the consumer purchasing power of children en masse, studies are flourishing. Yet doing research on this unquestionably more vulnerable--whether five or fifteen--population also poses a unique set of challenges and dilemmas for researchers. How should a six-year-old be approached for an interview? What questions and topics are appropriate for twelve year olds? Do parents need to give their approval for all studies?

In Representing Youth, Amy L. Best has assembled an important group of essays from some of todayas top scholars on the subject of youth that address these concerns head on, providing scholars with thoughtful and often practical answers to their many methodological concerns. Theseoriginal essays range from how to conduct research on youth in ways that can be empowering for them, to issues of writing and representation, to respecting boundaries and to dealing with issues of risk and responsibility to those interviewed. For anyone doing research or working with children and young adults, Representing Youth offers an indispensable guide to many of the unique dilemmas that research with kids entails.

Contributors include: Amy L. Best, Sari Knopp Biklen, Elizabeth Chin, Susan Driver, Marc Flacks, Kathryn Gold Hadley, Madeline Leonard, C.J. Pascoe, Rebecca Raby, Alyssa Richman, Jessica Taft, Michael Ungar, Yvonne Vissing, and Stephani Etheridge Woodson.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"A groundbreaking volume of social science research that provides us with the missing presence of adolescent Latina girls in research on the family, institutional barriers, and support. A must read in Latina/o Studies!"
--Mary Romero, author of "Maid in the USA"

"Denner and Guzman bring together research that counters with data revealing that young Latinas are successfully negotiating challenges they encounter."
--"Hispanic Link Weekly Report"

Latinas are now the largest minority group of girls in the country. Yet the research about this group is sparse, and there is a lack of information to guide studies, services or education for the rapidly growing Latino population across the U.S. The existing research has focused on stereotypical perceptions of Latinas as frequently dropping out of school, becoming teen mothers, or being involved with boyfriends in gangs.

Latina Girls brings together cutting edge research that challenges these stereotypes. At the same time, the volume offers solid data and suggestions for practical intervention for those who study and work to support this population. It highlights the challenges these young women face, as well as the ways in which they successfully negotiate those challenges. The volume includes research on Latinas and their relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners; academics; career goals; identity; lifelong satisfaction; and the ways in which they navigate across cultures and gender roles.

Latina Girls is the first book to pull together research on the overall strengths and strategies that characterize Latina adolescents' lives in the U.S. It will be of keyinterest and practical use to those who study and work with Latina youth.

Originally published in 1948, The Adolescent Child provided vital information on adolescence for parents, teachers, club leaders, social and religious workers and welfare supervisors in factories at the time. With research from both the UK and the US the author looks at the psychology of the adolescent through the many stages they encounter, from physical and emotional changes; self-identity; love and friendship to education and work. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context.

Youth are, by definition, the future. This book brings initial analyses to bear on youth in the five BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which are home to nearly half of the world's youth. Very little is known about these youth outside of their own countries since the mainstream views on 'youth' and 'youth culture' are derived from the available literature on youth in the industrialized West, which is home to a small part of the world's youth. This book aims to help fill in this gap.The handbook examines the state of youth, their past, present and permits the development of insights about future. The BRICS countries have all engaged in development processes and some remarkable improvements in young people's lives over recent decades are documented. However, the chapters also show that these gains can be undermined by instabilities, poor decisions and external factors in those countries. Periods of economic growth, political progress, cultural opening up and subsequent reversals rearticulate differently in each society. The future of youth is sharply impacted by recent transformations of economic, political and social realities. As new opportunities emerge and the influence of tradition on youth's lifestyles weakens and as their norms and values change, the youth enter into conflict with dominant expectations and power structures.The topics covered in the book include politics, education, health, employment, leisure, Internet, identities, inequalities and demographics. The chapters provide original insights into the development of the BRICS countries, and place the varied mechanisms of youth development in context. This handbook serves as a reference to those who are interested in having a better understanding of today's youth. Readers will become acquainted with many issues that are faced today by young people and understand that through fertile dialogues and cooperation, youth can play a role in shaping the future of the world.

