Imagining Youth Futures

This book offers a much-needed analysis of how young people understand and navigate their lives as workers, family members and political actors in an era of uncertainty, Brexit and Trump. Drawing on the latest and most seminal international research and the unique stories of 30 young university students from Australia, France and Britain, it explores the nature of higher education and post-education trajectories for young people facing a ‘post-truth’ world in which opportunities for home ownership, work security and the formation of committed relationships have been thoroughly eroded. It also presents a timely reflection on young people’s hopes and concerns in the wake of global political upheaval, demographic change, financial crises, labour market uncertainties and unprecedented human mobility. Imagining Youth Futures makes a unique contribution to the fields of youth studies, transitions to university, and contemporary youth patterns in the areas of work, family, politics and mobility.

Rosalyn Black is Senior Lecturer in Education at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her research interests are located at the intersection of the sociologies of education and youth, and include young people’s experience of citizenship and the role of education policy and practice in contexts of social inequality. Her most recent book is Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement (with Lucas Walsh)Dr Lucas Walsh is Professor of Education Policy and Practice, Youth Studies, and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash University. His research focuses on the political, economic, cultural, social and technological dimensions of young people’s participation - in particular their transitions to post-school life across social, political, cultural and economic domains - and the implications of these for educators and policy. Recent books include Educating Generation Next: Young People, Teachers and Schooling in Transition and Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement (with Rosalyn Black).