Youth Marginality in Britain

“This book is a welcome contribution to the rapidly growing scholarly field exploring the issues and processes of marginalisation, poverty, and exclusion in relation to children and young people – as well as to childhood and youth as concepts, categories, and life stages.” Children’s Geographies

“The book provides a very detailed and informative account of the range of factors contributing to youth marginality in the UK today. It also does an excellent job of challenging prevailing notions and representations of young people in media and policy. [...] [A] balanced, engaging and persuasive account.” People, Place and Policy

"This timely contribution to debates around youth austerity in Britain is a must read for students or academics concerned with how youth is understood and lived in contemporary society" Lisa Russell, University of Huddersfield

"Brings new theoretical and empirical insights into the analysis of youth marginality…. provides a critical voice around the concept of ‘marginality’ creating innovative and radical alternative understandings of the ways it operates…. A must read for scholars and students interested in youth sociology and youth policy" Alan France, University of Auckland

Shane Blackman is a Professor of Cultural Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. He received his PhD at the Institute of Education, University of London as an ESRC scholarship student. He is a Research Fellow SFI The Danish National Centre for Social Research, editor of the Journal of Youth Studies and YOUNG: Nordic Journal of Youth Research and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. He has recently published work on ethnography, subcultural theory, NPS (legal highs), anti-social behaviour and alcohol and young women.

Ruth Rogers is a Reader in Social Justice and Inclusion at Canterbury Christ Church University. She has led a large number of research projects working with deprived communities, looked after children and young offenders. She has also conducted research for a range of research councils, voluntary agencies, local authorities and central government. She is interested in research investigating youth and communities on the 'margins', particularly in relation to looked after children, informal support networks and educational disadvantage.

Foreword by Robert MacDonald;

Part One: Youth Policy, Pariahs and Poverty:

Critically Theorising Young Adult Marginality: historical and contemporary perspectives ~ Shane Blackman and Ruth Rogers;

Broken Society, Anti-social contracts, Failing State? Rethinking Youth Marginality ~ Peter Squires;

Youth poverty and social exclusion in the UK ~ Eldin Fahmy;

Routine sanctions, humiliation and human struggle: qualitative biographies of young people’s experience of live marginality ~ Linda Brooks;

Normalisation of Youth Austerity Through Entertainment: critically addressing media representations of youth marginality in Britain ~ Shane Blackman and Ruth Rogers;

Part two: Intersections of Youth Marginality: class, gender, ethnicity and education;

Pramface Girls? Early motherhood, marginalisation and the management of stigma ~ Mary Jane Kehily;

Leisure lives on the margins: (Re)Imagining youth in Glasgow East End ~ Batchelor, S., Whittaker, L., Fraser, A. and Ling, L.;

Asylum Rejected: “Appeals rights exhausted” care leavers facing return and marginality ~ Kim Robinson and Lucy Williams;

Responses to the marginalisation of Roma young people in education ~ Jenny van Krieken Robson;

Apprentice or Student as alternatives to marginalisation ~ Patrick Ainley;

A School for our Community: critically assessing discourses of marginality in the establishment of a Free School ~ Claire Tupling;

The Marginalisation of Care: Young Care Leavers’ Experiences of Professional Relationships ~ Emma Davidson and Lisa Whittaker;

Part Three: Resistance and Ethnography;

[B]othered Youth: Stop and search, marginalisation and the policing of belonging ~ Seán F. Murphy;

On the Margins: the last place to rebel? Understanding young people’s resistance to social conformity ~ Jane McKay and Frances Atherton;

‘Binge’ drinking devils and moral marginality: young people’s calculated hedonism in the Canterbury night-time economy ~ Robert McPherson;

The New Spectral Army: Biography and youth poverty on Teesside’s deprived estates ~ Anthony Ruddy;

Conclusions: Advanced Youth Marginality Post Brexit ~ Ruth Rogers and Shane Blackman.