Visions Of Youth Research Articles

Limitations in the field of vision of young operators of utility all-terrain vehicles

Problem: All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) cause a distressing number of fatalities and injuries among farm youth in the United States. The number of severe injuries caused by ATV crashes on farms, which stood at 25 children in 2019, is expected to rise due to increased ATV sales during the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing research into children's injuries has explored physical capabilities like anthropometry, strength, and visual acuity. Yet, studies assessing youths' physical ability to operate ATVs remain limited. This study tests the hypothesis that diminished vision field in young ATV operators raises crash risks. Methods: This study used SAMMIECAD digital human modeling system to simulate and compare the field of vision of youth and adult ATV operators. The simulations incorporated 3-D mockups of ATVs, humans, sprayer tanks, windshields, and obstacles. Ten utility ATVs and children of both genders across nine ages (8–16) and three height percentiles (5th, 50th, 95th) were evaluated. Results: Simulations showed that young ATV operators generally have a more restricted field of vision than adults, particularly those aged 6–11 years. Discussion: Visual limitations hinder riders' ability to see ATV controls, potentially leading to vehicle control loss. Moreover, they impair environmental perception during riding, compromising youths' ATV operation abilities and increasing crash risks. Practical Applications: These findings offer crucial data in support of modifying ATV safety guidelines. Additionally, they can guide youth occupational health professionals in preventing ATV-related incidents in agricultural settings.

Scenes from El Alto: Indigenous Youth Visions for Urban Bolivia

Scenes from El Alto: Indigenous Youth Visions for Urban Bolivia

REVIEW OF THE BOOK: HANDBOOK OF POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT: CRITICAL INSIGHTS ON YOUTH POTENTIAL FROM THE MAINSTREAM TO THE GLOBAL SOUTH

The Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework promotes a vision of youth based on their strengths. This paper is a review the Handbook of positive youth development. Advancing research, policy, and practice in global contexts. This review expands on the core themes of the Handbook by delving into challenges for PYD research as it moves forward to reach populations that have been systematically excluded from mainstream academia. It is proposed that the publication of this book, and its valuable contributions to youth research and policy, is a timely opportunity to highlight the mismatch between youth possibilities in developed and developing contexts, as it is the Handbook’s aim to decrease the gap between mainstream and Global South youth psychology.

Youth visions in a changing climate: Emerging lessons from using immersive and arts-based methods for strengthening community-engaged research with urban youth


 
 
 Despite increasing efforts, youth perspectives remain largely excluded from decision- making processes concerning their future and the social-ecological challenges they are set to inherit. While youth are a critical and powerful force for social change, many youths in underserved communities have limited access to appropriate information on the root causes and consequences of environmental change, in addition to an array of other complex social injustices. To address this, we embarked on a participatory action research process which focused on democratising research, science and the arts by facilitating experiential, immersive learning opportunities with the intention of eventually co-producing artifacts (in the form of participatory murals) in public spaces to facilitate longer term engagement with human nature futures. This article outlines and shares reflections on our process and offers insights for future engagement activities that seek to mobilise youth imaginaries and agency. We found participants were better engaged when conversations were (1) facilitated by other participants; (2) were outdoors and centred on public art; and (3) were happening in parallel with a hands-on activity. This contrasted with asking interview-type questions, or asking participants to write down their answers, which felt more like a test than a conversation, minimising participation. Key learnings included: the need to co-develop knowledge around enhancing climate literacy that is based on local realities; that multiple capacities and hives of activity already exist in communities and need to be mobilised and not built; that creative visioning and futuring can help identify options for change; and that many youths are seeking creative, immersive and safe spaces for co-learning and connection. Initiatives that aim to engage diverse voices should therefore be well- resourced so as to carefully co-design processes that start by acknowledging contextual differences and capacities within those contexts, and co-create immersive dialogues, in order to move away from test-like engagements which perpetuate power imbalances and discourage participation.
 
 

Involvement in the Democratic Life in Europe: A Study on Views and Vision of Youth in Latvia

Abstract Currently, the educational system in Latvia is undergoing a transition from a traditional to a competence-based curriculum where civic education plays an important place in pupils’ holistic development. In the context of strengthening civic education, it is important to gain experience in practising citizenship in order to promote the active participation and co-responsibility of young people in social and political processes in the country and beyond. The study focuses on the factors that influence the formation of young Latvian people’s civic identity and the role of formal education and their teachers in this process in a broader sustainability context. The article reflects the results of a study about Latvian youngsters’ involvement in political activities, their attitude and interest about political events in Latvia and the European Union.

