Marginal Youth Research Articles

Can the Cultural Transmission of Trans-Affirming Values Serve as a Protective Factor for Transgender/Gender-Nonconforming Youth?

Through a social learning theoretical framework, this article seeks to understand how gender normativity is perpetuated, as well as how it results in the marginalization of transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) youth. Additionally, ways in which TGNC youth navigate oppression and how discrimination against TGNC youth may be reduced through disruption of gender normativity are explored. Using qualitative methods, including the analysis of community meeting transcripts as well as town hall meetings with gender-diverse participants, the present study will answer the following research questions: (1) how do transgender and gender-nonconforming youth navigate discrimination and marginalization? (2) How can social learning theory be leveraged to disrupt gender normativity and reduce the discrimination, marginalization, and victimization of transgender and gender-nonconforming youth? This article aims to bridge the gap in the literature by expanding on research specifically pertaining to TGNC youth and directly addressing how social learning mechanisms can both perpetuate and mitigate gender-normative ideologies.

Inclusion of vulnerable youth in school or work – How can individually tailored professional support contribute?

Researchers and policymakers are worried about the marginalisation of vulnerable youth who drop out of school and work, as a long range of policies and measures developed in many countries have not solved the problem. Several studies suggest individually tailored support as a vital measure, but the details of how such support contributes to inclusion remain unclear. This article explores how individually tailored support can contribute to the inclusion of vulnerable youth in school or work as well as its limitations. Qualitative data from four support processes were drawn from a Norwegian pilot project aimed at the inclusion of vulnerable youth in schools or work. While none of the youth fully completed school or found sustainable work during the observation period, several minor or temporary achievements – often ‘soft’ outcomes such as trustful relationships or better management of emotions – were reached. These achievements were experienced as vital and important to the youth, their families and to other support organisations involved. Using the capability approach as a lens, I found that individually tailored professional support contributes to bringing forward internal and external resources and transforming these resources into possibilities and capabilities. These contributions take place as ongoing processes. Further transformation of capabilities into achieved functionings, such as stable work, school completion and often other ‘hard’ outcomes, seems to be more difficult.

Questioning Ethiopia’s University Education Philosophy

Abstract This paper aims to explore the two contradictory debates about the educational philosophy of universities in the context of Ethiopia. It also explores how the understanding of the philosophy of university is shaped by environmental factors and exacerbates the marginalisation of youth. On the one hand, universities are perceived as places where knowledge, that can solve a certain problem. On the other hand, universities are places where knowledge is produced and disseminated irrespective of its immediate use value. This study found out that the understanding of the philosophy of education varies across time and place. In the Ethiopian context, there is neither a disinterested pursuit of knowledge nor the instrumentalist epistemology, nor a synthesis of the two. It disregards the value of knowledge altogether and overly simplified the philosophy of instrumentalist epistemology to extent of buying and selling certificates even in the absence of formal training.

Creating Space for Adolescents and Families With Lived Experience of Homelessness to Build Familial Empathy, Communication, and Emotional Regulation: A Qualitative Study of Facilitators of Implementation.

Youth experiencing homelessness are vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). Structural racism disproportionately entraps marginalized youth into CSE while simultaneously obscuring their identification as victims. Adaptation and tailoring of effective interventions to mitigate associated sequelae and inequities is warranted. Support To Reunite, Involve, and Value Each Other (STRIVE) is a strengths-based dyadic intervention with demonstrated efficacy in reducing delinquency, substance use, and high-risk sexual behaviors among marginalized adolescents experiencing homelessness. The adapted STRIVE+ was piloted to explore potential for reducing youth risk factors for CSE. The current article reports findings from interviews exploring participants' experiences with STRIVE+. Youth and caregivers reported increased empathy, communication, and emotional regulation post-STRIVE+ and found relevance and meaning through participating in the adapted intervention. Feasibility of recruitment, engagement, and retention of minoritized adolescents and their caregivers were also demonstrated. Findings warrant larger scale implementation trials of STRIVE+ among minoritized youth at highest risk for CSE. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 62(1), 27-35.].

