Youth Mobility Research Articles

Developing ‘new’ avenues and domains in youth research: Youth mobility and transport

ABSTRACTMobility and transport needs, challenges and experiences are embedded in everyday life. An examination of mobility and transport issues contributes to our understanding of social change, stratification, differentiation, inequalities, structures and processes. This is an indication that sociological understandings of mobility and transport are relevant and critical to contemporary society, particularly the daily experiences and realities of marginalised and vulnerable social groups. This review paper then makes two contributions. The first demonstrates the extent to which the concepts 'mobility' and 'transport' extend our understanding of everyday lives, needs, experiences and challenges. Secondly, the paper highlights a selection of dominant and emerging themes, including the conceptual, methodological and epistemological deficiencies. This presents opportunities for further sociological accounts of youth in general and youth mobility in particular. This paper then is a 'primer' to encourage the exploration of 'new' avenues and domains within sociology in general and the Sociology of Youth or Childhood in particular.

Ecological context, concentrated disadvantage, and youth reoffending: identifying the social mechanisms in a sample of serious adolescent offenders.

Serious youthful offenders are presented with a number of significant challenges when trying to make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. One of the biggest obstacles for these youth to overcome concerns their ability to desist from further antisocial behavior, and although an emerging body of research has documented important risk and protective factors associated with desistance, the importance of the neighborhoods within which these youth reside has been understudied. Guided by the larger neighborhood effects on crime literature, the current study examines the direct and indirect effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending among a sample of highly mobile, serious youthful offenders. We use data from Pathways to Desistance, a longitudinal study of serious youthful offenders (N = 1,354; 13.6% female; 41.4% African American, 33.5% Hispanic, 20.2% White), matched up with 2000 Census data on neighborhood conditions for youth's main residence location during waves 7 and 8 of the study. These waves represent the time period in which youth are navigating the transition to adulthood (aged 18-22; average age = 20). We estimate structural equation models to determine direct effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending and also to examine the possible indirect effects working through individual-level mechanisms as specified by theoretical perspectives including social control (e.g., unsupervised peer activities), strain (e.g., exposure to violence), and learning (e.g., exposure to antisocial peers). Additionally, we estimate models that take into account the impact that a change in neighborhood conditions may have on the behavior of youth who move to new residences during the study period. Our results show that concentrated disadvantage is indirectly associated with youth reoffending primarily through its association with exposure to deviant peers. Taking into account youth mobility during the study period produced an additional indirect pathway by which concentrated disadvantage is associated with goal blockage (i.e., the gap between belief in conventional goals and perceived potential to reach those goals), which was then associated with exposure to deviant peers and indirectly, reoffending behavior. We conclude that the neighborhood effects literature offers a promising framework for continued research on understanding the successful transition to adulthood by serious youthful offenders.

The effects of age, gender, hopelessness, and exposure to violence on sleep disorder symptoms and daytime sleepiness among adolescents in impoverished neighborhoods.

Although sleep problems are associated with negative outcomes among adolescents, studies have not focused on sleep disorder symptoms among adolescents living in impoverished neighborhoods and how sleep problems may be related to two factors common in those environments: hopelessness and exposure to violence. This study used data from the longitudinal Mobile Youth Survey (MYS; N = 11,838, 49% female, 93% African-American) to examine trajectories of sleep problems by age (10-18 years) among impoverished adolescents as a function of gender, feelings of hopelessness, and exposure to violence. The results indicate that sleep problems associated with traumatic stress decline with age, with four notable distinctions. First, the steepest decline occurs during the early adolescent years. Second, the rate of decline is steeper for males than for females. Third, exposure to violence impedes the rate of decline for all adolescents, but more dramatically for females than for males. Fourth, the rate of decline is smallest for adolescents with feelings of hopelessness who also had been exposed to violence. To explore the generalizability of these results to other types of sleep disorders, we analyzed cross-sectional data collected from a subsample of 14- and 15-year-old MYS participants (N = 263, 49% female, 100% African-American) who completed a sleep symptoms questionnaire. Four results from the cross-sectional analysis extend the findings of the longitudinal analysis. First, the cross-sectional results showed that symptoms of apnea, insomnia, nightmares, and restless legs syndrome or periodic limb movement disorder (RLS/PLMD), as well as daytime sleepiness, increase as a function of hopelessness. Second, symptoms of insomnia, RLS, and nightmares, as well as daytime sleepiness, increase as function of exposure to violence. Third, symptoms of insomnia and RLS/PLMD are greater under conditions of combined hopelessness and exposure to violence than for either condition alone. Fourth, symptoms of RLS/PLMD are worst for females who have been exposed to violence and experience hopelessness. Overall, the findings suggest that hopelessness and exposure to violence have negative independent and multiplicative effects on adolescent sleep, particularly for females. Understanding the causal factors associated with inadequate sleep in impoverished adolescents is important for three reasons. First, sleep is an important aspect of adolescent development. Second, inadequate sleep has severe consequences for adolescent morbidity, mortality, and overall quality of life. Third, impoverished adolescents are at the most severe risk for poor outcomes, and improvement in their sleep may produce large gains.