Designing for Youth-Centered Moderation and Community Governance in Minecraft

Online settings have been suggested as viable sites for youth to develop social, emotional, and technical skills that can positively shape their behavior online. However, little work has been done to understand how online governance structures might support (or hinder) such learning. Using mixed-methods research, we report findings from a 2-year, in-the-wild study of 8–13 year olds on a custom multiplayer Minecraft server. The two-part study focuses on the design of youth-centered models of community governance drawn from evidence-based offline practices in the prevention and learning sciences. Preliminary results point to a set of socio-technical design approaches shaping player behavior while also supporting youth interest in Minecraft-like online environments. More broadly, the findings suggest an alternative vision of youth’s capacity for ownership and control of mechanisms shaping the culture and climate of their online communities: managing player behavior while challenging current norms around adult control and surveillance of youth activity.

إدارة قضايا الحريات في منصات الإعلام التقليدي والرقمي: دراسة مقارنة بين الشباب المصري والسعودي

With the expansion of the digital public sphere, tackling freedom issues has been widely transferred from traditional mass media to digital platforms. Based on the constructive approach that demonstrates the recipient’s active ability to give meaning to what he/she is exposed to, and what "Binge-watch", this study aims at identifying the various visions of youth in Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the political, social, and religious freedom issues discussed in series presented on Netflix digital platform as well as traditional television channels. The study adopted a survey approach to a sample made up of (300) Egyptian and Saudi youth. Thus, this study reveals the excessive increase of binge-watching Netflix series at the side of the collected sample of Egyptian and Saudi youth, in comparison to the decline in the rate of their exposure to series presented on traditional TV channels. Furthermore, the study also shows the limited role of traditional and new media platforms in forming the youth vision of freedom issues. It is, moreover, manifested that generating meanings related to such issues is subject to several internal and external factors associated with youth and their surrounding context, not to their exposure to any platform viewing patterns or content.

Opioid agonist therapy trajectories among street entrenched youth in the context of a public health crisis.

North America is in the midst of an overdose crisis that is having devastating effects among street entrenched youth (<30 years of age). Opioid agonist therapy (OAT) is a cornerstone of the public health response to this crisis; yet, we struggle to connect youth to OAT across numerous settings. This qualitative study examined perspectives on OAT among street entrenched youth and their providers in Vancouver, Canada. Our findings reveal youth's hopes and fears surrounding making a “full” recovery from past substance use. Youth often equated getting off opioids with “getting back to normal” and the ability to pursue “normal” kinds of futures. While many initiated OAT for short periods of time (<one month) to mediate the discomfort of withdrawal during in-patient treatment, adherence to medications like methadone and buprenorphine over the longer term did not fit with many youth's visions of “normal” futures. A number of polysubstance using youth did not access OAT, despite its lifesaving potential. Youth who did access OAT often preferred methadone because of its perceived ability to mediate longstanding physical and mental health issues. Participants who accessed OAT had the most success with adherence when they were invested in this treatment modality and actively involved in decision making around what kind of medication would work best for them, and for how long. In the absence of this collaboration, many youth made the decision to taper off of OAT independently, frequently resulting in relapse and heightened overdose risk.

The ‘silver-lining’ of youth future in the new normal: Describing a new generation

BACKGROUND: While everything around us, especially the future of our youth generation, seems to be going wrong, there is always a ‘silver-lining’ that need to be discovered. Life has taught us always that with every major negative event, we have lots of positive opportunities that need to be discovered. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to explore the new normal post-COVID-19 pandemic generation perspectives. METHODS: In this paper, the outcome of a global study of youth perception about their future in the post-COVID-19 pandemic is carried out and discussed in details. RESULTS: The results of the study help to foresight the type of the coming youth generation in the new normal and address their challenges and requirements in the new normal. The paper results lead to understanding what ways COVID-19 have affected and changed their life as a youth. The results show what shape the vision of youth toward. CONCLUSION: The outcome of this international youth-focused study opens lots of insights for youth leaders, youth-focused government planners, education experts to see what type of programs, schemes, strategies, the curriculum need to be established in their communities based on the areas of strength and the areas of weakness that need to be addressed. More studies are advised in this line to complement the generalisation of this work. The main implication of this paper is that it brings new perspectives on how youth see hope in the new normal, and this might help to establish Inter-generational Dialogue that mitigates the state of uncertainty. The other implication of this research is that set direction for governments towards youth needs in the new normal.