The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth Violence: Insights from Professional Key Informants

Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has had drastic effects on youth violence protective and risk factors by isolating many at risk youth. While youth violence is a growing global health problem, there are limited studies exploring youth violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lake County in Northwest Indiana presents an opportunity for youth violence research and prevention given its socio-demographic context and its limited youth violence data. This study explored the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on youth violence and its risk and protective factors from the perspectives of professional key informants in Lake County, Indiana. Methods This study utilized a descriptive qualitative design inspired by the constructivist grounded theory. We recruited professional key informants through purposive and snowball sampling. Data collection consisted of virtual semi-structured key informant interviews that were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis consisted of inductive thematic analysis with open line-by-line coding, focused coding in Dedoose, and theme identification. Results A total of six key informants were interviewed, representing diverse youth-serving occupations. These interviews revealed five general themes portraying the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on youth violence: mental health impacts on youth; socialization of youth; youth as victims, perpetrators, or witnesses; shifting of learning environments; and parent-child relationships. Key informants observed an increase in less visible types of youth violence, underlying pandemic-induced or-exacerbated youth mental and behavioral health issues, strained parent-child relationships, and the educational marginalization of youth in underserved communities during online learning transitions. Conclusions This study highlighted underserved youth’s vulnerability to the COVID-19 pandemic’s adverse impacts on youth violence experiences, risk, and protective factors. Our findings support the need to prioritize youth during and after crises, to utilize innovative strategies to better reach underserved youth, and to develop ethical and integrated youth violence data systems. Future research should explore youth’s lived experiences with violence throughout the pandemic.

Strategies toward Greater Youth Participation in Jordan’s Urban Policymaking

Seventy percent of the population in Jordan is young and urban. A plethora of research demonstrated that collaborative urban policymaking would positively impact youth’s physiological and physical welfare as well as the quality of urban planning. Nevertheless, youth participation in Jordan’s urban planning is fragile, limited, and sporadic. Youth marginalization from urban policymaking would deter sustainable urban development. Therefore, this article examines the most convenient strategy to promote the inclusion of young Jordanians in the planning practice to be fully-fledged members of society. The fuzzy Delphi method (FDM) was employed to mathematically analyze the level of importance of each suggested strategy based on the opinions of eight experts with long experience in promoting youth participation in Jordan’s public policy. Research results reveal that adopting cutting-edge communication technology is the most suitable strategy to genuinely recognize youth input, opinions, and experience in urban policymaking.

Working towards more socially just futures: five areas for transdisciplinary literacies research

AbstractPolicy‐makers and provincial governments have a responsibility to prioritise equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA) with approaches that leverage both intersectionality and transdisciplinarity, especially when looking at literacies research. Supported by a federally funded knowledge synthesis grant that surveyed the scope of EDIA in Canadian schools, this article focuses on youth marginalisation to address literacies learning. The authors address five concepts from a three‐phase literature review to examine inclusive practices that respect, acknowledge and address EDIA in K‐12 education. Across reviewed studies, there is an underlying trajectory outlining methodological challenges in implementing EDIA practices. We advance anti‐racist and abolitionist approaches by addressing five areas: (1) making learning more accessible by adopting culturally responsive pedagogy informed by local cultures, languages and values; (2) pursuing sustainable professional development in culturally inclusive teaching practices; (3) creating safer school environments that nurture community‐driven relationships between parents, students and their teachers; (4) reforming educational policies to concretely address structural racism, discrimination and misrepresentation of socially marginalised students by disrupting what is conceptualised and accepted as ideal culturally responsive pedagogy; and (5) prioritising community perspectives and input curriculum decisions to support underrepresented students. Ultimately, this article echoes this issue's orientations as it explores transdisciplinary practices composing an evolving understanding of literacies.

Afrophobia in Canadian Institutions: Youth Marginality, System Professionals and Systemic Barriers

Until 1962, Canada was legally a Eurocentric racial state. After abandoning state-sanctioned racism in 1967, politicians soon realized that institutional entrenchment of racism would need more than laws-based anti-racism. Today, institutional racism, however, remains entrenched in Canadian institutions despite various mitigating processes by all levels of governments since the 1970s. In this qualitative paper, we analyze the marginalizing effects of system anti-Black racism and the dissonances between strategies and attitudes of system professionals and African-Canadian grassroots youth workers. From our findings, we conclude that effective youth workers prioritize behavior-in-time (experience-based) over behavior-in-discourse (text-based) in service provision.

