Just what is a generation? And why, if at all, does it matter? This book asks what generation means to ordinary people, arguing that generation is real and it matters, but not in the ways that we think. Generations are not groups of people who can be categorized and attributed with static, immutable and universal characteristics, nor are they reducible to cohorts, as is the tendency in much social research. Rather, the book reveals generation to be a social phenomenon and a mechanism of social change - as a constellation of ideas and discourses that explains what happens when ideas and ideals collide, and why some discourses flourish and take hold at particular times.

Just what "is "a generation? And why, if at all, does it matter? This book asks what generation means to ordinary people, arguing that generation is real and it matters, but not in the ways that we think. Generations are not groups of people who can be categorized and attributed with static, immutable and universal characteristics, nor are they reducible to cohorts, as is the tendency in much social research. Rather, the book reveals generation to be a social phenomenon and a mechanism of social change - as a constellation of ideas and discourses that explains what happens when ideas and ideals collide, and why some discourses flourish and take hold at particular times.

Poverty and unemployment are on the rise among Canadian youth.Clearly something needs to change, but current social-assistance modelsare based on harmful assumptions about the value of interventionistapproaches with "high-risk" young people.

"Reimagining Intervention in Young Lives" explores thedifficulties many young people encounter with the "supportsystem" available to them. Drawn from interviews with forty-fiveyouth, this important work resituates the nexus of the problem from thepresumption of incorrigible youth to the recognition that the existingsocial-aid structures make it almost impossible for poor and homelessyouths, no matter how hard they try, to surmount adversity.

Intervention is indeed necessary, but more to challenge theprevailing structures that incorrectly presume how youth themselvesinterpret risk, poverty, and, most important of all, their ownpotential.

Karen R. Foster is Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow inthe Management Department of the Sobey School of Business at SaintMary's University, Halifax. Dale C. Spencer is anassistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University ofManitoba..