Negen-u-topic becoming: On the reinvention of youth

At first glance a Russian anarchist’s revolutionary address to the youth of his day made in the late 19th century and the address to youth made by a contemporary French philosopher may appear to have little in common as their context and era are ostensibly very different. How would Petr Kropotkin’s address be understood in our time? Are Kropotkin’s concerns the same as those raised by Bernard Stiegler? Could Kropotkin speak of universal concerns, a sense of elevation and sublimation not governed, undermined or circumvented by digital relations, calculation or algorithmic determination? I find a mutual concern with the coming into maturity of youth, but, I am concerned that as we are passing through an epochal and revolutionary transformation driven by digital and cognitive capitalism and in our toxic and crisis-ridden milieu, Kropotkin’s rhetoric would inevitably fall on deaf ears? Is his rhetoric on revolution anachronistic? How would his rhetoric be crafted for a youth seemingly indifferent to the plight of fellow brethren? Is it conceivable that the humanist-inflected prospects of youth so vaunted by Kropotkin have now been devastated by the inhuman and nihilistic tendencies of the so-called miscreant, ‘blank generation’ as described by Stiegler? True, while it is difficult to calibrate the vision of youth affirmed in Kropotkin with the fear of youth in Stiegler, and, despite differences in episteme, tradition and political orientation, both thinkers I think are concerned with the trials and tribulations of youth and both hold out the prospect of the not-yet of youth, of the coming into being of the maturity of youth, of Aufklärung. It is this shared focus I wish to examine further.

Resignification Practices of Youth in Zona da Mata, Brazil in the Transition Toward Agroecology

Youth play an important role in the transition toward agroecology through practices of resignification. This article discusses how young people resignify agroecology by taking part in education initiatives that originate from social movements, and that aim to strengthen young peoples’ abilities to reflect on their practices and realities. We used action research to create films with young agroecologists in the region of Zona da Mata Mineira, Brazil. Our analysis draws on films, interviews and participatory observations made during thirteen workshops to visualize the agroecological practices and visions of youth. We explore how social frames—e.g., the specific ways in which people understand reality—shape practices and how these frames are actively changed by youth. The findings show how frames are changed during (1) frame amplification by building on existing local values; (2) frame bridging by linking with other social movements; (3) frame extension by inclusion of new frames; and (4) frame transformation by altering the meaning of agroecology. We find that young people who engage with agroecology contribute to processes of repeasantization that rework local culture to be more inclusive of different populations, generations and genders, and that they foster an appreciation of the interconnectedness of humans and nature.

Disrupting and Dismantling the Dominant Vision of Youth of Color

In this article, ELA and urban teacher educators who have been long-time advocates for and users of young adult literature in their work with beginning English—teachers re-think the cultural constructs of “black and brown” adolescence that undergird the genre and guide their work.

Religiosity and readiness for reconciliation: An anthropological view

This paper is an anthropological study of processes that lead to the traumatization of a society, and of processes that result in forgiveness and reconciliation as chosen ways of dealing with post-conflict situations. The area on which the research is focused is Southeastern Europe, or more precisely Croatian and Serbian societies and relations. As cultural anthropology has not developed any special theory to deal with the causes of traumatic experiences in cultures and societies, this study uses the conceptions of closely related cultural sociology, formulated in Jeffrey Alexander's works. According to Alexander cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways. Insofar as they identify the cause of trauma, and thereby assume such moral responsibility, members of collectivities define their solidary relationships in ways that allow them to share the sufferings of others. In thinking that the suffering of others might also be our own societies expand the circle of the we. According to the same theory, when social groups refuse to recognize the existence of others' trauma and suffering, they not only diffuse their own responsibility for the suffering but often project the responsibility for their own suffering on these others. It is necessary then, for any process of reconciliation to be successful, that groups recognize suffering of others and their own responsibility. From the fact that social groups might refuse to participate in the process of trauma creation, it is obvious that trauma does not exist naturally, but that trauma is a social construction, a socially mediated attribution. This paper and research are also designed as an anthropological comparison with a huge sociological research of religiosity in Croatia done in 2000, partly also focused on the topic of reconciliation. Anthropological research of young believers for this paper was conducted in 2014 and 2015 in Croatia, with interview used as the main research method. The main results show that: there still exists an important difference between proclaimed and practical believers; both Catholic Church in Croatia and Serbian Orthodox Church are expected to work on forgiveness and reconciliation; ecumenism is highly valued; readiness for taking part in common Catholic-Orthodox meetings and services is ubiquitous; and that the readiness to forgive and conciliate is real and substantial. The research confirmed the vision of youth believers as a group that is especially ready to conciliate and actively work on the processes of reconciliation and forgiveness, and that there is a solid basis for the success of these processes in contemporary Croatian society.

