Geographies of youth/young people
Evans, 2008
Abstract
There have recently been some concerns that within children’s geographies, teenagers and young
people have been marginalized through a focus mainly on children and childhoods. This article
reviews the position of young people in geographical research through interrogating the definition of
young people in relation to children and adults and reviewing recent work on youth as a transition;
through providing an overview of recent work that questions the restrictions placed on young
people’s use of public space; and through signposting some recent debates about the future of
geographical work on young people
Introduction – Youth geographies
Over 20 years ago, interviewees in Allison James’s research described being an adolescent as ‘being
nothing’ (defined as ‘not adults’ and/or viewed as entirely dependent on adults), ‘having nothing to
do’ (missing from the agendas of service providers) and having nowhere to go (young people’s
presence outside the home seen as problematic, and so young people were absent from
consideration in the design and planning of public space. Children’s geographies are often defined in
relation to a shared political agenda to center children and young people, and to challenge barriers to
children and young people’s participation in policy decisions.
Holloway and Valentine outline the contribution that geographers have made to social studies of
childhood and youth with reference to three different approaches to spatiality.
1. The importance of place: refers to the ways in which geographers have added to sociological
critiques of essentialized constructions of childhood and youth through demonstrating that such
constructions vary spatially and temporally
2. Everyday spaces: refers to geographical work that has interrogated children and young people’s
experiences of the spaces within which they live their everyday lives (e.g. the home, school,
playground, street). Work here has particularly focused on the ways in which young people are
disciplined within, negotiate use of, and contest ideas about the appropriate use of public space.
3. Spatial discourses: refers to geographical work that questions the mutual construction of meanings
about childhood and of a range of different spaces (e.g. the home, rural, urban). Such work has
demonstrated and challenged the links between discourses about the ‘proper’ use of particular
spaces and ‘ideal’ childhoods and the impacts of these social constructions on individual children’s
lives.
Young people are not very often mentioned per se in documentation. Young people who do not
consider themselves to be children anymore, and are in many ways not perceived as such by wider
society, may feel that the rights defined for children do not apply to them.
‘Being nothing’ – defining youth
According to Valentine, the age range 16-25 years is commonly used to define ‘youth’. However, this
is contested, fluid and bears little resemblance to legal definitions of adulthood (18 years in the UK).
This positioning of youth and adolescence as in-between adulthood and childhood is evident, and it is
this in-between-ness and relational definition which Allison James refers to when discussing young
people’s reflections on adolescence as ‘being nothing’.
Dominant definitions of youth can be broadly divided into two groups
,- Those which define youth as an identifiable and pre-defined group or individual state of being,
determined by chronological biological age
- Those which define youth as performative, a quality or way of being denoting behavior and state of
mind and body (e.g. energy and ‘youthful’ appearance)
Drawing on socialization theories, youth has been understood as a period of transition between
childhood and adulthood, marked predominantly by increasing responsibility and independence.
Much sociological work on youth has been centered on this concept of youth as a transition where,
broadly speaking, youth is conceptualized in relation to an assumed linear transition between
childhood and adulthood marked by key events, stages or rights of passage such as the movement
from full-time education into the workforce, form the parental home to independent living, and from
dependency within the parental family to partnership formation and becoming a parent oneself.
Central to work on youth transitions are theories of individualization. Individualization theories
postulate that modernity, characterized by a decline in the importance of ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional’
institutions such as the church, has led to an associated decline in certainty about ‘traditional’ life-
courses previously sanctioned and structured through institutions such as state schooling and
religious and moral norms around sexual relations and family structures. Therefore, it is argued that
the transition from childhood to adulthood is no longer one which is predetermined and mapped out
with defined stages and rights of passage, but that individuals are free to choose their own life path,
with structures, such as class, gender, religion etc. no longer determining an individuals’ future.
