This book takes a global perspective to address the concept of belonging in youth studies, interrogating its emergence as a reoccurring theme in the literature and elucidating its benefits and shortcomings. While belonging offers new alignments across previously divergent approaches to youth studies, its pervasiveness in the field has led to criticism that it means both everything and nothing and thus requires deeper analysis to be of enduring value. The authors do this work to provide an accessible, scholarly account of how youth studies uses belonging by focusing on transitions, participation, citizenship and mobility to address its theoretical and historical underpinnings and its prevalence in youth policy and research.

Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging showcases cutting-edge empirical research on young people’s lifeworlds. The scholars demonstrate that belonging is personal, infused with individual and collective histories as well as interwoven with conceptions of place. In studying how young people adapt to social change the research highlights the plurality of belonging, as well as its temporal and fleeting nature. In the field of youth studies, we have seen a recent emphasis on studying the ways youth live out everyday multiculturalisms in an increasingly globalised world. How young people negotiate belonging in everyday life and how they come to understand their positions in fragmented societies remain emerging areas of scholarship. Composed of twelve chapters, the collection references key sites and institutions in young people’s lives such as schools, community/cultural centres, neighbourhoods and spaces of consumption. Drawing from diverse areas such as the rural, the urban as well as displacements and mobilities, this international collection enhances our understanding of the theories employed in the study of youth identity practices. Written in a direct and clear style, this collection of essays will be of interest to researchers working in geography, theories of affect, gender, mobility, performativities, and theories of space/place. Investigating how young people come to belong can open up new spaces and provide critical insights into young people’s identities.

This book explores how belonging differs based on students’ social identities, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or the conditions they encounter on campus. Belonging—with peers, in the classroom, or on campus—is a critical dimension of success at college. It can affect a student’s degree of academic adjustment, achievement, aspirations, or even whether a student stays in school. The 2nd Edition of College Students’ Sense of Belonging explores student sub-populations and campus environments, offering readers updated information about sense of belonging, how it develops for students, and a conceptual model for helping students belong and thrive. Underpinned by theory and research and offering practical guidelines for improving educational environments and policies, this book is an important resource for higher education and student affairs professionals, scholars, and graduate students interested in students’ success. New to this second edition: A refined theory of college students’ sense of belonging and review of current literature in light of new and emerging theories; Expanded best practices related to fostering sense of belonging in classrooms, clubs, residence halls, and other contexts; Updated research and insights for new student populations such as youth formerly in foster care, formerly incarcerated adults, and homeless students; Coverage on a broad range of topics since the first edition of this book, including cultural navigation, academic spotting, and the "shared faith" element of belonging.

In an era when many young people feel marginalized and excluded, this is the first comprehensive, critical account to shed new light on the trouble of ‘belonging’ and how young people in schools understand, enact and experience ‘belonging’ (and non-belonging). It traverses diverse dimensions of identity, including gender and sexuality; race, class, nation and citizenship; and place and space. Each section includes a provocative discussion by an eminent and international youth scholar of youth, and is essential reading for anyone involved with young people and schools. This book is a crucial resource and reference for sociology of education courses at all levels as well as courses in student inclusion, equity and student well-being.

If we consider the 50 states having ratified the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe or the member states of the European Union, the multiple and divergent nature of the realities, theories, concepts and strategies underlying the expression “youth work” becomes evident. Across Europe, youth work takes place in circumstances presenting enormous differences with regard to opportunities, support, structures, recognition and realities, and how it performs reflects the social, cultural, political and economic context, and the value systems in which it is undertaken. By analysing theories and concepts of youth work and by providing insight from various perspectives and geographical and professional backgrounds, the authors hope to further contribute to finding common ground for – and thus assure the quality of – youth work in general. Presenting its purified and essential concept is not the objective here. The focus rather is on describing how to “provide opportunities for all young people to shape their own futures”, as Peter Lauritzen described the fundamental mission of youth work. The best way to do this remains an open question. This Youth Knowledge book tries to find some answers and strives to communicate the strengths, capacities and impact of youth work to those within the youth sector and those beyond, to those familiar with its concepts and those new to this field, all the while sharing practices and insights and encouraging further reflection.