Dissonant Voices: Soviet Youth Mobilization and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Although studies of the Cuban missile crisis abound, the story “from below” of those fateful days of October 1962 remains largely to be written. This is particularly true for the Soviet side. Little is known about the way the Soviet population, and particularly youth, the prime category for propaganda, perceived what is widely regarded as the most dangerous crisis of the Cold War. Youth were indeed the target of a massive mobilization campaign, but one that was ridden with many shortcomings, or, using the musical metaphor, dissonances. The propaganda machine (mainly the press but also radio and film) had been cultivating anti-Americanism and solidarity with the Cuban people for quite some time, but when the crisis suddenly arose, many “choir members” were unable to modulate their voice to the right key, if there ever was one. Secrecy and improvisation in the Communist Party’s highest organs, coupled with the trauma of World War II, bore the fruits of inertia, formalism, pacifism, and above all, embarrassed silence, eventually contributing to an extreme and often ambivalent palette of reactions.

Associations of adolescent hopelessness and self-worth with pregnancy attempts and pregnancy desire.

We examined the associations of pregnancy desire (ambivalence or happiness about a pregnancy in the next year) and recent pregnancy attempts with hopelessness and self-worth among low-income adolescents. To evaluate independent associations among the study variables, we conducted gender-stratified multivariable logistic regression analyses with data derived from 2285 sexually experienced 9- to 18-year-old participants in the Mobile Youth Survey between 2006 and 2009. Fifty-seven percent of youths reported a desire for pregnancy and 9% reported pregnancy attempts. In multivariable analyses, hopelessness was positively associated and self-worth was negatively associated with pregnancy attempts among both female and male youths. Hopelessness was weakly associated (P = .05) with pregnancy desire among female youths. The negative association of self-worth and the positive association of hopelessness with pregnancy attempts among young men as well as young women and the association of hopelessness with pregnancy desire among young women raise questions about why pregnancy is apparently valued by youths who rate their social and cognitive competence as low and who live in an environment with few options for material success.

Adolescent Development as a Determinant of Family Cohesion: A Longitudinal Analysis of Adolescents in the Mobile Youth Survey

Previous research has demonstrated the effect of family cohesion on adolescent outcomes. However, little attention has been given to the effect of adolescence on the family environment. Family systems theory suggests that as adolescents develop, their development will impact the family environment. The current study examined the impact of adolescent development on family cohesion. Specifically, 4 years of data from the Mobile Youth Survey, a study of adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama, were analyzed. Survey participants were between the ages 13 and 16 and 97 % of them were Black American. Adolescent development was measured using three dimensions—identity style, self-worth, and hopelessness. Family cohesion was measured along two dimensions: maternal and paternal warmth. Adolescent gender was used as a covariate. The longitudinal models revealed that parents responded differently to identity styles and to levels of self-worth depending upon the adolescent’s gender. Our study provides evidence that family cohesion, a key predictor of adolescent behaviors, changes in response to adolescent development.

