The idea that Britain, the US and other western societies are witnessing the rise of an underclass of people at the bottom of the social heap, structurally and culturally distinct from traditional patterns of "decent" working-class life, has become increasingly popular in the 1990s. Anti-work, anti-social, and welfare dependent cultures are said to typify this new "dangerous class" and "dangerous youth" are taken as the prime subjects of underclass theories. Debates about the family and single-parenthood, about crime and about unemployment and welfare reforms have all become embroiled in underclass theories which, whilst highly controversial, have had remarkable influence on the politics and policies of governments in Britain and the US. This text addresses the underclass idea in relation to contemporary youth. It focuses upon unemployment, training, the labour market, crime, homelessness, and parenting. It should be of interest to students of social policy, sociology and criminology.

MacDonald and Coffield look at the implementation and outcome of enterprise initiatives introduced in Teeside in relation to 100 unemployed young adults in the age-range 16-25, within a political ideology which has sought to change a dependency culture to one of self-reliance. The young people studied are categorized with reference to their attitude to, and experience of, work, and a number of case studies are cited. An important aspect of the study is that it is specifically concerned with ordinary young people. The conclusions are worked out in terms of the changing culture of work, government policies, the internationalization of labour markets and the changing fortunes of young adults in Britain in the 1990s.

Under the weight of apparently growing consumer affluence, globalisation and post-modern social theory, many have proclaimed the declining significance of social class and place to young people's lives - and for social science. Drawing upon new, empirically grounded, theoretically innovative studies, this volume begs to differ. It argues that the youth phase provides a privileged vantage point from which to interrogate and think about broader processes of social change and social continuity. These themes are addressed by all the diverse contributions gathered here. The chapters include investigation of: the problems of growing up in gang neighbourhoods and young people's use of space for leisure; new patterns of class formation and youth transition in Eastern Europe; the effects of classed labels and identities (such as 'chav' and charver') in youth culture and schooling; the changing meanings of class and place for young women in changing socio-economic landscapes; new patterns of youth culture and transition among Black young men in East London; and how we think and theorise about change and continuity in youth studies. Together these new empirical studies and critical theoretical analyses confirm the continuing central importance of class and place in shaping the opportunities, transitions, sub-cultures and life-styles of young people. This book was based on a special issue of Journal of Youth Studies.

Under the weight of apparently growing consumer affluence, globalisation and post-modern social theory, many have proclaimed the declining significance of social class and place to young people s lives and for social science. Drawing upon new, empirically grounded, theoretically innovative studies, this volume begs to differ.

It argues that the youth phase provides a privileged vantage point from which to interrogate and think about broader processes of social change and social continuity. These themes are addressed by all the diverse contributions gathered here. The chapters include investigation of: the problems of growing up in gang neighbourhoods and young people s use of space for leisure; new patterns of class formation and youth transition in Eastern Europe; the effects of classed labels and identities (such as chav and charver ) in youth culture and schooling; the changing meanings of class and place for young women in changing socio-economic landscapes; new patterns of youth culture and transition among Black young men in East London; and how we think and theorise about change and continuity in youth studies.

Together these new empirical studies and critical theoretical analyses confirm the continuing central importance of class and place in shaping the opportunities, transitions, sub-cultures and life-styles of young people.

This book was based on a special issue of Journal of Youth Studies.

Winner of the British Academy Peter Townsend Prize for 2013 How do men and women get by in times and places where opportunities for standard employment have drastically reduced? Are we witnessing the growth of a new class, the 'Precariat', where people exist without predictability or security in their lives? What effects do flexible and insecure forms of work have on material and psychological well-being? This book is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between social exclusion, poverty and the labour market. It challenges long-standing and dominant myths about 'the workless' and 'the poor', by exploring close-up the lived realities of life in low-pay, no-pay Britain. Work may be 'the best route out of poverty' sometimes but for many people getting a job can be just a turn in the cycle of recurrent poverty - and of long-term churning between low-skilled 'poor work' and unemployment. Based on unique qualitative, life-history research with a 'hard-to-reach group' of younger and older people, men and women, the book shows how poverty and insecurity have now become the defining features of working life for many.