Will I Make It on My Own? Voices and Visions of 17-Year-Old Youth in Transition

Voices and Visions of Youth in Transition, a longitudinal transformative youth-centered research study, examines the experiences and thoughts of youth as they transition out of foster care at the ages of 17, 19, and 21. Qualitative and quantitative survey inquiries were used to attain an understanding of the experiences of 198 youth in foster care who were 17 years old during the first wave of data collection. Nine critical areas related to the transition out of foster care were examined: education; employment; housing; high-risk behavior; access to health insurance; social connections with adults, family, and friends; the transition plan; transition concerns; and personal goals. The majority of youth reported the importance of resources, social support, and personal habits and skills as they prepare for the transition out of foster care. Youth also expressed concerns about being on their own without adequate support and not being able to make it on their own. This article highlights the study’s findings from the first wave of data collection and how youth in transition are meaningfully engaged and empowered throughout the research process.

Between Cultured Young Men and Mischievous Children: Youth, Transgression, and Protest in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico

This article traces the progression of "youth" in Mexico from 1867 to c. 1900. It argues that the historical "images" of youth that developed during this period are telling as to youth culture, but also reveal much concerning greater societal and national aspirations. As this burgeoning vision of youth took shape in the late nineteenth century, its preeminent expression was the preparatoriano, or the student of the National Preparatory School. This "positivist image" of youth, hitherto overlooked in the historiography, was particularly celebratory and bespoke the transformative nature of the modern state. This group of young students, however, was not homogenous. As the restored nation tried its find its course (through local notions of liberalism and positivism), different notions of youth were imagined, experienced, further defined, and contested. This relationship between official ideology and reality was evident in the subcultural behavior of young men and the reactions these contested images generated among the old or the parent culture. This essay traces the contested relationship between official representation and subculture in the rise of student activism, the appropriation of new and public spaces, the creation of innovative style, and the celebration of an illicit bohemian lifestyle, on the one hand, and in public reaction, on the other.

Editorial: Responding to urban youth’s own perspectives

The challenges facing urban youth in terms of both livelihoods and their involvement in local governance are increasingly recognized as some of the most important development issues worldwide. We also have remarkably few effective precedents on how to address these issues. And yet, for perhaps the first time ever in Environment and Urbanization, we have fewer themed papers in this issue than we do papers that provide feedback on themes in previous issues. We are disappointed and not a little chagrined at our failure to produce the bumper number on urban youth that was contemplated. The five papers we have certainly make an important contribution and we are delighted to be publishing them. However, some equally strong papers came in too late to be included (although these will feature in the April 2011 issue); also some research reports, while pointing in very interesting directions, were still too preliminary to be publishable; and in some cases, people who had been committed to contributing their rich experiences and strongly felt opinions turned out to be too busy to produce. We are looking forward to publishing in the next issue an overview by Richard Mabala on youth and livelihoods in Africa; an account of the youth federation in Nairobi that, in a sense, has grown up under the wing of the federation of the urban poor there but that has gone very much in its own direction; a discussion of deaf youth in large cities; an evaluation of a programme seeking to provide safe spaces and savings accounts for young girls in a Nairobi slum; and a description of the development of the Technical Training Resource Centre in Karachi, set up by a young engineering student and providing practical training for youth in construction, design and neighbourhood level mapping and documentation. There are some powerful narratives shaping the discourse around youth. On the one hand, they are seen as the problem – the unemployed, disaffected, irresponsible generation, a “ticking time bomb”, the ugly “bulge” that is likely to burst, spreading violence and chaos.(1) On the other hand, young people, and young women in particular, are seen as victims – victims of HIV, of violence, of sexual abuse, of discrimination, unemployment, exploitation. Yet another perspective is a vision of youth as the answer, a repository of knowledge, energy and vision that has only to be tapped to solve the world’s problems. This does not cover all the stereotypes around youth – in our next issue Richard Mabala will discuss a more complex typology. But these particular narratives, contradictory and simplistic as they are, can have a powerful influence on the ways in which young people are responded to, with often disappointing results. These papers offer a more thoughtful, nuanced middle ground, an area that clearly needs to be explored if the complex realities facing urban youth are to be more effectively addressed.