Acceleration or Avoidance? The Role of Temporary Moves Abroad in the Transition to Adulthood

AbstractThis paper examines the meaning attributed to the practice of ‘going abroad’ from the perspective of youth transitions. It assumes that the growing prevalence of temporary moves abroad among middle‐class youth can be understood as spatial manifestations of, and responses to, both expanded opportunities for individual choice and increased demands for flexibility in the face of uncertainty. The paper is based on an analysis of in‐depth retrospective interviews with 14 thirty‐year‐old Swedes who had spent at least 1 year studying or working abroad in their early to mid twenties. The questions addressed concern the meanings attributed to temporary moves abroad in relation to (a) personal history and personal choice and (b) the management of opportunity and uncertainty. Although going abroad is fairly common among middle‐class Swedish youth, the results indicate that the decision to do so is typically described as highly personal, with reference to one's family history, childhood environment, personality, or desire to become someone different. The act of physical displacement is conceptualised as a way to accelerate progress towards independence and autonomy and to incorporate evidence of courage, flexibility, and ability to act into one's biography. However, mobility is also used to create ‘fail‐safe’ situations – to postpone and avoid the demands for long‐term planning and progress integral to the transition to adulthood. Whereas the pressure for success seems to be considerably relaxed in many temporary communities of mobile youth, it is clearly part of the social context at home. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Quality Education as a Basis for Professional Mobility of Youth in the Republic of Kazakhstan

The main characteristics of social conditioning, conscious, purposeful labor inherent in professional activities. Professional work requires prior educational background of the individual and is in the process of continuous employment.Globalization processes influence both directly and indirectly by the state and dynamics of employment. The use of new, less labor-intensive technologies contributes to the creation of new jobs and rapid economic growth. But to get to the jobs for people without higher education, a high intellectual level of development and professional competence, it is almost impossible. Intelligence and professionalism - these are the main trump cards, to protect against unemployment. Economic modernization of Kazakhstan aimed at sustainable development of the market economy and the management of its growth. Make the economy sustainable and manage this growth will only invest in the younger generation. PurposeBased on social science data to develop practical recommendations to government and non-governmental organizations interested in identifying new prospects for the professional socialization of modern personality.

Transnational youth mobility in the neoliberal economy of experience

An increasing number of young people are making long-stay travels while postponing their transition to adulthood and seeking ‘global experience’. Among various forms of long-stay travel, the working holiday has been popular among young people looking for opportunities to work during travel. In order to empirically explore how global experience is negotiated by young travellers, this study analyses the narratives of 30 South Korean working holidaymakers in Toronto, Canada. The in-depth interviews reveal that the working holiday in Canada is considered by its participants to be a process of seeking the ‘true self’ and a way of enhancing social mobility, both of which lead to a sense of self-development. Drawing upon the empirical findings, the article suggests that the discourse of self-development naturalises a particular mode of neoliberal subjectivity and thus standardises the practice of global experience.

THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY IN STUDENTS’ CORE COMPETENCES DEVELOPMENT

The paper examines the role of international mobility through the exchange programs in student’s core competences development. The theoretical background of the research is based on academic literature in the field of youth mobility and youth competences development analysis. The research was carried out regarding European framework on key competences for lifelong learning (2006). This research presents a multidimensional approach to students’ core competences and their development benefits emerging due to implementation of international mobility programs. Moreover, the paper brings forward valuation of students’, who have been exposed to the subject in question, experiences in combination with theoretical background. The empirical study revealed that international mobility programs play important role in all core competences development. Results of the research might draw attention of horizontal student mobility programs developers and institutions implementing it in order to improve efficiency of their affairs. Furthermore, it may be used as a supporting argument evaluating usefulness of funded youth mobility programs. Moreover, a tool for choosing the measures for developing students’ competences demanded by constantly changing needs of the labour market could be created based on research results. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.18.4.5686

Rebirth, empowerment, and youth leading social change: non-formal education in Honduras

This article focuses on a non-formal educational approach implemented in Honduras by CARE Honduras. The project sought to address the gendered barriers to education, in a way that would be community-owned, holistic in its scope of analysis and action, and sustainable beyond CARE's support. The central elements of the model included the provision of community-led non-formal education for out-of-school adolescents, the provision of early childhood care and development centres for community children, a focus on safety and security, and youth mobilisation around civic action and economic empowerment. The approach created outlets for adolescents to positively participate in the social development of their communities, and increased the number of young people in full-time education. This article focuses on the lessons to be learnt from this experience. In particular, it highlights that these changes in the lives of individual young women and men would not have been possible without supportive communities and structures reinforcing the changes.