"A POWERFUL WORK OF SPIRITUALITY AND ANTI-RACISM"—Publishers Weekly "IF YOU READ ONE BOOK IN 2020, MAKE IT THIS ONE."—Tricycle From much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie, You Belong is a call to action, exploring our tangled relationship with belonging, connection, and each other You are not separate. You never were. You never will be. We are not separate from each other. But we don’t always believe it, and we certainly don’t always practice it. In fact, we often practice the opposite—disconnection and domination. From unconscious bias to “cancel culture,” denial of our inherent interconnection limits our own freedom. In You Belong, much-admired meditation expert Sebene Selassie reveals that accepting our belonging is the key to facing the many challenges currently impacting our world. Using ancient philosophy, multidisciplinary research, exquisite storytelling, and razor-sharp wit, Selassie leads us in an exploration of all the ways we separate (and thus suffer) and offers a map back to belonging. To belong is to experience joy in any moment: to feel pleasure, dance in public, accept death, forgive what seems unforgivable, and extend kindness to yourself and others. To belong is also to acknowledge injustice, reckon with history, and face our own shadows. Full of practical advice and profound revelations, You Belong makes a winning case for resisting the forces that demand separation and reclaiming the connection—and belonging—that have been ours all along.

In A Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century Peter Kelly and Annelies Kamp present an edited collection that explores the challenges and opportunities faced by young people in an often dangerous 21st century. In an increasingly globalised world these challenges and opportunities include those associated with widening inequalities, precarious labour markets, the commodification of education, the hopes for democracy, and with practising an identity under these circumstances and in these spaces. Drawing on contemporary critical social theories and diverse methodologies, contributors to the collection, who are established and emerging scholars from the Americas, Europe, and Asia/Pacific, open up discussions about what a critical youth studies can contribute to community, policy and academic debates about these challenges and opportunities. Contributors are: Anna Anderson, Dena Aufseeser, Judith Bessant, Ros Black, Daniel Briggs, Laurie Browne, David Cairns, Perri Campbell, James Côté, Ann Dadich, Maria de Lourdes Beldi Alacantra, Nora Duckett, Deirdre Duffy, Angela Dwyer, Christina Ergler, Michelle Fine, Madeline Fox, Andy Furlong, Theo Gavrielides, Henry Giroux, John Goodwin, Keith Heggart, Luke Howie, Amelia Johns, Annelies Kamp, Peter Kelly, Fengshu Liu, Conor McGuckin, Majella McSharry, Filipa Menezes, Magda Nico, Pam Nilan, Henrietta O'Connor, Jo Pike, Herwig Reiter, Geraldine Scanlon, Keri Schwab, Michael Shevlin, Adnan Selimovic, Joan Smith, Jodie Taylor, Steven Threadgold, Vappu Tyyskä, Brendan Walsh, Lucas Walsh, Rob Watts, Bronwyn Wood, Dan Woodman, and David Zyngier. A Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century is now available in paperback for individual customers.

This book explores the complex ways in which belonging, identity and time are entangled in shaping young people engagement with the middle years of school. The authors argue that these ‘entanglements’ need to be understood in ways that move beyond a focus on why individual young people engage with the middle years. Instead, there should be a focus on the socio-ecologies of particular places, and the ways in which these ecologies shape the possibilities of young people engaging productively in the middle years. Drawing on extensive qualitative data from an outer-urban metropolitan context, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, education and policy studies.

This book gathers international and interdisciplinary work on youth studies from the Global South, exploring issues such as continuity and change in youth transitions from education to work; contemporary debates on the impact of mobility, marginalization and violence on young lives; how digital technologies shape youth experiences; and how different institutions, cultures and structures generate a diversity of experiences of what it means to be young. The book is divided into four broad thematic sections: (a) Education, work and social structure; (b) Identity and belonging; (c) Place, mobilities and marginalization; and (d) Power, social conflict and new forms of political participation of youth.