Disunion City : the fashion of urban youth in Montreal, Quebec

Ce petit échantillon d’une étude ethnographique, fait à partir de la méthode d’observation participante, interroge la nature de la tendance de la mode auprès de jeunes citadins au coeur d'un centre urbain francophone du Canada. Les participants identifient un « look » comme étant emblématique du Plateau, un arrondissement de Montréal qui est démographiquement divers et contenant beaucoup de commerces dynamiques. Le Plateau a été promu par les organisations de la ville de Montréal comme le point central de la mode, arts et culture. Locaux ou simples touristes voient le Plateau comme un environnement aidant à la transformation personnelle et à l’autoréalisation, particulièrement chez les locaux de 18-30 ans. Plus particulièrement, les membres appartenant à cette tranche d’âge conçoivent leurs propres interprétations de la mode et participent à un certains nombres de projets créatifs en vue de réaliser d’authentiques et véritables expressions de soi. Cependant, à cause de la commercialisation de la mode présentée pour les consommateurs du Plateau, la jeune population perçoit le courant dominant du « hipster » comme n’étant plus l’authentique représentation à leur course à l’authenticité individuelle dans un monde en perpétuel globalisation. La chercheuse a découvert l’existence d’une idéologie de l’individu restreint à ce quartier. Vu l’animosité présente parmi la population locale du Plateau pour le courant principal hipster, l’ensemble de ces données montrent qu’il y a un besoin d’une meilleure compréhension de la relation entre la commercialisation de la mode occidentale et de ces acheteurs au niveau de l’individu et au niveau local dans les espaces urbaine en perpétuel globalisation. Le contexte de la mode dans cet environnement est contraint par l’hypothèse de la valeur qu'être différent est imaginé et digne d’intérêt dans cette communauté si et seulement si quelqu’un est confiant au point de se tenir debout avec ses idéaux au milieu des autres.

Growing Up in Exile : An Ethnography of Somali Youth Raised in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya

La violence chronique qui caractérise la Somalie depuis plus de deux décennies a forcé près de deux millions de personnes à fuir. Cette ethnographie étudie l’expérience de l’asile prolongé de jeunes Somaliens qui ont grandi au camp de Kakuma, au Kenya. Leur expérience est hors du commun, bien qu’un nombre croissant de réfugiés passent de longues années dans des camps pourtant conçus comme temporaires, en vertu de la durée des conflits et de la normalisation de pratiques de mise à l’écart de populations « indésirables ». Nous explorons la perception qu’ont ces jeunes de leur environnement et de quelle façon leur exil structure leur perception du passé et de leur pays d’origine, et de leur futur. Ce faisant, nous considérons à la fois les spécificités du contexte et l’environnement global, afin de comprendre comment l’expérience des gens est façonnée par (et façonne) les dynamiques sociales, politiques, économiques et historiques. Nous observons que le camp est, et demeure, un espace de confinement, indépendamment de sa durée d’existence ; bien que conçu comme un lieu de gestion rationnelle des populations, le camp devient un monde social où se développent de nouvelles pratiques ; les jeunes Somaliens font preuve d’agentivité et interprètent leur expérience de manière à rendre leur quotidien acceptable ; ces derniers expriment une frustration croissante lorsque leurs études sont terminées et qu’ils peinent à s’établir en tant qu’adultes, ce qui exacerbe leur désir de quitter le camp. En effet, même s’il existe depuis plus de 20 ans, le camp demeure un lieu de transition. L’expérience de jeunes Somaliens qui ont grandi dans un camp de réfugiés n’a pas été étudiée auparavant. Nous soutenons que cette expérience est caractérisée par des tensions entre contraintes et opportunités, mobilité et immobilité, isolation et connexion ou victimisation et affirmation du sujet – et des temporalités contradictoires. Cette étude souligne que des notions comme la convivialité ou la pluralité des appartenances développées dans la littérature sur la cohabitation interethnique dans les villes ou sur l’identité des migrants aident à appréhender le réalité du camp. Cette ethnographie montre également que, loin d’être des victimes passives, les réfugiés contribuent à trouver des solutions à leur exil.

