On the margins: the last place to rebel? Understanding young people's resistance to social conformity

Jane McKay and Frances Atherton examine young people’s social play in terms of how space is negotiated where potential conflict is tempered to maintain the freedom, which boundary spaces may offer. They focus on the role of resistance at places of intersection, where the desire to define a new liberty, or a free space can involve opposition, resistance and transgression. They consider adult interruption, especially from the Police where young people are framed by wider social and political contexts that set the boundaries, rules, and possibilities of their lives. They demonstrate how marginalisation occurs in the micro-interactions of the mundane, and relate their findings to the wider competing discourses of risk and marginality.

[B]othered Youth: marginalisation, stop and search and the policing of belonging

Seán F. Murphy examines the contemporary issues surrounding the policing of disadvantaged communities. Specifically looking at the discriminatory practice of ‘Stop and Search’ methods of policing. He argues that for young people, rights become qualified or suspended during encounters with the police. He theorises the condition of ‘advanced marginality’, through the term [b]othered youth within a wider institutional mistrust of youth. Critically assessing how the discretionary powers, through the framing of suspects, can reproduce inequalities, injustice and resentment. He argues that [b] othering, resistance and marginalisation of disadvantaged youth in poor communities result in a loss of legitimacy and the tensions emerging from over-policing.

Asylum rejected: ‘appeal rights exhausted' Afghan care leavers facing return

Kim Robinson and Lucy Williams focus on young Afghan men’s asylum claims in terms of their family background, citizenship and immigration status within the Care system under vulnerability. All young Afghans have had their asylum claims considered classified as Appeals Rights Exhausted and face return to Afghanistan. The chapter reveals how young Afghans’ narratives speak of a dangerous place where they have no links or connections yet at the same time, their description of the UK is often negative and critical of the support they have received here. The findings illustrate how immigration policies impact on marginality and affect the daily lives of these young people who are caught between two unpalatable futures, one back in Afghanistan and one living in destitution and illegality in the UK.

Pramface girls? Early motherhood, marginalisation and the management of stigma

Mary Jane Kehily considers the phenomenon of young motherhood in the UK through policy and popular discourse. She looks at how women make the transition to motherhood in new times, to argues that early motherhood occupies a distinctive place within the context of late modern social change, marked by changing gender relations and women’s increased participation in the workforce. At a time when most women are delaying the birth of their first child, differences between women may be polarised and compounded by the experience of becoming a mother. She explores the way social differences between women may be played out in the cultural sphere of representations and practices of consumption. She argues that the stigmatised figure of early motherhood, configured colloquially as the marginal ‘pramface girl’ can be understood within the context of the local – community, family, biography and intergenerational perspectives.

Routine sanctions, humiliation and human struggle: qualitative biographies of young people’s experience of live marginality

Linda Brooks examines the impact of the current government austerity measures experienced at a local charity based in the borough of Castle Point in Essex. Linda draws from first-hand experience of working with young adults to provide valuable insights into the direct impact of austerity measures as lived under social suffering. She employs ethnographic and biographical approaches to show real life examples of the impact of government austerity measures, which increase social disadvantage for young people within the local communities.

Broken society, anti-social contracts, failing state? Rethinking youth marginality

Peter Squires and Carlie Goldsmith examine social exclusion of youth and the conservative the ideology of the ‘broken society.’ They address young people’s hardship and marginality through a critical analysis of neo-liberal political ideology. They that young adult ‘quality of life’ has diminished as a result of ‘tough justice’ and punitive welfare policies. They question the neo-liberal approach to young adults with its focus on risk and compliance measures while young people receive sanctions, disciplines and punishments.

The marginalisation of care:young care leavers’ experiences of professional relationships

Emma Davidson and Lisa Whittaker, see young people as becoming the ‘new poor’ as they struggle to cope with increasingly precarious transitions into in (ter)dependent living. Care leavers across the UK continue to experience marginalisation and have poorer outcomes from educational performance and employment through to health and housing. They focus on the hardship of marginality within a specific group of young people, as care leavers who are vulnerable to service cuts associated with austerity in the UK. There approach is to develop narratives concerned with the importance of long-term, personal relationships whilst in care which emphasises the importance of establishing long term personal relationships whilst in care.

Youth poverty and social exclusion in the UK

Eldin Fahmy examines the nature, extent and social distribution of youth deprivation and social exclusion amongst 16-29 year olds living in Britain. He explores our understanding of youth marginality and disadvantage, through supplement income data with direct measures of deprivation of living standards and exclusion from customary norms. There is a focus on the social profile of vulnerability amongst young people, beyond relative low-income measures. He compares data for 1990, 1999 and 2012 to explore young people’s vulnerability and disadvantage in the context of youth transitions and disadvantage.

Responses to the marginalisation of Roma young people in education in an age of austerity in the United Kingdom

This chpater discusses team support for Roma young people who arrived in the United Kingdom as European Union migrants. Using participants’ voices reveals a negative discourse on Roma. Reflecting on the way frequent media representations of English Gypsies as the ‘other’ are experienced as discrimination, racism and are also circulated through social media. She argues dominant discourses establish, consolidate and implement power relationships in education settings, which constrain participation and responses to injustice. She focuses on the marginalisation of Roma young people positioning as ‘other’ or the ‘stranger’ or ‘vagabond’ where they are both unwelcome and feared.

Conclusions: advanced youth marginality post-Brexit

Rodgers and Blackman consider the contemporary issues affecting young adults in the UK as a result of the economic insecurity post Brexit. It addresses three sections relating to marginality: Firstly, austerity measures targeting young people; Secondly, the critical intersections of social class, gender and ethnic identities within political, cultural, and popular discourses as they impinge upon the question of young people and social marginalisation, Thirdly, assess the degrees of resistance and autonomy amongst young people, where agency appears highly vulnerable and young people struggle to maintain an independent voice.