Youth Matters? Critical geographies of youth policy and practice

Convenors:

Peter Kraftl (Department of Geography, University of Leicester, UK)

John Horton (Centre for Children & Youth, The University of Northampton, UK)

Faith Tucker (Centre for Children & Youth, The University of Northampton, UK)

Abstract:

As part of an engagement with policy literatures and professional practices (e.g. public service provision) ‘outside’ the academy, a growing number of geographers have sought to adopt more critical stances to governmental discourses (Martin, 2001). For instance, (post-)medical geographers have performed critical readings of mental health (Parr, 2004) and obesity (Evans, 2006) policy-making in the UK and elsewhere. Geographers of childhood and youth have – similarly – sought to engage critically with policy-making for young people, often with particular interest in children’s participation in the production of governmental knowledge (e.g. special issue of Children’s Geographies journal, 2006). Yet geographers have not – thus far – explored the full range of social constructions, representations, viewpoints, practices and (often emotive) debates that are incorporated in policy and professional practices targeted at young people.

In particular, four issues might benefit from critical, geographical analysis. First, there is a pressing need to understand the spatial implications of the contexts and the contents of recent policy documents aimed specifically at young people (e.g. in the UK, Youth Matters). Second, geographers might extend their critical analyses to explore the treatment of young people in more general pieces of legislation (e.g. on health, employment, education or crime). Third, there is a need to understand the complex and recursive relationship between (inter)national policy-making on one hand, and regional/local interpretations on the other (e.g. in the UK, the recent introduction of Children’s Trusts). In particular – with nuanced conceptualisations of scale – geographers could unpick the interpretation, negotiation and implementation of youth policy legislation at different spatial scales. Fourth, geographers could attend to the sheer diversity of ways in which ‘policy’ and ‘professional practice’ with young people are performed – acknowledging and interrogating the sheer work involved in meetings, consultations, training, providing services ‘on the ground’, to/with young people and their families.

We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers which critically analyse the geographies of youth policy and professional practice within any geographical context. Papers may attend to any of the following issues, or any geographical slant on the documentation, representation and performance of youth policies.

• Representations and social constructions of young people in youth policies, and policy interventions more generally.
• The types of knowledges, emotions and moralities evident in youth policies.
• The relationship between policy documents, professional practices and other representations of young people (e.g. the mass media).
• The diverse ways in which youth has come to ‘matter’ in global/national/local policy-making since the UN declaration on the rights of the child.
• The implications of policy discourse and professional practice for emergent ‘inter-generational’ geographies of age (e.g. Hopkins and Pain, 2007).
• The processes and practices involved in interpreting (inter)national youth policies at local scales.
• The everyday practices, materials and emotions that constitute professional practice and work with young people (e.g. Kraftl and Horton, 2007); e.g. meetings, consultations, training, and the provision services ‘on the ground’, to/with young people and their families.
• Young people’s views and experiences of recent youth policies and professional practice (i.e. of ‘service provision’).
• Young people’s ‘place’ in the production and contestation of youth policies and professional practices.
• The role of academic geography in contributing to, and contesting, youth policies

Abstracts for proposed papers (max. 250 words) should be submitted to Peter Kraftl (pk123@le.ac.uk) before 31st January 2008.

Too much, too young? The experiences of asylum seeking and refugee children

Convener:

Dr Heaven Crawley (Swansea University)

Abstract:

The experiences of children and young people who claim asylum in the UK and other European countries have, over the past decade, raised particular issues for academics, policy makers and practitioners. Once protected from the worst aspects of asylum policy by virtue of their status as children, there is growing evidence that in the rush to prevent actual and perceived abuses of the asylum system, children and young people are routinely detained, refused access to the protection and services to which they are entitled under international and domestic legislation and liable to be removed to countries ordinarily considered ‘unsafe’. There is also evidence that the way in which the asylum process deals with children’s experiences of conflict reflects a particular conceptualization of ‘childhood’ and a series of assumptions about what it means to be a child in different geographical spaces.

This session will focus on children’s experiences of the asylum system (and its associated structures and agencies) and on the process of rebuilding and reconstituting their identities in the UK. This could include children’s’ experiences of school (and other statutory) services, children’s perceptions, understandings and memories of their home countries, children’s’ relationships with other children and with the wider ‘community’, and the ways in which asylum seeking and refugee children are represented in political discourse and the media.