When Peace Means Nothing: Reflections on Youth Marginality and Agency in Postwar Sierra Leone

ABSTRACT: The situation, agency, and actions of the youth remain central to the analyses of political, socioeconomic, and cultural dynamics of postwar Sierra Leone. This article returns to the youth question twenty years after the end of the war in Sierra Leone in order to understand the differing experiences that animate youth sociopolitical and economic reality in the country. It focuses specifically on the experiences of the present generation of youth, the spaces they inhabit, and what their experiences teach us about postwar peacebuilding in Sierra Leone. Using data collected through interviews, surveys, and focus group discussions from over 562 youth and other actors, between January 2019 and November 2022, this article argues that a significant proportion of the country's youth remain marginalized in society. These youth continue to deploy coping strategies, including creation of alternative social spaces, expressive popular culture, drugs and gangs, and migration to deal with their marginality. Significantly a proportion of marginalized youth remain trapped in cycles of violence as they clash with state security forces.

Theoretical basis youth marginalization

This article analyzes the processes of marginalization of young people in the social structure and the processes of the emergence of marginal strata and statuses. The author describes and justifies the state of marginal status in the social structure of the modern community.

Factors Influencing Youth Participation in Leadership in Secondary Schools in Iringa Municipality, Tanzania

Youth participation in leadership activities is a continuous discussion to emphasize in our Tanzanian community. There are limited research findings on factors contributing to youth participation in leadership in secondary schools. This results in a lack of confidence, communication skills, leadership skills, team working, and social participation among the students. Therefore, the study examined the factors influencing youth participation in leadership in secondary schools in Iringa Municipality. The study researcher adopted an explanatory research design to conduct the study. The covered a sample of 300 respondents drawn from a target population of 1400 students of secondary schools in Iringa Municipality. Data analysis was done by use of descriptive and inferential statistics; frequencies, percentages, correlation, and multiple regression. The study revealed that; social influence, social media, and civic education have a positive but weak relationship with youth participation in leadership in secondary schools in Iringa Municipality. This is because the correlation coefficients (r) on the relationship between social influence, social media and civic education with youth leadership participation were 0.159, 0.139, and 0.099 respectively which shows positive significance but weak. This is because in estimating the required relationship the results yielded p values greater than 0.05 which justify insignificant contributions. The practical implication is that these constructs should be improved in their application in order to provide a significant contribution to youth leadership in Iringa Municipality. Based on these results, the researcher recommends advanced policies and division of resources to address youth marginalization in the distribution of opportunities for leadership participation. The resources to be addressed should cover both financial and non-financial resources. The study also recommends that schools should encourage leadership skills, mentoring, and trainings across all activities and programming to advance youth’s self-confidence, agency, and voice to advocate for their issues and engage in civic discussions.

Sexual and gender diverse youth's marginalization in school based sex education and development of adaptive competencies

AbstractOne uniquely marginalizing school environment for sexual and gender diverse (SGD) youth is school based sex education (SBSE). While research has documented the negative sexual and mental health impacts these marginalizing environments can have for SGD youth, we know less about the developmental competencies that this population of youth exercises to survive in and cope with these environments. In this paper, we aim to answer the following question: What are the developmental competencies that SGD youth exercise in sex education spaces? We conducted focus groups with SGD youth (n = 17) in a Midwestern metropolitan region. Our study documents youth exercising six adaptive competencies to persevere through oppressive SBSE. Our data holds several scholarly and practical implications. In our discussion section, we present recommendations for creating inclusive and affirming school environments and nurturing these competencies in youth.

