Youth, social class and privilege in the antipodes: Towards a new research agenda for youth sociology

© The Author(s) 2018. In recent decades, youth sociology in the antipodes has paid inadequate attention to social class and the question of privilege. We critique narrow and utilitarian ways that social class has been analysed in the antipodes, arguing that the primary focus on the marginalised has overlooked the significance of privilege in perpetuating and maintaining social reproduction. While there is some evidence of a growing interest in the subjective experiences of class, we propose a new research agenda for youth sociology in the antipodes which includes a much more explicit focus on class and approaches that recognise its complex, longitudinal and intersectional nature, and its relationship with privilege. As an example of how such a research agenda could be developed, we conclude by drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu to show how his theoretical tools can provide deeper insights into how privilege operates through institutional and intergenerational processes.

Youth, social class and privilege in the antipodes: Towards a new research agenda for youth sociology

© The Author(s) 2018. In recent decades, youth sociology in the antipodes has paid inadequate attention to social class and the question of privilege. We critique narrow and utilitarian ways that social class has been analysed in the antipodes, arguing that the primary focus on the marginalised has overlooked the significance of privilege in perpetuating and maintaining social reproduction. While there is some evidence of a growing interest in the subjective experiences of class, we propose a new research agenda for youth sociology in the antipodes which includes a much more explicit focus on class and approaches that recognise its complex, longitudinal and intersectional nature, and its relationship with privilege. As an example of how such a research agenda could be developed, we conclude by drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu to show how his theoretical tools can provide deeper insights into how privilege operates through institutional and intergenerational processes.

Reflections on Expanding Girls’ Political Capital at the United Nations

Stories about girl activism circulate as exceptional narratives of individual girl power causing intergenerational partnerships and community collaborations to become invisible and apparently unnecessary to girl activist efforts. At the same time, practitioner-scholars attest that sharing authentic stories about intergenerational feminist praxis is difficult to do since it requires us to write with intentional vulnerability exposing the failures and tensions inherent to girl activism networks. In this article, I provide an autoethnographic exploration of the intergenerational processes involved with organizing Girls Speak Out for the International Day of the Girl at the United Nations. I draw inspiration from Lauren J. Silver’s methodological remix of youth-centered activism, and in doing so, reassess the impact and experience of leveraging girls’ political voices in spaces of normative power.

Studying intergenerational processes in 21st century rural African societies

This paper illustrates the impact of political economy on young people’s life courses and intergenerationalprocesses in rural Africa. Rapid transformations and social changes in rural Africa often asa result of political economy contributes to the increasing malleability of rural contexts and tensionsacross the life courses of children and youth. The temporality and spatiality of globalisation are illustratedusing the neo-liberal policies in the Economic Structural Adjustments Programmes (ESAPs) andthe global educational policies in the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). The paper discusses theepistemological and methodological implications of political economy in rural African societies includingapproaches that capture complex interpenetrating factors contributing towards “constructions ofyoung lives”, “contexts and identities” and “agency and social responsibilities”.

Youth, social class and privilege in the antipodes: Towards a new research agenda for youth sociology

In recent decades, youth sociology in the antipodes has paid inadequate attention to social class and the question of privilege. We critique narrow and utilitarian ways that social class has been analysed in the antipodes, arguing that the primary focus on the marginalised has overlooked the significance of privilege in perpetuating and maintaining social reproduction. While there is some evidence of a growing interest in the subjective experiences of class, we propose a new research agenda for youth sociology in the antipodes which includes a much more explicit focus on class and approaches that recognise its complex, longitudinal and intersectional nature, and its relationship with privilege. As an example of how such a research agenda could be developed, we conclude by drawing upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu to show how his theoretical tools can provide deeper insights into how privilege operates through institutional and intergenerational processes

The additive advantage of having educated grandfathers for children’s education: evidence from a cross-national sample in Europe

Until recently, research on intergenerational processes of social mobility has focused on two generational processes and paid little attention to the role of the grand-parental generation. An increasing number of studies have started to address this shortfall, but they report inconsistent findings. This may be due to design and measurement differences across studies and to substantive heterogeneity in the association. We use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to explore these two issues. First, as we have information on all four grandparents, and both parents, we were able to evaluate the different ways to model grandparental associations. We found that including information on both grandfathers provided the best fit, once controlling for parental education. Second, we investigated the moderating effects of parental education, family size, and the grandparents’ being alive during the grandchild’s early life and school years. Having higher educated grandfathers is associated with higher educational outcomes for grandchildren, net of parental education and wealth. Moreover, having two highly educated grandfathers shows a stronger association than just one. We found no evidence for moderating effects of family size, parental education or generational overlap.