Call for papers: Contributors to this session would be invited to submit papers which explore the experiences of asylum seeking children from a range of theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives. Contributors would be particularly encouraged to consider the ways in which the experiences of this particular group of children and young people can be heard and made to matter in the current political and policy context. Efforts would be made to secure contributions from practitioners and advocates as well as academics.

Proposed session format: The proposed session would consist of three x 20 minute papers with time for questions and discussion. If a sufficient number of proposed papers are submitted then it may be necessary for two 1 hr 40 minute sessions to be set aside for this topic. The papers will be themed and contributors will be asked to engage directly with the content of other papers in the session where appropriate. The session(s) will be chaired by Dr Heaven Crawley.

Education Spaces, Spaces of Education

Conveners:

Victoria Cook (University of Leeds)

Peter Hemming (University of Leeds)

Abstract:

Over the last few years, geographers have shown increasing interest in the everyday spaces of schooling and education that structure the lives of children and young people (e.g. Cook et al 2006; Evans 2006; Fielding 2000; Holloway & Valentine 2003; Hyams 2000). This has involved a shift away from the traditional mapping of educational institutions, instead focusing more on their internal geographies and the socio-spatial processes that take place within them. Some of this work has also engaged theoretically with social theorists, while at the same time seeking to inform and critique the education policy agenda (e.g. Gallagher 2005; Hemming 2007; Holt 2007; Newman 2006). This triple session aims to think more widely about education spaces and spaces of education in the following ways:

1) Education Spaces: Physical and Social School Environments This session aims to explore the way in which space is constructed in school environments, both physically and socially. It will consider some of the ways in which formal design and architecture impact upon bodies and influence the informal social and cultural spaces of the institution. This will include an examination of issues such as formal learning, social interaction, eating, bullying, and pupil behaviour.

2) Spaces of Education: Learning to Value and to Belong This session aims to examine how both formal and informal learning spaces become imbued with values, and can act as forums for communities of belonging, or sites of exclusion. It will consider the way in which both practices and representations contribute to the structuring of such spaces. The session will explore issues such as citizenship, creativity, religion and spirituality, social networks, and moral spaces of identity.

3) Education Spaces, Spaces of Education: Dissolving Institutional Boundaries This session aims to explore the porosity and interconnectivity of the educational institution, and the way in which it links to other spaces such as the home, the family, the community, the urban and the rural. It will consider issues such as cultural and ethnic identities, day schooling, outdoor learning and fieldwork to bring into question assumptions about the boundaries between different spatial realms.

The triple session will aim to appeal to a wide range of actors who are involved in research or practice with children and young people, in both formal and informal educational settings. It will seek to explore the relationship between policy and practice (Coffield et al 2007) and the extent to which current research agendas in geography coincide with those working outside of the discipline. 

Theorising life transitions

Convener:

Kathrin Hörschelmann (Department of Geography, University of Durham, Science Site, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, kathrin.horschelmann@durham.ac.uk)

Abstract:

This session will explore new ways of conceptualising life transitions in light of recent debates about age, embodiment and social change. If age is seen as a process of becoming rather than in terms of chronological time or developmental stage, then how can moments of transition in the lives of individuals be understood? To what extent do institutional structures continue to shape and change expectations and experiences of life transitions and how do they intersect with social relations at different scales? Does the concept of ‘life transitions’ still hold conceptual validity? In what ways can life transitions be theorised as embodied, performed and multi-directional and how do societal and environmental changes affect the experience and navigation of transition moments in life? What are the contexts in which life transitions unfold and to what extent are personal transitions shaped by social relations, including those of the family or household? How are life transitions recounted in biographical narratives? These are just some of the questions the session seeks to explore. Key themes to be addressed are:

• Reconceptualising age and the life-course
• Life transitions: embodied, practiced, performed, becoming
• Gender, sexuality and life transition
• Discourses of life transition
• Institutionalisation of the life-course
• Biography, individualisation and social change
• Life transitions, care and the family
• Placing life transitions
• Societal change and the life course in post-socialist societies and the Global South
• Environmental change and biographical trajectories
• Researching life transitions