Millennials have been stereotyped as both "entitled slackers" and "the next greatest generation." This study uses depth interviews to offer a scholarly and balanced account of young adults' values and world-views. It investigates their views on a wide range of issues, including religion, the economy, politics, gender, ethnicity, and the digital technologies they've grown up with. Based on the findings, it revises current theories about the psychological underpinnings of beliefs, especially about the "moral intuitions" that guide Millennials' thinking. Examining the values they share and the distinctive views of individuals, this fascinating work will interest researchers and students in psychology and related social sciences.

When the Sunday School pioneers saw a need in their communities in the late eighteenth century, their response provoked a 200 year movement. These early Sunday Schools met a clear social need: that for basic education. By the 1960s, they faced rapid decline - a rigid institution amidst societal change. Over recent decades, Christian youth work has emerged as a response to further youth decline within churches. Many youth workers engage with young people's self-perceived needs by delivering open-access youth provision in their local communities alongside more specifically Christian activities. Tensions emerge over whether the youth worker's role is to serve community or church needs, with churches often emphasising the desire to see young people in services. Drawing together historical and contemporary research, Young People and Church Since 1900 identifies patterns and change in young people's engagement with organised Christianity across time. Through this, it provides a unique analysis of the engagement and exclusion of young people in three key time periods, 1900-1910, 1955-1972, and the present day. Whilst much commentary on religious decline has focused on changes external to churches, this text draws out the internal decisions and processes that have affected the longevity of Christianity in England. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of young people and Christianity in the twentieth century and today, as well as youth ministry students and practitioners and those interested in youth decline in churches more widely.

This book traces the development of Richard Linklater's Boyhood from its audacious concept through its tenacious production to its celebrated reception, placing it within the context of cinematic parables about children to demonstrate its distinctive vision. Timothy Shary, author of numerous studies on the history of teen cinema, evaluates the film's many messages about youth and adolescence within the context of early twenty-first century American culture, illuminating how Linklater's singular vision of the otherwise ordinary life of a boy reveals potent universal truths about all people.

From the running of boys' clubs and, catching truants to supervising troublesome kids and giving them a 'clip round the ear', the role of the police has been a recurrent theme in the debate about juvenile delinquency. Set against the context of wider developments in youth justice in Britain, this book examines the origins, key features and outcomes of police work with young people, the realities of multi-agency decision-making, and the impact on young people and their families.

First published in 1991, this book represents the first wide-ranging review of young people's understanding of the social world and the functioning of society. Taking a social cognitive view of adolescence, it focuses on the processes by which young people learn to understand other people's thoughts, emotions, intentions and behaviour. Concentrating on the social world of politics, economics, work, gender and religion, the authors cover such issues as: politics and government; work and unemployment; law and legislative matters; religion; marriage and the family; social class; and racial and ethnic differences. This work will be of interest to students of sociology and psychology.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"This book opens discussion related to the female gender role and the socialization of girls in many different, thought provoking ways, and serves as a timely critique of the current societal messages directed toward girls."
--"Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy"

"Brown declares that to change the patterns of female animosity we must address the social environment as well as the individual."
--"Women's Review of Books"

"Brown's book, however, is a clear departure from the film [Mean Girls] stereotypes about dumb, mean, backstabbing girls."
--"Waterville, Sunday Morning Sentinel"

""Girlfighting" is a serious and intelligent analysis of the cruelty and meanness involved in girls' relationships at each stage of development."
--"Pyschiatric Services"

aLyn Brown gives us a wider, different, and eye-opening view of the problem. . . This is the smartest book on mean girls around.a
--Sharon Lamb, author of "The Secret Lives of Girls"

aWhen it comes to girlsa issues, there arenat many people more expert than Lyn Mikel Brown.a
--"Daughters magazine"

"Brown provides an excellent resource, thorough and readable. Women can find their history in this book."
--"VOYA"

aThe book is a good contribution to the discussion...a
--Metapsychology

.,."Brown does an excellent job of continually casting girls' struggles in the larger frame of social and cultural disadvantages and the narrow role possibilities that supress their authenticity."
--"Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal"

For some time, reality TV, talk shows, soap-operas, and sitcoms have turned their spotlights on women andgirls who thrive on competition and nastiness. Few fairytales lack the evil stepmother, wicked witch, or jealous sister. Even cartoons feature mean and sassy girls who only become sweet and innocent when adults appear. And recently, popular books and magazines have turned their gaze away from ways of positively influencing girls' independence and self-esteem and towards the topic of girls' meanness to other girls. What does this say about the way our culture views girlhood? How much do these portrayals affect the way girls view themselves?