Children in Educational Residential Care: A Cohort Study of Israeli Youth

This article reports preliminary findings from a national cohort study in Israel on the educational outcomes of 82,342 Jewish citizens born in 1981. We compare the educational outcomes of 2002 alumni of youth villages and their peers in the general population with respect to differences among cultural subgroups. The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics generated the database by combining different official data files based on a personal identification number that each Israeli citizen receives. This database covers the entire cohort and includes information on their background and educational status. The findings indicate that the educational status of alumni of youth villages at the age of 27 is less positive compared to that of their peers in the general population. Cultural differences are discussed with respect to the role of youth villages as a means for upward mobility of disadvantaged youth, and implications for policy and future research are suggested.

Me, myself and my mobile: A segmentation of youths based on their attitudes towards the mobile phone as a status instrument

The importance of the mobile phone in the life of adolescents has led observers to speak of a Mobile Youth Culture. One of the central characteristics of this youth culture is the use of the mobile phone as a means to display or enhance one’s status in the peer group. To date, however, little attention has gone out to the different uses adolescents may have for their mobile phones. Therefore, this study aims to further our understanding of the heterogeneity in adolescent mobile phone use by examining whether we can distinguish between different ‘mobile lifestyles’ within the Mobile Youth Culture. Drawing on a quantitative survey among 1943 Flemish adolescents (12–18years), we differentiated three lifestyles based on their attitudes towards the mobile phone as a fashion article, as a display of one’s popularity and as a display of one’s time scarcity. A two-step cluster procedure based on respondents’ scores on these three mechanisms revealed three different segments: trendy users (N=603), engaged users (N=864) and thrifty users (N=436). These segments showed significantly different profiles in terms of socio-demographics, their use of the mobile phone in the presentation of the Self and the mobile phone’s role in their friendship relationships.

Trajectories of multiple adolescent health risk behaviors in a low-income African American population

This study examined interdependent trajectories of sexual risk, substance use, and conduct problems among 12- to 18-year-old African American youths who were followed annually as part of the Mobile Youth Study. We used growth mixture modeling to model the development of these three outcomes in the 1,406 participants who met the inclusion criteria. Results indicate that there were four distinct classes: normative, low risk (74.3% of sample); increasing high-risk takers (11.9%); adolescent-limited conduct problems and drug risk with high risky sex (8.0%); and early experimenters (5.8%) The higher risk classes had higher rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections diagnoses than the normative sample at each of the ages we examined. Differing somewhat from our hypothesis, all of the nonnormative classes exhibited high sexual risk behavior. Although prevention efforts should be focused on addressing all three risk behaviors, the high rate of risky sexual behavior in the 25% of the sample that fall into the three nonnormative classes underscores an urgent need for improved sex education, including teen pregnancy and HIV/sexually transmitted infections prevention, in this community.

Cross-border leisure mobility styles in the Basque Eurocity

The constitution of Europe has fostered greater human and other mobilities across European borders, however it is not clear whether the border is still actually present in some places or inhibits cross-border mobilities. In this context, a leisure mobilities approach has been used to identify the mobility styles in the Basque Eurocity corridor – a cross-border area between Spain and France. The analysis focuses on leisure mobilities and identifies four different mobility styles based upon leisure orientation variables in terms of values, attitudes and lifestyles; nationality; and socio-demographic characteristics: (1) time-conscious workers, (2) French shoppers, (3) mobile youth and (4) older and less mobile. The results indicate that different leisure orientations and participation levels are highly significant in the constitution of mobility styles, which are usually correlated only with national demographic data. Furthermore, it was identified that a higher identification of mobility constraints was not related to lower levels of participation. Instead, the groups with higher mobility and participation rates raised more awareness of the constraints related to transport and information. Finally, intrapersonal constraints such as age and lack of health showed a greater impact on cross-border mobility, while, unexpectedly, a higher identification of cultural and linguistic constraints was not perceived by participants.