This book argues that, paradoxically, at their moment of triumph and fastest growth, cities need nature more than ever. Only if our urban world is full of biophilic cities will the coming urban century truly succeed. Cities are quintessentially human, the perfect forum for interaction, and we are entering what could justly be called the urban century, the fastest period of urban growth in human history. Yet a growing body of scientific literature shows that the constant interaction, the hyper-connectedness, of cities leads to an urban psychological penalty. Nature in cities can be solution to this dilemma, allowing us to have all the benefits of our urban, connected world yet also have that urban home be a place where humanity can thrive. This book presents best practices and case studies from biophilic design, showing how cities around the world are beginning to incorporate nature into their urban fabric. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and professionals working in the area of sustainable cities.

Collection of seven films from Canadian writer/director Atom Egoyan. In 'Exotica' (1994), pet shop owner Thomas (Don McKellar) arrives in town with a secret cache of rare bird eggs. Sharing a cab from the airport he ends up in Exotica, a local strip club. Fascinated by star stripper Christina (Mia Kirshner), he becomes drawn into her sordid lifestyle, along with the club DJ (Elias Koteas) and a disturbed tax auditor (Bruce Greenwood). As the multiple narratives and chronological twists unfold, the characters find their lives becoming inexorably intertwined as they head towards a shocking conclusion. In 'The Adjuster' (1991), Koteas plays Noah Render, an insurance adjuster whose attempts to help others mask a deeper malaise in his own life. His wife Hera (Arsinée Khanjian) is a disillusioned film censor who obsessively copies the most explicit scenes in the films she is supposed to review. After Noah helps a rich young woman whose house has burned down, Hera invites a young film-maker into their home to shoot a movie, and as their elaborate sexual fantasies are acted out on video, they begin to explore a world where voyeurism and exhibitionism are all-consuming. In 'Family Viewing' (1987), Van (Aidan Tierney) finds himself in a difficult situation when he realises that his father Stan (David Hemblen) is recording over the family's home movies with home-made pornography. Not only is Stan's lover Sandra (Gabrielle Rose) completely at the mercy of his dark fantasies, but she also expresses a sexual interest in Van. Dividing his time between the family home and a nearby nursing residence caring for his aging grandmother Armen (Selma Keklikian), Van meets Aline (Khanjian), who works as a phone-sex operator, and the two concoct a plan to escape his emotionally cold father. In 'The Sweet Hereafter' (1997), powerful lawyer Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) arrives in a small town in British Columbia after 14 children die in a school bus crash. Announcing that he will win compensation for the townsfolk, Stephens investigates the mysterious circumstances surrounding the accident, discovering various dark secrets lurking beneath the surface. In 'Calendar' (1993), a photographer (Egoyan) and his wife (Khanjian) travel to Armenia to photograph churches for use in a calendar, employing a native speaking driver (Ashot Adamyan) to escort them around the country. On their travels a relationship develops between the photographer's wife and the Armenian guide. Looking back on this time from his apartment in Toronto, the newly separated photographer contacts women through an escort agency and invites them to dinner, all while his estranged wife tries reconcile with him. In 'Next of Kin' (1984), Peter (Patrick Tierney) is a young man from an Anglo-Saxon family who is constantly under pressure to do something meaningful with his life. The family visit a therapist in the hopes of getting to the bottom of the tension between themselves and Peter's apparent laziness. When Peter visits the clinic before the next session hoping to view the video recording of their last meeting he is given the wrong tape and instead is shown the recording of an immigrant family who had given up their first son for adoption upon entering the country. What Peter then suggests to his family and therapist is that he take a break in order to find himself, but what he actually does is assume the identity of this other family's long lost son. Finally, in 'Speaking Parts' (1989), struggling actor Lance (Michael McManus) works in housekeeping at a local hotel while waiting for his first speaking role. Meanwhile, his co-worker Lisa (Khanjian) is obsessed with him and seeks out all the movies he appears in as a means of satisfying her voyeuristic tendencies. When Lance learns a scriptwriter, Clara (Rose), is staying at the hotel he chooses to leave his résumé in her room in the hope that she'll give him a part in her next film about her late brother. Before long the two become romantically involved and Lance finds himself with his first lead role but Clara becomes increasingly distressed when a series of changes are made to her story by the movie's producer.