Race, identity and education achievements among Arab-Australian students

This paper discusses the challenge of managing cultural diversity in secondary schools, focusing on key structural, ideological, cultural, attitudinal and identity factors affecting the educational experiences and outcomes of Australian students from Arabic-speaking background (ASB). Recent research indicates that there are complex processes at play that hinder the ability of non English-speaking background (NESB) students to access constructive and meaningful education, and that such processes need further systematic investigation. It has also been argued that Australian schools are failing the test of social equity and that the dominant approach to curriculum and pedagogy does not meet the needs of the growing numbers of students from divergent cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. This paper focuses on identifying the social, cultural and attitudinal factors that affect the educational achievements of ASB students within a broad multidimensional approach to multicultural education. By linking thorough empirical research and innovative theory with practical, tested plans of action, this study proposes an in-principled approach to multicultural education that is extendable to a variety of schooling contexts while retaining its core focus on effecting positive learning outcomes. The key objectives of the larger study upon which this paper is based are to (a) address the disadvantages and barriers faced by NESB young people, particularly ASB young people, in achieving positive educational outcomes; (2) increase their chances for better life opportunities and self fulfilment; and (3) develop a good practice model for diversity management in Victorian schools. This latter objective will complement Victorian Government policies on cultural diversity and multicultural education.

Reengaging 'at-risk' youth in secondary education

A psychosocial study suggesting how 'at-risk' youth may reengage in secondary education. There are four outcomes: first, recognize identity work as key to understanding youth; second, progressively include youth in decision making; third, empower youth through collegial dialogue; finally, share creation of and responsibilities for content, process, assessment and evaluation.

Homophobic bullying and human rights : non-deficit approaches in queer youth wellbeing policy and practice

This chapter is concerned with ways for improving the capacity of school communities to provide queer young people with stimulating educational experiences that productively engage with the realities of their lives and which promote and enhance their wellbeing. By "queer" or "LBGTI" I mean to refer to all of those young people who do not conform to prevailing expectations regarding gender and sexual identity and behaviours, those young people who may be lesbian,gay, bisexual, transgender or intersexual (lGBTI), as well as all of those young people who have an association with gender and sexual diversity (for example, the straight fey boy who gets called a poofta; the teenage girl with lesbian parents, etc.). Methodologically, this chapter draws on a tradition of Foucauldian cultural analysis which acknowledges that gender and sexual identities are not stable or fixed, but that they are generated by influential discourses (e.g. my identity as a "man" in Melbourne today is mediated by contemporary discourses of masculinity, of Australianness, of class and so on) (for example, see Foucault 1984, 1990, 1992 and 1998).

This chapter argues that conventional approaches to school improvement for queer students normally focus on strategies for reducing the victimisation of teenage homosexuals, and that such strategies rely on dominant discourses of safety and bullying. I examine a recent example of this policy approach and use it as a starting point for considering the benefits and the constraints of a victim-based approach to queer youth wellbeing policy. The chapter then moves into a discussion about the recent introduction of human rights legislation in Victoria and how this can assist a move in policy and practice towards a more positive and diffuse engagement with gender and sexual diversity.

What’s in a name? The personal and political meanings of 'LGBT' for non-heterosexual and transgender youth in Kyrgyzstan

In this article, we focus on the ways in which non-heterosexual and transgender youth involved with the non-governmental organization ‘Labrys’ in Kyrgyzstan have begun to demand the protection of their basic civil and human rights on the basis of self-identification as ‘LGBT’. This acronym, which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, is relatively new to Kyrgyzstan and other post-Soviet states, and represents a change in the terms used by non-heterosexual and transgender people to describe themselves. We frame our discussion using the concepts of sexual citizenship, private/public divides and stigma and base our discussion on debates amongst the staff and community of Labrys about the purpose and scope of the organization. Centrally, we suggest that the strategic use of ‘LGBT’ as a public and politicized identity represents a new, pro-active form of stigma management. By employing this strategy, young LGBT people become ‘would-be’ sexual citizens and challenge traditional societal norms that seek to keep discussion of sex and sexuality in the private sphere and restrict rights to heterosexual, cisgender citizens.

