This book benefited from the financial support of a French Government scholarship between 1976 and 1978. It sponsored a doctoral thesis in which initial theoretical, empirical, and historical reflections on acci- dents were developed and written while I was a student at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. The New Zealand Depart- ment of Labour funded a study on industrial accidents and night work during 1979-80. In 1982-83, the award of a postdoctoral fellowship by the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) permitted a first version of this book to be finished. In the summer of 1986-87 the Funda~ao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) and the Labora- toire d'Ergonomie et de Neurophysiologie du Travail of the Centre Na- tional des Arts et Metiers joined forces to fund a stay in Paris where the second draft of this book was presented in a special doctoral seminar series. The third draft was completed during a 1988 research leave granted by the Conjunto de Ciencia Politica of the Universidade Es- tadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). On a further research leave from the same unit, and thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship from the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnol6gico (CNPq), final redrafting was carried out between August and October 1990 when I was a visiting fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Cornell University. I am deeply grateful to these institutions for their generosity.

This book benefited from the financial support of a French Government scholarship between 1976 and 1978. It sponsored a doctoral thesis in which initial theoretical, empirical, and historical reflections on acci- dents were developed and written while I was a student at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. The New Zealand Depart- ment of Labour funded a study on industrial accidents and night work during 1979-80. In 1982-83, the award of a postdoctoral fellowship by the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) permitted a first version of this book to be finished. In the summer of 1986-87 the Funda~ao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) and the Labora- toire d'Ergonomie et de Neurophysiologie du Travail of the Centre Na- tional des Arts et Metiers joined forces to fund a stay in Paris where the second draft of this book was presented in a special doctoral seminar series. The third draft was completed during a 1988 research leave granted by the Conjunto de Ciencia Politica of the Universidade Es- tadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). On a further research leave from the same unit, and thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship from the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnol6gico (CNPq), final redrafting was carried out between August and October 1990 when I was a visiting fellow in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Cornell University. I am deeply grateful to these institutions for their generosity.

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.