The idea that Britain, the US and other western societies are witnessing the rise of an underclass of people at the bottom of the social heap, structurally and culturally distinct from traditional patterns of `decent' working-class life, has become increasingly popular in the 1990s. Anti-work, anti-social, and welfare dependent cultures are said to typify this new `dangerous class' and `dangerous youth' are taken as the prime subjects of underclass theories. Debates about the family and single-parenthood, about crime and about unemployment and welfare reforms have all become embroiled in underclass theories which, whilst highly controversial, have had remarkable influence on the politics and policies of governments in Britain and the US, Youth, the `Underclass' and Social Exclusion constitutes the first concerted attempt to grapple with the underclass idea in relation to contemporary youth. It focuses upon unemployment, training, the labour market, crime, homelessness, and parenting and will be essential reading for students of social policy, sociology and criminology.

The idea that Britain, the US and other western societies are witnessing the rise of an underclass of people at the bottom of the social heap, structurally and culturally distinct from traditional patterns of "decent" working-class life, has become increasingly popular in the 1990s. Anti-work, anti-social, and welfare dependent cultures are said to typify this new "dangerous class" and "dangerous youth" are taken as the prime subjects of underclass theories. Debates about the family and single-parenthood, about crime and about unemployment and welfare reforms have all become embroiled in underclass theories which, whilst highly controversial, have had remarkable influence on the politics and policies of governments in Britain and the US. This text addresses the underclass idea in relation to contemporary youth. It focuses upon unemployment, training, the labour market, crime, homelessness, and parenting. It should be of interest to students of social policy, sociology and criminology.

This book argues that, paradoxically, at their moment of triumph and fastest growth, cities need nature more than ever. Only if our urban world is full of biophilic cities will the coming urban century truly succeed. Cities are quintessentially human, the perfect forum for interaction, and we are entering what could justly be called the urban century, the fastest period of urban growth in human history. Yet a growing body of scientific literature shows that the constant interaction, the hyper-connectedness, of cities leads to an urban psychological penalty. Nature in cities can be solution to this dilemma, allowing us to have all the benefits of our urban, connected world yet also have that urban home be a place where humanity can thrive. This book presents best practices and case studies from biophilic design, showing how cities around the world are beginning to incorporate nature into their urban fabric. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and professionals working in the area of sustainable cities.

Winner of the British Academy Peter Townsend Prize for 2013 How do men and women get by in times and places where opportunities for standard employment have drastically reduced? Are we witnessing the growth of a new class, the 'Precariat', where people exist without predictability or security in their lives? What effects do flexible and insecure forms of work have on material and psychological well-being? This book is the first of its kind to examine the relationship between social exclusion, poverty and the labour market. It challenges long-standing and dominant myths about 'the workless' and 'the poor', by exploring close-up the lived realities of life in low-pay, no-pay Britain. Work may be 'the best route out of poverty' sometimes but for many people getting a job can be just a turn in the cycle of recurrent poverty - and of long-term churning between low-skilled 'poor work' and unemployment. Based on unique qualitative, life-history research with a 'hard-to-reach group' of younger and older people, men and women, the book shows how poverty and insecurity have now become the defining features of working life for many.

This is a study of the longer-term transitions of young people living in neighbourhoods beset by the worst problems of social exclusion. Based on a rare example of longitudinal, qualitative research with 'hard-to-reach' young adults, the study throws into question common approaches to understanding and tackling social exclusion. socially disadvantaged 15-25 year olds undertaken in North East England. The findings provide a detailed picture of the processes that shape 'poor transitions'. The authors argue that understanding social exclusion and devising effective policies to reduce it requires immersion in the experiences of the socially excluded. young adults who had grown up in a context of social exclusion, as they reached their mid to late twenties; aids understanding of the key influences on social inclusion and exclusion for this age group; examines the young adults' extended participation in education, training and employment, their experiences of family life, and criminal and drug-using careers; draws out the implications for policy and practice interventions. readers interested in an in-depth account of the biographical experiences of the socially excluded.