However, there is a danger in asserting that each individual is entirely independent and free to
choose their own life path as this denies the many structural factors which continue to limit the
opportunities and experiences of many young people in terms of class, gender, religion, ethnicity,
sexuality, (dis)ability, geographical location, etc. Moreover, this makes the individual young person
‘responsible’ for achieving a successful transition (or failed transition) which is unfair. Thus, it is
evident from a range of work in different contexts that, contrary to the individualization thesis,
structures and (extra)familial norms and expectations continue to play a central role in young
people’s lives.
The intergenerational approach adopted in this work highlights that identities as parent (mother)
and child (daughter) are continually constructed, not fixed or changing in a unidirectional way. Thus,
it is important to consider young people’s ongoing connections to others even when they have moved
out of the family home. These more complex and fluid understandings of youth and youth transitions
are situated within a shift in children’s and youth geography, and the discipline more broadly, which
recognizes the importance of taking an intergenerational approach and of considering youth within
broader geographies of age.
‘Having nothing to do’ – experiencing youth(s)
In the UK, there has been a recent concern about the limited use of public open space by children.
Such concerns are often voiced with reference to a range of assumed negative outcomes and have
resulted in a range of policies and planning to make public spaces ‘safer’ in order to encourage
parents to allow their children more independent outdoor play. This argument often positions
‘modern childhoods’ in contrast to remembered idyllic past childhoods (with lots of outdoor play).
Such concerns are rooted in and reproduce dominant idealized constructions of both childhood
(freedom, play, innocence) and the rural as the ideal space for childhood, simultaneously positioning
urban spaces as unsafe and unsuitable for children.
, Debates and concerns about children’s limited outdoor play are focused specifically on children and
childhood, and this is one area where the division between work on children and childhoods and
young people and youth is a crucial one. Thus, in the dualism between children as angels and devils,
there is an age stratification with older children, teenagers and young people seen as threatening
presences in public space, evident, for example, in media portrayals of children as ‘innocent victims’,
and young people as ‘yobs’. The result of such concerns is that young people and teenagers are facing
a raft of policies aiming to control their use of public space often constructed in negative terms as
anti-social behavior. Thus, while the street is an important space where young people can live out and
celebrate their identities and develop a sense of belonging.
There is a contradiction in the way policies position young people (working-class boys in particular),
simultaneously as ‘individuals responsible for their own actions’ and ‘less than individuals, not adults,
and still the responsibility of their parents. Such policies must also be understood as rooted in
socialization theories of childhood and youth where children and young people are viewed
predominately not as individuals in their own right, but as future adults, citizens and workers.
Conclusion: ‘having nowhere to go’ – future geographies of youth people?
For geographies of young people, concerns have been that through association with children’s
geographies, the voices of older young people and teenagers have been somewhat marginalized with
the focus predominantly on childhood and children. Such calls are also situated within increasing
intergenerational work within geography which allows geographers to challenge assumptions that
multi-generational use of (public) space is necessarily conflictual. An intergenerational approach
would allow for an interrogation of the everyday interactions between those of all ages which would
further challenge compartmentalization along the lines of age. In challenging restrictive policies
which respond to moral panics about (particular groups of) young people, there is a need to address
the complexities of identity politics in relation to broader global political issues. In doing this,
geographical work on young people stands to contribute significantly not only to a further
understanding of youth and young people’s lives, but also to debates in the broader discipline and to
interdisciplinary debates.
Where, when, why and for whom do residential contexts matter? Moving away from the
dichotomous understanding of neighborhood effects
Sharkey & Faber, 2014
Abstract
In this article, we focus on empirical work that considers how different dimensions of individuals’
residential contexts become salient in their lives, how contexts influence individuals’ lives over
different timeframes, how individuals are affected by social processes operating at different scales,
and how residential contexts influence the lives of individuals in heterogenous ways. Using the large
literature on neighborhoods and educational and cognitive outcomes as an example, the research we
review suggests that any attempt to reduce the literature to a single answer about whether
neighborhoods matter is misguided. We call for a more flexible study of context effects in which
theory, measurement, and methods are more closely aligned with the specific mechanisms and social
processes under study.
Introduction
‘Do neighborhoods matter?’ We believe that this question, and the dichotomous perspective that it
