Gender and Sexuality in Street Youth Cultures in the United States and Canada

Author(s):  
Sam Stiegler

Young people’s experiences with spaces commonly called “the streets” are greatly influenced by gender and sexuality. Because queer and trans youth are policed in specific ways because of their identities and presentations and because queer and trans youth are more likely to experience homelessness than their peers, it is vitally important to understand the ways these young people are making meaning, knowledge, and culture from their experiences on “the streets” within the contexts of the United States and Canada.

Making Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse

This chapter examines the most relevant youth contexts in the United States at this socio-historical point in time. To do so with any accuracy requires drawing on multiple fields of inquiry—youth contexts are not solely the study of developmental scientists. Thus, this chapter reviews prominent theories of cultural theorists, sociologists, educational researchers, and political scientists to establish a depiction of the contemporary American youth context. The aim is a macro-level view of the policies and practices influencing the individual youth micro-level, including the reader’s frame of reference. A brief examination of current cultural narratives about young people can inform analysis about limiting parameters: youth who lead social change are often portrayed as either “cute” or “dangerous,” with both views disparaging their efforts and undermining their credible power.


1989 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-7
Author(s):  
Helen Hopps ◽  
Sandra Tyler ◽  
Beth Warner

It's illegal to be a homeless minor in the United States. And if you happen to be a young Hispanic on your' own, without much English or any papers, you've really got problems. This is the predicament faced by an unknown and largely ignored number of young people in the cities of North America. Working with street youth (designated by the federal government as PINS—Persons in Need of Supervision) is different from working with homeless adults or homeless families.


Author(s):  
Sara Moslener

For evangelical adolescents living in the United States, the material world of commerce and sexuality is fraught with danger. Contemporary movements urge young people to embrace sexual purity and abstinence before marriage and eschew the secular pressures of modern life. And yet, the sacred text that is used to authorize these teachings betrays evangelicals’ long-standing ability to embrace the material world for spiritual purposes. Bibles marketed to teenage girls, including those produced by and for sexual purity campaigns, make use of prevailing trends in bible marketing. By packaging the message of sexual purity and traditional gender roles into a sleek modern day apparatus, American evangelicals present female sexual restraint as the avant-garde of contemporary, evangelical orthodoxy.


Author(s):  
Patricia Hill Collins

For youth who are Black, Indigenous, female, or poor, coming of age within societies characterized by social inequalities presents special challenges. Yet despite the significance of being young within socially unjust settings, age as a category of analysis remains undertheorized within studies of political activism. This essay therefore draws upon intersectionality and generational analyses as two useful and underutilized approaches for analyzing the political agency of Black youth in the United States with implications for Black youth more globally. Intersectional analyses of race, class, gender, and sexuality as systems of power help explain how and why intersecting oppressions fall more heavily on young people who are multiply disadvantaged within these systems of power. Generational analysis suggests that people who share similar experiences when they are young, especially if such experiences have a direct impact on their lives, develop a generational sensibility that may shape their political consciousness and behavior. Together, intersectionality and generational analyses lay a foundation for examining youth activism as essential to understanding how young people resist intersecting oppressions of racism, heteropatriarchy, class exploitation, and colonialism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 104687812110312
Author(s):  
Lucy R. Zheng ◽  
Catherine M. Oberle ◽  
W. A. Hawkes-Robinson ◽  
Stéphane Daniau

Background The use of games for social skill development in the classroom is accelerating at a tremendous rate. At the same time, the research surrounding games designed for teaching social skills remains fragmented. This systematic review summarizes the current existing literature on social skill serious games for young people ages 5 to 19 and is the first review of serious games to note the demographic and geographic component of these studies. Method This review included papers that: evaluated a game designed to teach social skills; included measurable, quantitative outcomes; have a translation or be published in English; were peer-reviewed; date from January 2010 to May 2020; and have a nonclinical study population between ages of 5 to 19. Keywords were obtained from the CASEL 5 framework. Results Our findings are mixed but suggest that serious games may improve social skills when used alongside in-person discussion. We also found potential effects of the length of time of gameplay, intervention, and follow-up on social skill serious game effectiveness. Although this review found promising research conducted in East Asian countries and with minority samples in the United States, the majority of social skill serious game research takes place in the United States and Australia, with unreported demographic information and white-majority samples. Conclusions Due to the limited number of published studies in this area and studies lacking methodological rigor, the effectiveness of using games to teach social skills and the impact of background on social skill learning require further discussion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110224
Author(s):  
Angela U. Ekwonye ◽  
Nina Truong

African immigrants continue to be disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unclear how they are searching for and finding meaning in the face of this adversity. This study sought to understand how African immigrants in the United States are searching for and making meaning of the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted in-depth interviews remotely with 20 immigrants from West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana), East Africa (Somali and Rwanda), and Central Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo). The meaning-making model was used as a framework to understand the processes of coping during a significant, adverse life event. The study found that some participants attempted to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their global meaning by seeking answers as to why the pandemic occurred and creating positive illusions. Some redefined their priorities and reframed the pandemic in a positive light. Participants found meaning in the form of accepting the pandemic as a reality of life, appreciating events previously taken for granted, and making positive changes in their lives. This study’s findings can inform health care providers of the meaning-making processes of African immigrants’ and the need to assist them in their search for meaning.


2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin E. Goldberg ◽  
Kunter Gunasti

More than one-third of young people in the United States are either obese or at risk of becoming obese. The authors consider how food marketers have contributed to this problem and how they might help resolve it. The article organizes the marketing activities of food-related companies around the classic four Ps. The authors first discuss product, price, and promotion in terms of past, present, and potential future industry actions. They then discuss place as a function of four key commercial end points in the food channel: (1) supermarkets, (2) convenience stores, (3) restaurants, and (4) schools. The authors consider government actions in terms of how they affect the actions of both the food industry and consumers. Throughout the article, the authors consider how extant research can be extended in an effort to better understand and address the youth obesity problem.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mischa Honeck

If World War I has interested historians of the United States considerably less than other major wars, it is also true that children rank among the most neglected actors in the literature that exists on the topic. This essay challenges this limited understanding of the roles children and adolescents played in this transformative period by highlighting their importance in three different realms. It shows how childhood emerged as a contested resource in prewar debates over militarist versus pacifist education; examines the affective power of images of children—American as well as foreign—in U.S. wartime propaganda; and maps various social arenas in which the young engaged with the war on their own account. While constructions of childhood and youth as universally valid physical and developmental categories gained greater currency in the early twentieth century, investigations of young people in wartime reveal how much the realities of childhood and youth differed according to gender, class, race, region, and age.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-214
Author(s):  
J. B. Rodriguez ◽  
D. X. Rodriguez

Immigration to the United States can often be a traumatic and difficult experience for families. Unfortunately, status and responsibilities of being undocumented presents obstacles that can be difficult to overcome for many young people. This young author describes the sacrifices her parents made for her to have educational opportunities and the struggles she went through to achieve her dreams of becoming a doctor. She skillfully highlights how being undocumented places additional barriers that often limit the chances of success and thriving.


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