Critical reflections on youth and equality in the rural context (original) (raw)
Related papers
Schooling in Rural Australia: Tensions between Youth Aspirations and Community Sustainability
2014
In this chapter I draw on a large qualitative study of public schools in rural Victoria, Australia, to examine the complex role schools play for rural people, their impact on the sustainability of communities and on the notion of place`. Rural schools are commonly viewed as critical organisms of the health of their community. They are crucial in opening up opportunities for students to a successful transition to post-school education and work. Paradoxically in trying to give their students the best opportunities, schools inadvertently contribute to undermining the sustainability of their community and the notion of place. Current youth, education and labour policies accentuate the imperative need for young people to continue with further and higher education after leaving school. As many rural communities lack the structural resources to provide post-school education, many young people often find it necessary to leave their communities. This out-migration is not only seen as inevitable but embraced as a “success” by students, parents and educators. This chapter argues that this “success” presents significant challenges for rural communities: it reveals the weak notion of place in rural schooling and it unmasks the tension between individual and community interests; the impact of policies on rural sustainability; and the social divisions within rural communities. These inequalities and tensions require a rethinking of the very notion of place and community and the role of schooling in relationship to the future of rural areas.
2016
This chapter focuses on a range of concepts borrowing from disciplines such as education, sociology, and geography to examine how the intersection between youth and education policies and place can be a central aspect of processes of exclusion for young people in rural areas. The chapter argues for the need of a spatial and relational approach to education and youth studies in rural places that moves beyond universal constructions of youth transitions that reflect certain dominant values of prescribed policy patterns that are understood as normative, neutral and natural. It proposes that to understand and interrupt these processes of exclusion it is essential that biographies, identities, relations and localities are render visible. The chapter highlights different studies and conceptualizations that promote a spatial and relational approach, which work towards subverting homogeneous and hegemonic views of youth in rural spaces in favor of multidimensional understanding of what it means and entails to grow up beyond the metropolis.
Disrupting Rural Futures and Teachers’ Work: Problematising Aspirations and Belonging in Young People’s Lives, 2019
Building futures for young people in and out of rural places has been a perennial quest for those interested in education and youth studies. For rural youth, the opportunities education can afford usually necessitates leaving home to study in a regional or metropolitan campus, with added cost and loss for families and communities. Thus, aiming a post-compulsory education for rural students typically involves ‘higher stakes’ than for their urban counterparts. This chapter examines the impact of the view of education as ‘learning to leave’ (Corbett 2007) against the backdrop of building the social fabric and sustainability of rural places. We explore this tension between the concepts of aspirations and belonging in young peoples’ lives and then consider the implications for changing (rural) teachers’ work. We argue that the tension between belonging and being aspirational, as it is articulated in educational discourse, is central on both individual decision-making and institutional responsiveness. We seek to problematise the relationship between belonging and aspirations by focusing on the impact that rural teachers’ work can have in (re)solving or (re)producing this tension. We draw on case studies in Victoria and Tasmania to examine how different communities represent structures of opportunity, and consider some related challenges and opportunities for rural education.
Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 2007
Education, theoretical and vocational, has become an essential requirement for competing in local and global labour markets. In the 21st century, there are few work positions available for school leavers without further tertiary education and vocational training. Traditionally, for the majority of young people, the purpose of education and vocational training has been to satisfy employers’ requirements for a suitable workforce rather than an education for personal enjoyment and benefits. With the globalisation and specialisation of the work force, the education period has become an accepted phase between childhood and adulthood, giving young people the freedom to pursue education for professional gains and work opportunities, as well as for personal satisfaction. This paper discusses the vision of elected councillors for their rural communities and young people’s aspirations for further education and training. The research is based on interviews with local government councillors, co...
Young rural lives: strategies beyond diversity
Journal of Rural Studies, 2002
The experience and competence of rural young people has been increasingly recognized in a range of social sciences over the past decade. Research in a variety of different settings is demonstrating the diversity of young people's lives, but recently calls have been made to retain this acknowledgement of heterogeneous youth while working towards more generic or integrated understandings of youth geographies and so forth. This special issue draws together a range of contemporary work focusing on the lives of young people in different rural environments and cultures. This Editorial article discusses the papers and reports in relation to a set of strategies that may guide further development of rural youth studies. It is noted that a good deal of youth research has undertaken the important initial step of documenting the varied conditions of young people's lives. However, more integrated and conceptual understandings of rural youth can look to identify generic dimensions and processes that shape their lives in rural cultures, economies, societies and spaces. A framework is proposed to assist in more explicitly theorizing the notion of young people; the contexts in which young people live; and the negotiations and multiple relations young people engage in while constructing dynamic (often creative and sometimes contested) understandings and experiences of their worlds.
Social inequalities in rural England: Impacts on young people post-2008
Journal of Rural Studies
This paper investigates the cumulative impacts of the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath (including policy changes) on young people in a sparsely populated rural area of northern England. The paper locates the research in the context of youth studies, Bourdieu's theory of practice, concepts of welfare regimes and welfare mix, and studies of the impacts of the crisis and austerity policies on the distribution of social and societal risk. The empirical findings reveal the challenges which faced young people in rural England before the financial crisis still persist. Moreover, the overwhelming reliance of young people on family for support generates further inequalities through what might be termed 'secondary impact austerity': young people feel indirectly and unevenly the economic effects and policy changes which impact on parents' and communities' ability to offer them support. Thus, changes to the welfare system, loss of services and less secure forms of employment exacerbate the transfer of social risk and the deepening of poverty for vulnerable groups. This is worsened in this rural area by the moral imperatives which stigmatise access to state and charitable support. Thus, moral capital and local habitus intersect with social, economic and cultural capitals in structuring inequalities.
Sociologia Ruralis, 2006
Literature on rural youth has often described this group as disadvantaged with regard to, for example, education and employment opportunities, which results in young people being forced to leave their rural communities. Hence, policy interventions and the allocation of more resources to rural areas are called for. However, it is unclear on what moral assumptions the advocacy for more provisions rest. No explicit links have been made to policy principles, such as needs, rights, equity, or social justice, which are commonly invoked when increased resources for a particular group of people are advocated. This article considers to what extent the notion of equity may offer support to the case of rural youth by examining the extent to which equal opportunity perspectives are applicable. The article concludes that there is one concept originally used to advance gender equality – gender mainstreaming – which can usefully be adopted also for our purposes. While youth mainstreaming can serve two aims, that of empowering youth and promoting community development, it also accepts that the interests of youth and their communities may sometimes be in conflict.