James Côté is Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. He is founding editor of Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, Past President (2003-2005) of the Society for Research on Identity Formation (SRIF), currently serves as Vice-President for North America (2006-2010) on the International Sociological Association´s Research Committee (34) on the Sociology of Youth. Dr. Côté has authored or co-authored several books and dozens of journal articles and book chapters on youth-related issues. His recent books include Ivory Tower Blues: A University System in Crisis (2007), Critical Youth Studies: A Canadian Focus (2006), and Identity Formation, Agency, and Culture: A Social Psychological Synthesis (2002).
Title - Resource acquisition in mass education systems: Sorting out the roles played by
human-, social-, and identity-capital in educational and occupational attainment
Abstract:
In its ideal form, education provides students with the skills necessary for eventual integration into an interconnected network of productive roles. This presentation addresses the problem of how much this actually happen in mass educational systems. Educational policies are largely based on human capital models, but students and graduates experience many problems, such as underachievement and underemployment, that are not compatible with human capital assumptions. To examine this issue, other forms of capital relevant to educational advancement and attainment - social- and identity-capital - are identified and measured in an empirical study of the transition to post-secondary education. It is concluded that movement through the mass education system is not simply a matter of acquiring and "marketing" human capital skills, but rather involves the utilization of important social- and identity-capital elements that have important policy implications.
Janet Holland is Professor of Social Research and Co-director of the Families and Social Capital Research Group at London South Bank University, and Co-director of Timescapes: Changing relationships and identities through the life course, an ESRC funded five year qualitative longitudinal study located in five UK universities. Research interests include youth, education, gender, sexuality, family life, and feminist and longitudinal methodology. Recent publications: (with Sheila Henderson, Sheena McGrellis, Sue Sharpe and Rachel Thomson) Inventing Adulthoods: a biographical approach to youth transitions, 2007, Sage; (with Jeffrey Weeks and Matthew Waites (eds.) Sexualities and Society, 2003, Polity Press; and (with Caroline Ramazanoglu) Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices, 2002, Sage.
Title - Young people and social capital: What can it do for us?
Abstract:
In this talk I will critically examine issues raised by the academic and political use of the concept social capital related to its journey through several academic disciplines. Although its incursion into youth studies is relatively recent, some theorists and researchers in this area have embraced it, and I will consider how it has been used and its usefulness in understanding the lives of young people. The discussion will also draw on the extensive research undertaken by myself and colleagues in a five-year multi-project study of families and social capital, and a longitudinal study of youth transitions in five contrasting areas in the UK.
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Katrine Fangen is a researcher in sociology at the University of Oslo. She is co-editor of YOUNG (Nordic Journal of Youth Research) and a coordinator of EUMARGINS (2008-2010), which is a project financed by the 7th framework programme of EU. Fangen has extensive research experience on youth combining participant observation with life-story interviews. Fangen´s studies have been published in several books and journal articles. Her books include En bok om nynazisme (2001), Deltagende observasjon (2004) and Identitet og praksis - Etnisitet, klasse og kjønn blant somaliere i Norge (2008). Her articles include ´Citizenship among Young Adult Somalis in Norway´ (YOUNG, 2007), ´Breaking up the Different Constituting Parts of Ethnicity - The Case of Young Somalis in Norway´ (Acta Sociologica, 2007), ´Humiliation as Experienced by Somalis in Norway´ (Journal of Refugee Studies, 2006), ´Separate or Equal? The Emergence of an All-Female Group in Norway´s Rightist Underground´ (Terrorism & Political Violence, 1997), ´Right-Wing Skinheads. Binary Oppositions and Working-Class Nostalgia´ (Nordic Youth Research Journal, 1998) and ´On the Margin of Life. Life-Stories of Far-Right Activists´ (Acta Sociologica, 1999).
Title - An analytical framework for analysing the inclusion and exclusion of young immigrants - The case of young adult Somalis in Norway
Abstract:
This paper aims to provide an analytical frame for the study of the inclusion and exclusion of young immigrants in Europe - using young adult Somalis in Norway as a case. Experiences of inclusion and exclusion are seen in relation to different participatoory arenas such as peer group, family, school, job etc. Social capital is used as an analytical tool when interpreting variations between the individuals presented in the paper. The paper is based on life-story interviews conducted in the period 2003-2007.
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Les Back is Professor and Deputy Head of Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths University of London, UK, where he has been working since 1993. His main focus over the years has been on race and racism, multiculturalism, urban life, popular culture and music - and youth. In his recent book The Art of Listening (2007), Back promotes sociology´s potential for being a science that listens, describing public life, urban complexities and the details of people´s lives. He himself exemplifies as a performer of the art in his previous books such as New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives (1996), The Changing Face of Football (2001) and Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics and Culture (2002). Les Back has also published Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader together with co-editor John Solomos (2000).
Title - "Endz and Sides": Youth Gangs, Post Code Patriotism and Mapping Landscapes of Multiculture and racism
Abstract:
This lecture explores the ways in which young people in London make the city a home and also navigate its risks and fears. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted over a period of twenty years, it explores the ways in which issues of everyday racism and exclusion have been struggled over. It discusses the consequences of what it means for the definitions of belonging and identity to be recast and redefined at the local level. What happens when the voice of racism in a multi-district has been muted? At what scale do young people think about their affiliations, belongings and identities? These questions will be situated within the context of the current concerns about peer violence in London, a city which in 2007 saw 26 teenagers killed by youth related violence, and the British debate about national identity and what has been called the ‘death of multiculturalism´.
