1,721,020 research outputs found
Youth policies in Europe: logics and actors in the field
Full text linkThe aim of this chapter is to capture the logic and mechanisms underlying youth policies across Europe. I take a broad sociological approach, seeking to highlight the main focuses in the functioning of these policies. In fact, while the implementation of youth polices across European countries is deeply influenced by contextual factors, including national political climates, some overarching issues of wider interest emerge, and these are relevant to processes of youth transitions. Whether youth policies are more appropriate and effective than policies in other areas is also a subject of youth studies debates. However, the conceptual framework that justifies attention to youth citizenship and youth participation is established, and foregrounds youth policies. After illustrating this mechanism, the chapter gives an overview of the institutions more directly involved in ensuring a focus on youth policies and suggests how they are linked to the theoretical framework of transitions to adulthood
Young people and employability
No full textThe logic of employability corresponds to the perspective according to which a worker, or an aspirant worker, is deemed responsible for making himself or herself desirable in the labor market in the eyes of an employer or potential
employer in the profession or trade to which he or she aspires. Enhancing young people’s ability to be employed – i.e., their “employability” – has been a focus of media and scholarly attention for the last 20 years or so. Inserted into the context
of considerable changes in the labor market and higher education, a discourse of employability has become dominant in higher education policy and has encompassed a more specific focus on the school-to-work transition. Young people spend longer periods of time obtaining their educations, and as a result, they are better qualified than were previous generations. However,
despite their increased qualifications, young people now earn less compared to adult workers than they did 25 years ago, and in many ways they remain at the argins, as failing to obtain a proper job is also, in many ways, failing to become an independent adult. In seeking to address social exclusion by helping young people obtain paid employment, the policy emphasis has been on giving advice and training to help young people become more “employable.” In other words, policy has focused on the supply of youth labor and, in particular, on the perceived deficits and failings of unemployed people as potential employees. The logic of the discourse of employability is to “capture” young people inside a mainstream discourse of integration and poses as an objective to engage or reengage young people with the labor market. Despite its diffusion, employability has primarily remained a policy concept which has perhaps not found a theoretical assessment. This chapter seeks to provide a definition of employability and critically identify the main issues related to its diffusion. This allows us to highlight the assumptions that are encompassed through its use and, more importantly, what implications it has for young people who are navigating the agitated sea of insecure employment
Blurred transitions: revisiting the significance of work and parenthood for young adults in Italy
No full textAlmost everywhere in Europe, corresponding to transformations in post-industrial
societies, transitions from youth to adulthood are becoming prolonged and destandardised, and welfare measures minimised. This in turn puts pressure on
parents and young people. Within the group of Southern European countries, Italy
is characterised by low levels of welfare provision and reliance on the family as a
form of support. However, young adults in Italy constitute a case in its own right
for a particularly delayed transition to adulthood. Not only scholars but also the
national and international press heavily attack them with the accusation that they
have lost freshness and potential in public life. The question is, then, what
conditions allow a young Italian to consider himself/herself an adult in the current
cultural and social-political scenario? International sociological literature on life
cycle agrees in identifying five thresholds which have to be overcome in order to
reach adulthood. Among these, we concentrate on obtaining a stable working
position and becoming a parent. Findings from our two different research projects
strongly converge in criticising the necessity, for the young adults interviewed, to
refer to such thresholds. Within a situation of growing contingency, ‘yo-yo’
modalities have been identified to interpret transitions that are not only prolonged
and destandardised, but also uncertain and reversible. Pushing further in this
direction, our interview material suggests that it may be helpful to reconceptualise the intrinsic value of reflexively ‘passing’ turning points to consider
oneself fully adult and to problematise adulthood itself as an unquestionable point
of arrival
Italian Youth in International Context. Belonging, Constraints and Opportunities
No full textItaly is not a country for young people. Why? This book provides a unique and in-depth collection of empirical and theoretical material providing multiple answers to this question whilst investigating the living conditions of young people in Italy today. By bringing together a variety of approaches and methods, the authors of this collection analyze Italian youth through the lenses of three dimensions:‘Activism, participation and citizenship’, ‘Work, Employment and Careers’ and ‘Moves, Transitions and Representations’. These dimensions are the analytical building blocks for challenging stereotypes and unveiling misinterpretations and taken-for-granted assumptions that portray young people in Italy as selfish, ‘choosy’, and unwilling to make sacrifices, commit and manage an independent life. These prejudices often underplay the role of constraints they are facing in the transition to adulthood. Studying Italian youth, therefore, not only allows us to capture their peculiar characteristics, but also to reflect more broadly on the conceptual toolbox we need in order to understand contemporary youth more generally. By doing so, the volume aims to contribute to international discussion on the youth condition in Europe
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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