University Leaders as Inhibitors or Influencers of Systemic Change for Marginalised Youth

Despite multiple frameworks that purport to enable transformation, hierarchies of localised power in the governance and management of the higher education system continue to influence the scope and depth of inclusion, diversity and transformation programmes. Research conducted during 2014–2016 focused on the receptivity of an inclusion programme implemented in South African universities that was developed to create inclusive services and culture for an at-risk population. Drawing on applied research, the article considers how inclusivity practitioners created conditions for inclusion within their university. The obligation of the university in the creation of an inclusive environment is debated and the role of university leaders in contributing towards an inclusive culture is explored. The findings of this research demonstrate that university leaders have a direct impact on enabling or impeding inclusion programmes in the university. The findings contribute towards inclusivity praxis that aims to reduce oppression in universities by university leaders and the research demonstrates positive outcomes in spite of resistance by university leadership.

“We survived the pandemic together”: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian families living with chronic pain

ABSTRACT Introduction Pediatric chronic pain is a significant problem in Canada, affecting one in five youth. This study describes the impact of the pandemic on the experiences of Canadian families living with chronic pain through interviews with youth living with chronic pain, parents, and siblings. Methods Employing a qualitative descriptive design, in-depth semistructured interviews were completed with Canadian youth living with pain, as well as parents and siblings. Participants were not required to be related. Interviews were analyzed using a reflexive thematic analysis approach. Results Forty-four interviews were completed with 14 parents, 19 youth with chronic pain, and 11 siblings from across the country. Three key themes were developed: (1) absorbing and shifting: the toll of the pandemic on the family system (e.g., loss of coping mechanisms, shifting roles to respond to the pandemic), (2) social ambiguity and abandonment (e.g., social sacrifice and abandonment by the health care system), and (3) building community resilience: familial adaptation to the pandemic (e.g., family cohesion, confidence, and self-management). Discussion/Conclusions Youth, parents, and siblings reported that the pandemic impacted coping strategies across the family system. These results outline the challenges youth experienced managing their pain and overall health throughout the pandemic and the resilience built within families during this time. Going forward, it would be relevant to examine how racialized and structurally marginalized youth with chronic pain and their families experienced the pandemic. Future research should examine how unexpected benefits of the pandemic (e.g., increased confidence and self-management) may be sustained into the future.

Opportunity and the Pandemic: Re-imagining Business Management Curriculum for First-generation Students under Cover of Pandemonium

First-generation university students negotiate with clear and evident difficulty the transition from the familiarity of secondary (high school) education to tertiary (university) education. The impersonal nature of tertiary education generally—and particularly so since the pandemic advent—accentuates marginalisation of vulnerable youth and impinges on effective learning and a favourable learning experience. A more desirable state would include demystification of the processes of becoming a student-customer, firstly, and thereafter a learner-initiate. Teaching faculty, in the (necessarily virtual) classroom, serve as the user-interface with the impersonal and often impenetrable administrative and teaching dimensions of the university exosystem. The rationale is that, were the pathway from high school graduate to student-customer and learner-initiate to be less harrowing, the transition would be more composed and the journey to degree completion more gratifying. Scaffolding this rationale as a reconceptualised first-year management studies curriculum draws upon Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of learner development, and the foundations established by Vygotsky’s socio-cultural model of learning. In this frame, proximal processes arising as learner interaction with microsystem and exosystem dimensions of socio-economic and socio-cultural inheritance, can be addressed in the classroom to transcend learner disaffection. An entry-level management principles curriculum delivered to a substantial cohort in the second semester of 2021 served as object of phenomenological observation and interpretation. The student-experience pathway was emphasised as instructor-directed, student-focused and compensatory. Two foci are brought to the fore in this paper, rendering the curriculum content accessible for the student profile, and overcoming assessment helplessness and despondency. These accomplishments are elaborated as features of backwards design and emphasis on teaching and learning as social interaction with a more knowledgeable other.

Access to Support Services for Newcomer Youth Through the Process of School Integration: A Critical Narrative Literature Review.