In Girlfighting, psychologist and educator Lyn Mikel Brown scrutinizes the way our culture nurtures and reinforces this sort of meanness in girls. She argues that the old adage "girls will be girls"--gossipy, competitive, cliquish, backstabbing-- and the idea that fighting is part of a developmental stage or a rite-of-passage, are not acceptable explanations. Instead, she asserts, girls are discouraged from expressing strong feelings and are pressured to fulfill unrealistic expectations, to be popular, and struggle to find their way in a society that still reinforces gender stereotypes and places greater value on boys. Under such pressure, in their frustration and anger, girls (often unconsciously) find it less risky to take out their fears and anxieties on other girls instead of challenging the ways boys treat them, the way the media represents them, or the way the culture at large supports sexist practices.

Girlfighting traces the changes in girls' thoughts, actions and feelings from childhood into young adulthood, providing the developmental understanding and theoretical explanation often lacking in other conversations. Through interviewswith over 400 girls of diverse racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds, Brown chronicles the labyrinthine journey girls take from direct and outspoken children who like and trust other girls, to distrusting and competitive young women. She argues that this familiar pathway can and should be interrupted and provides ways to move beyond girlfighting to build girl allies and to support coalitions among girls.

By allowing the voices of girls to be heard, Brown demonstrates the complex and often contradictory realities girls face, helping us to better understand and critique the socializing forces in their lives and challenging us to rethink the messages we send them.

This book explores how African youth are depicted in contemporary literature and popular culture, and discusses the different ways by which they attempt to construct personal and cultural identities through popular culture and social media outlets. The contributors approach the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective, looking at images in children's and adolescent literature from Africa, and the African diaspora, from Nollywood and Hollywood movies, from popular magazines, and from youth cultures encountered directly through field experiences. The findings reveal that there are many stereotypes about Africa, African youth and black cultures, and that African youth are aware of these. Since they juggle multiple identities shaped by their ethnicities, race and religion, it is often a challenge for them to define themselves. As they also share a global youth culture that transcends these cultural markers, some take advantage of media outlets to voice their concerns and participate in political struggles. Others simply use these to promote their personal interests. Contributors ponder the challenges involved in constructing unique identities, offering ideas on how African youth are doing so successfully or not in different parts of the continent and the African diaspora, and thus offer new possibilities for youth studies.

In a world where the term Islam is ever-increasingly an inaccurate and insensitive synonym for terrorism, it is unsurprising that many Muslim youth in the West struggle for a viable sense of identity. This book takes up the hotly-debated issue of Muslim youth identity in western countries from the standpoint of popular culture. It proposes that in the context of Islamophobia and pervasive moral panic, young Muslims frame up their identity in relation to external conditions that only see 'good' and 'bad' Muslims, on both sides of the ideological fence between Islam and the West. Indeed, by attempting to break down the 'good' versus 'bad' Muslim dichotomy that largely derives from western media reports, as well as political commentary, Muslim Youth in the Diaspora: Challenging Extremism through Popular Culture will enlighten the reader. It illuminates the way in which diasporic Muslim youth engage with, and are affected by, the radical Islamist meta-narrative. It examines their popular culture and online activity, their gendered sense of self, and much more. This original book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the fields of sociology, cultural studies and social anthropology. It offers a particular focus on Islam for research in youth studies, youth culture, political radicalisation and religious identity. It will also be relevant to the sector of youth and social work, where practitioners seek to build cultural bridges with a new generation.