I'm going to make sure I'm ready before I leave: The complexity of educational and mobility decision-making in a Canadian coastal community

This paper draws on an analysis of migration from a coastal community in Atlantic Canada through the fisheries crisis of the last decade. Despite a persistent rhetoric of crisis and decline, the community remains difficult to leave for many young people. This paper examines the dimensions of this difficulty and the way that formal education sets up expectations for outmigration but few supports to families who have multi-generational linkages to local communities. Ironically the very discourse of crisis that is meant to propel youth out of the community may end up playing into a parallel discourse that has long predicted the collapse of urban economic and social structures. This in turn generates and propels a survivalism that inflects educational decision-making in ways that create deeply ambivalent and problematic conceptions of place and mobility for rural youth. This discourse in turn complicates simplistic neoliberal notions of educational choice.

Leaving Northern Ireland: youth mobility field, habitus and recession among undergraduates in Belfast

This article explores the dichotomy between the high prevalence and low incidence of youth mobility intentions, utilising the results of quantitative and qualitative research conducted with 400 students during 2010 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Comparisons with results from a prior study on student mobility also show that the recent recession had made relatively little impact upon the prevalence of mobility intentions. Following a theoretical perspective influenced by Bourdieu, these findings are explained through an appreciation of habitus in transmitting the appropriate values and necessary social and economic resources to enable entry to what we have termed the mobility field. This conclusion also helps account for the disparity between the high prevalence of intentions to leave and the low incidence of concrete plans to leave Northern Ireland, as only a small number of respondents have learnt how to mobile via an informal process of family and peer socialisation.

Youth Mobility in an Isolated Sahelian Population of Mali

This article uses fieldwork collected in four villages of the Sarnyéré Dogon in Mali between 2002 and 2010 to explore the impact of unprecedented individual youth mobility. This small Sahelian population has been challenged by declining natural resources and an opening up to the outside world. Temporary migration of families before each rainy season or harvest has always been part of this population’s adaptation to an arid environment, but youth mobility, especially among girls, is new. Although migration is short term and over relatively short distances, it is an increasingly prevalent alternative to agricultural subsistence strategies. Whereas economic reasons underpin boys’ mobility, for young unmarried girls, the predominant driving force is the discovery of the outside world. Broadly speaking, youth migration in this population is one part of changing intergenerational and gender relations and is especially related to youths’ more individual choices of spouse.

Belonging, Mobility and the Future: Representations of Space in the Life Narratives of Young Rural Czechs

Framed within debates on space, youth mobility and globalization, this article examines representations of space in rural youth’s narratives of their own future. In contrast to other research on youth in ‘peripheral’ areas, it is found that positive representations of both own locality and country prevail among the youth in the communities investigated, and that spatial mobility is sought for in limited ways. It is argued that the wish to remain ‘local’ among the youth and their positive views on own locality are in part predicated on relative favourable regional economic conditions, but should also be seen in connection with their increased engagement with global ‘electronic’ youth culture. The representations of rural life at the core of the youth’s expressions of belonging rest on an image of the rural idyll, however, which is often conflated with an image of the perfect middle class family.

A Longitudinal Analysis of the Relationship Between School Victimization and Student Mobility

Schools have generally been viewed as “safe havens” from victimization experiences. Yet, there is no question that youth experience a variety of victimization while attending school. The current study expands research on victimization at school by focusing on mobile youth. School mobility is of concern to both educators and practitioners and is associated with a number of harmful as well as beneficial outcomes (e.g., dropout and school failure, deviant behaviors, or increased test scores and grades). This research uses longitudinal data from a sample of approximately 2,000 youth to examine (1) the effect of in-school victimization on school mobility and (2) the consequences of school mobility on subsequent victimization. Findings from multilevel regression and change score analyses indicate that, in middle school, youth who are victimized are more likely to change schools and experience less victimization at the new school.