Diverse Spaces of Childhood and Youth

Gender and socio-cultural differences

Ruth Evans, Louise Holt

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780415834377
• eBook ISBN: 9781134926619
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Diverse Spaces of Childhood and Youth focuses on the diverse spaces and discourses of children and youth globally. The chapters explore the influence of gender, age and other socio-cultural differences, such as race, ethnicity and migration trajectories, on the everyday lives of children and youth in a range of international contexts. These include the diverse urban environments of Istanbul, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Toronto, London, and Bratislava and the contrasting rural settings of Ghana and England. The analyses of children's, young people's, parents' and professionals' experiences and discourses provide critical insights into how gender and other socio-cultural differences intersect. The importance of everyday practices and performances in the formation of children's and young people's identities is revealed, through for example, friendships and everyday sociality, mobilities and movements across space in both rural and urban environments.

The volume shows how discourses of childhood, particularly those associated with risk, intersect with difference. The recognition of young people's agency and participation is central to many of the chapters, whilst also raising methodological questions about how discourses of childhood and youth are researched. Overall, the book provides an original contribution to geographies of children, youth and families and research on diversity and difference in global contexts.

This book was published as a special issue of Children's Geographies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Introduction: Diverse spaces of childhood and youth: gender and other socio-cultural differences
• 2. Place, children’s friendships, and the formation of gender identities in a Slovak urban neighbourhood
• 3. ‘Girls just like to be friends with people’: gendered experiences of migration among children and youth in returning Irish migrant families
• 4. The strength of weak ties: the social networks of young separated asylum seekers and refugees in London
• 5. In/visibility strategies and enacted diversity: sameness and belonging among young people of Latin American descent living in the north of England (UK)
• 6. Rhythmanalytical sketches: agencies, school journeys, temporalities
• 7. The ‘unchildlike child’: making and marking the child/adult divide in the juvenile court
• 8. Shaping children’s mobilities: expectations of gendered parenting in the English rural idyll
• 9. Mobility, education and livelihood trajectories for young people in rural Ghana: a gender perspective
• 10. Risky positions? Shifting representations of urban youth in the talk of professionals and young people
• 11. Exploring parental concerns about children’s interactions in gated communities: a case study in Istanbul
• 12. Defining and exploring public space: perspectives of young people from Regent Park, Toronto
• 13. Young people’s participation in school design: exploring diversity and power in a UK governmental policy case-study
• 14. Κορíτσια, Bambini, Meninos, Niñas: a view of children’s geographies in southern Europe
• Index