Youth, media and culture in the Asia Pacific region

Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region presents an analysis of youth media activities in a diverse, but geographically connected Asia Pacific region. The region, which is spatially connected by its colonial and imperial past, is becoming a significant player in the globalized world. In this context, youth situated in these economically, politically and socially structured communities are redefining their locales through their patterns of media use. The discourse of ‘youth’ in this disparate region is manifest in the media through their identity articulations and social activism. The book illustrates that these ‘youth subcultures’ in the Asia Pacific are part of the well marketed global consumerism culture, and yet at other times independent of the commodifying impetus of global capital. It draws on case studies to examine some of the media practices youth in the region are engaged in and elucidates the process of social change taking place in some Asia Pacific nations.

'This book contributes to the important and growing field of youth media studies. The regionalization of media research is necessarily recuperated here, bringing large populations of media users into a frame of reference that allows critical reflection on the new waves of use and sociality in the Asia Pacific region.'

Interviewing pairs: discussions on migration and identity

This article examines a research method of conducting interviews with pairs of individuals, who may be friends or relatives. The authors critically reflect on their experiences of collecting qualitative data in an interview with two respondents. While one-on-one interviews and focus groups are more established and well-studied forms of gathering research data, we argue that paired interviews as a data collections method present additional advantages as well as some challenges for qualitative researchers. The researchers embraced the opportunity to interview pairs of individuals with the intention of minimising the asymmetry of power habitually inherent in interview situations. In the authors' experiences, paired interviews served to empower those being interviewed and reduced the discomfort felt by some in the personal interview situation. This form of interviewing tended to give more autonomy to the respondents and prompted them to provide more nuanced responses. Paired interviews assisted respondents in feeling relaxed and comfortable, provided a vibrant environment that encouraged respondents to build on each other's ideas and enabled them to enhance each other's stories. Respondents were better motivated to build discussions around an interview question and then illustrate their responses with examples. In our studies, we found that our respondents tended to offer more thorough and comprehensive narratives in the setting of a paired interview.

Home space : youth identification in the Greek diaspora

This article draws on a larger study on schooling and diaspora using the case of the Greek community of Melbourne, Australia to examine processes of identification of young people with access to minority cultures. The Melbourne Greek community is long-standing, diverse, and well-established. Because of this, the young people involved in this study provide insights into cultural processes not related in any direct sense to migration. In most cases, it was their grandparents or great-grandparents who migrated. Many have 1 parent with no ancestral link to Greece. In this context, the motivations for and ways of expressing Greekness have the potential to illustrate identification as ambivalent. This article explores the centrality of “home” in these young people's representations of self. Following de Certeau, the argument is made that their everyday experience can be interpreted as an act of “anti-discipline.” As “users” of the Greekness, they are bequeathed through family, community, and schooling; and they use “tactics” of cultural redeployment that allow creative resistance and reinterpretation of both “Greekness” and “Australianness.”

Crossing boundaries : acts of citizenship among migrant youth in Melbourne

This paper focuses on how migrant youth in Melbourne with experience of direct or indirect migration negotiate cross-cultural engagements and tensions between family, community and the greater society in which they are supposed to participate as political subjects. It examines whether the meaning and interpretation of citizenship in Australia allows migrant youth to act as full and active citizens with all the contradictions and difficulties inherent in acting as “a bridge between two worlds”. By voicing the personalised journeys of young people dealing with uneasy questions of dis-placement, identity and belonging, this paper examines the complex ways through which migrant youth negotiate and in some cases bridge intercultural tensions within a multicultural society.