Telling Young Lives: Portraits of Global Youth

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 20 No. 1 (Spring 2010) ISSN: 1546-2250 Telling Young Lives: Portraits of Global Youth Jeffrey, Craig and Dyson, Jane (2008). Philadelphia: Temple University Press; 220 pages. ISBN 9781592139309 (hardback) 9781592139316 (paperback). Telling Young Lives provides clever, original and unpretentious insights on global youth, based on the exploration of memories, daily routines and expectations of 13 young people worldwide. Two professors in Geography from the University of Washington, developing research especially on youth inNorth India, edit the book and pen the introduction and two chapters. A group of experts involved in qualitative research in different regions of the world each contribute small chapters that draw a portrait of a young person they met in their research. A foreword by Katharyne Mitchell and an explorative synthesis of the 13 narratives by Chris Phalo and Kate Swanson complete this collection. In the “global South,” we are guided through the lives of: a teenage girl managing family, work and school duties in a rural community in the Indian Himalayas (chapter 2); a South African young man going around between his temporary jobs, political affairs and various girlfriends (chapter 4); a young worker building walls to protect rich people’s houses after he was involved in the long-term civil war in Sierra Leone (chapter 10); a college student in North India who is leading political movements after spending his adolescence producing footballs (chapter 11); and a long-term female activist from Tanzania, leading a women’s developmental organization (chapter 12). From the “global North,” we meet: a homeless boy surviving in the streets of New York (chapter 3); an English “lad” who is trying to retain his musical dreams while working in a sequence of “McJobs” in Sheffield (chapter 5); a Scottish Muslim young man combining his religious work with his scientific studies (chapter 6); a teenage boy from Eastern Germany, preparing a stable live on his own in the 341 face of the unstable job market in which her single mother is immersed (chapter 7); a boy in probatory status, striking out to clean up his life with his ex-addict mother in a poor neighborhood in San Diego, California (chapter 8); a middle-class Bosnian young man, formerly displaced by the war and trying to settle back into his life in his birth-town, where he is leading an NGO project (chapter 9); a Norwegian middle-class girl, mixing her father’s British and working-class background with global “black culture” to define her own identity (chapter 12); and a young, deaf and lesbian English girl dealing with triple stigmatization (chapter 13). Despite each chapter being drawn from a different research project, a common theoretical framework guides all authors: they focus on how young people manage their identity and their daily lives, dealing simultaneously with local, national and global pressures and changes, and actually taking part in the social and political issues affecting their communities. Involving academics in public debates, especially raising awareness of the experiences and perspectives of disadvantaged youth most affected by neoliberal policies is an explicit goal of this book. Assuming the legacy of feminist theories and Birmingham Contemporary Cultural Studies, the authors aim to present an alternative to the morally negative and politically passive visions of youth spread by the media and by global organizations such as the World Bank. As the editors argue in the introduction, these institutions often use snapshots of young people, neglecting the historical and structural forces that shape their lives, in order to promote the institutions’ own political agendas. The book is readable for very different audiences as it aims to go beyond the academy walls and pervade public debates. The topic, the methodology, and the language of the book make it also appropriate for engaging students in sociology, anthropology and other social sciences all over the world. In line with recent studies (e.g., Katz 2004; Nilan and Feixa 2006), the present collection is innovative, particularly due to its main focus on individual biographies and daily lives and how they are shaped by structural forces. Analysis of the social experiences and 3 perspectives of a single person allows us to go beyond stereotypes and common sense...

The Problem of Application: Aesthetics in Creativity and Health

The Problem of Application investigates the multiple viewpoints in defining a critical aesthetic in applied arts practice. Amongst organisations, participants, and facilitators there are varying wants and needs in any creative project with an educational agenda. The product of arts based health initiatives often seek to inform and educate, whereby an aesthetic standard may seem contrary to this participatory approach. This research maintains that an aesthetic approach is a lively portion of the collaborative dialogue, which requires interrogation and consideration for a successful outcome. Through the analysis of a participatory arts project completed in West Africa addressing youth issues and HIV/AIDS, The Problem of Application seeks to uncover the multiple facets surrounding the defining of aesthetics in applied practice. The project entitled Youth Visions: Transforming our Futures Together worked with students aged 17-21 to develop an outdoor mural and a live performance inspired by the traditions of local festivals. With an anthropological approach to aesthetic criticism, Youth Visions revealed the multiple layers that define our focus of appreciation.

Rodney Hessinger. Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn. Visions of Youth in Middle-Class America, 1780–1850. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 280 pp. Cloth $45.00.

Rodney Hessinger. Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn. Visions of Youth in Middle-Class America, 1780–1850. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 280 pp. Cloth $45.00.

Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn: Visions of Youth in Middle-Class America, 1780–1850. By Rodney Hessinger. Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. viii + 255 pp. $45.00 cloth.

Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn: Visions of Youth in Middle-Class America, 1780–1850. By Rodney Hessinger. Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. viii + 255 pp. $45.00 cloth.