While the numbers of newcomer youth continue to grow in Canada, few studies have sought to critically capture experiences of school integration and access to school-based psychosocial support services during their transition. Guided by a critical social justice lens, this research seeks to investigate issues of inequity due to the marginalization of newcomer youth in schools. The intent of this critical narrative review is to summarize, interpret, critique, and synthesize what is currently known about the ways newcomer youth access and experience school-based psychosocial support services (S-BPSS) throughout the process of school integration. This paper presents the critical narrative literature review process, a discussion of the themes that emerged from the review, and a discussion of the literature within the context of school integration. The following themes that underscore the experiences of newcomer youth accessing school-based psychosocial support services were identified: (a) underutilization/discrimination, (b) culture shift, (c) transition planning, and (d) lived experience. Important directions for future research, including the importance of studies that prioritize the perspectives of newcomer youth themselves and the implications of their lived experience for S-BPSS are provided.

Civic science: Addressing racial inequalities in environmental and science, technology, engineering, and math education

AbstractCivic science (CS) is an approach to science learning and action in which youth determine issues of concern in their communities and use science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) knowledge and methods to address them. In this article, we focus on CS as it is applied to environmental concerns and enacted by children and youth in urban communities. Core CS practices include relevance of local place and culturally responsive principles for youth's learning and community contributions, egalitarian intergenerational partnerships with adults from community‐based organizations, teamwork and collective action, and public regard for youth's community environmental contributions. We discuss CS's potential to address the marginalization of youth from minoritized backgrounds in traditional STEM and environmental education. We also argue that the way CS frames science for the public good will prepare younger generations to meet 21st‐century environmental challenges.

Ghost Animal Carnival: A Study on the Community Culture of Video Users in Bilibili

The penetration of new media technology continues to affect the rapid development of Internet communities. Internet users who break through the limitations of time and space start creative practice or communication activities according to their interests, which promotes the rapid rise of marginal youth subculture. Ghost animal video is an important branch of subcultural circle, and its community also presents a unique ecological culture in its self-development. Focusing on the ghost animal video community in bilibili, combined with post-modern characteristics, pastiche and parody, self-identity and other related theories, this paper explores the construction mechanism and existing problems of this community culture, and describes the ritual resistance and group carnival in this community, which has a profound impact on the whole community culture.

Tunisian youth: catalyst for socio-political change and emergence of identity politics in post-Arab Spring Tunisia

ABSTRACT Tunisian youths form a significant constituent of Tunisian society demographically, politically, and socio-culturally. The hardship imposed on Tunisia by the neoliberal model in the 1980s, corruption and the government’s lack of economic vision has undermined the country’s economic status in recent years. However, youth’s role as drivers of change in political and socio-cultural terms has received little attention. Based on a fieldwork study in 2014 and a 2020 online survey, this paper analyses the Tunisian youth’s constituency and the extent of their political engagement and active citizenship and discusses their role in changing Tunisia’s socio-cultural landscape through their acquisition of a ‘glocal’ culture. Methodologically, the findings of the paper are drawn from primary data represented in the fieldwork research trips of 2014, and from various sources such as the World Bank and the Tunisian Electoral Commission. The research questions of this paper are threefold: first, how have Tunisian youths reacted to the Arab Spring? Second, what socio-political and economic factors have contributed to the marginalization of youth in Tunisia? Third, how can the political disengagement of youth inform an understanding of their character and Tunisia’s future direction?

Urban Sprawl or Urban Development? Peri-Urbanism in Metropolitan Areas of Amhara Region, Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, rapid urbanization has been transforming land-use regimes as cities regenerate and expand, incorporating peri-urban spaces and changing their physical and human landscapes. This study explores the challenges and opportunities of this transformation on peri-urban spaces in the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) to inform future urban development planning and practice. It focuses on selected peri-urban areas in three metropolitan areas of ANRS —Bahir Dar, Dessie, and Gondar. It employs a phenomenological approach to interpreting data collected through focus group discussion, key-informant and in-depth interviews and observation. Its findings depict these peri-urban spaces rife with poor governance, tenure insecurity, livelihood crises, youth marginalization, and environmental pollution while opportunities were limited, unsustainable, and parochial. It concludes with remarks on the characteristic experiences of urban expansion and the need for effective involvement of stakeholders and residents to enable inclusive and sustainable urban development planning and implementation in peri-urban spaces.