More than a game : the impact of sport-based youth mentoring schemes on developing resilience toward violent extremism

This paper draws upon the findings of an evaluation of “More than a Game”, a sport-focused youth mentoring program in Melbourne, Australia that aimed to develop a community-based resilience model using team-based sports to address issues of identity, belonging, and cultural isolation amongst young Muslim men in order to counter forms of violent ex-tremism. In this essay we focus specifically on whether the intense embodied encounters and emotions experienced in team sports can help break down barriers of cultural and religious difference between young people and facilitate ex-periences of resilience, mutual respect, trust, social inclusion and belonging. Whilst the project findings are directly rel-evant to the domain of countering violent extremism, they also contribute to a growing body of literature which con-siders the relationship between team-based sport, cross-cultural engagement and the development of social resilience, inclusion and belonging in other domains of youth engagement and community-building.

Current Expressions of American Jewish Identity: An Analysis of 114 Teenagers

This chapter explores the characteristics of 114 American teenagers' Jewish identities using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). The NSYR includes a telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 3,290 adolescents aged 13 to 17. Jewish teenagers were over-sampled, resulting in a total of 3,370 teenage participants. Of the NSYR teens surveyed, 141 have at least one Jewish parent and 114 of them identify as Jewish. The NSYR also includes in-depth face-to-face interviews with a total of 267 U.S. teens: 23 who have at least one Jewish parent and 18 who identify as Jewish. The following analysis draws upon quantitative data from the 114 teens who identified themselves as Jewish in the face-to-face interviews.

Hip-hop and Construction of Group Identity in a Stigmatized Area. : A Field Study regarding Cultural Capital among Roma Youths in Konik, Montenegro.

This research aimed for an extended knowledge and understanding of young people in stigmatized areas and their construction of group identity. With a focus on Roma youths in Konik, Montenegro, and their involvement in hip-hop we wanted to explore what this culture meant to them in relation to their context. An ethnographic approach was used in collecting the empirical data through observations, interpreting music lyrics and conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews. Five young Roma boys from Konik, all involved in hip-hop, were interviewed. Theoretical perspectives on identity, youth culture and stigmatization were central. In addition, Bourdieu’s theory regarding cultural capital was emphasized and connected to youths and hip-hop. The empirical material showed that involvement in hip-hop provided the Roma youths with a group identity that they referred to in positive terms. Contextual factors of stigmatization excluded the Roma group from the majority population and the engagement in hip-hop created a possibility for the youths to be someone. The cultural capital gained through hip-hop was not used to verify and legitimate an authentic Roma identity. It was rather a way for them to create boundaries towards the negative elements in their community.

ENVISIONING QUEER THROUGH DIGITAL MEDIA: DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY-BASED WORKSHOP IN MEDIA ANALYSIS FOR LGBTQIA+ YOUTH

This project consists of a proposed curriculum for a semester-long, community-based workshop for LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual or ally, "+" indicating other identifications that deviate from heterosexual) youth ages 16-18. The workshop focuses on an exploration of LGBTQIA+ identity and community through discussion and collaborative rhetorical analysis of visual and social media. Informed by queer theory and history, studies on youth work, and visual media studies and incorporating rhetorical criticism as well as liberatory pedagogy and community literacy practices, the participation-based design of the workshop seeks to involve participants in selection of media texts, active analytical viewership, and multimodal response. The workshop is designed to engage participants in reflection on questions of individual and collective responsibility and agency as members and allies of various communities. The goal of the workshop is to strengthen participants' abilities to analyze the complex ways in which television, film, and social media influence their own and others’ perceptions of issues surrounding queer identities. As part of the reflective process, participants are challenged to consider how they can in turn actively and collaboratively respond to and potentially help to shape these perceptions. My project report details the theoretical framework, pedagogical rationale, methods of text selection and critical analysis, and guidelines for conduct that inform and structure the workshop.