Young peoples’ reflections on what teachers think about family obligations that conflict with school: A focus on the non-normative roles of young caring and language brokering

In “Western” contexts school attendance is central for an ‘ideal’ childhood. However, many young people engage with home roles that conflict with school expectations. This paper explores perceptions of that process in relation two home activities - language brokering and young caring. We interviewed 46 young people and asked them to reflect on what the teacher would think when a child had to miss school to help a family member. This paper discusses the young people’s overall need to keep their out-of-school lives private from their teachers

Barriers and enablers of youth as drivers of social change: university students’ perspectives

As a progressive society, there is an expectation for young people to become the social leaders and innovators of tomorrow. Not only does this expectation imply an intergenerational ‘passing of the baton’ but also this scenario assumes that young people value social change and possess the self-efficacy that empowers them to ignite positive social change. Added to this is a fundamental assumption that social constructs will enable young people to work as change agents, rather than create hindrances. A complexity for higher education institutions is how to develop young people’s capacities for social change given the inevitable variance in how much their students value and believe they have the ability for ‘changemaking’. This study explored university students’ conceptions of social change and their perspectives on the tools and resources needed to engage in social changemaking. Two focus groups were held at the University of Northampton, which elicited students’ (n=10) views on 1) their conceptions of social change and social innovation, 2) their perceptions of what enables young people to engage with social change and 3) their beliefs about the barriers that exist for young people in being or becoming change agents. Findings from this study offer important implications for higher education institutions that aim to engage in positive youth development as part of the curricular or extra-curricular provision. By illuminating the perceived barriers and enablers for youth in driving social change, higher education institutions will be in a stronger position from which to nurture this generation of ‘changemakers’

Improving the Economic and Life Outcomes of At-Risk Youth, Spring 2003

Outlines ideas and strategies for designing programs to engage alienated and disaffected young people in activities designed to help them acquire skills, gain work experience, and improve their lives. Proposes a specific major experimental program

Investigating attitudes towards online safety and security, and evaluating a peer-led Internet safety programme for 14– to 16-year-olds: final report

Research Grants 2009 - Harnessing Technology Project. Recognising the significant e-safety issues facing young people, students aged between 14 and 16 were encouraged to engage peer-based activities to raise their own awareness of threats and appropriate responses

“There are too many naked pictures found in papers and on the net”: Factors encouraging pre-marital sex among young people of Nepal.

Background: A conventional Nepalese society still regards sexuality as a taboo and sexual activities outside marriage are rarely accepted. However, attitudes of young Nepalese people towards sexual relationships have steadily changed with the modernization of society and culture. There is also a view that young men and women in Nepal are now more comfortable in each other’s company and also initiate sexual relations before marriage. Aim: To explore factors encouraging premarital sex among young people of Nepal. Methods: Ten focus groups and 31 individual in-depth interviews with rural and urban young people were carried out by same sex researchers. Results: Most participants were aged 18-22 years. Findings indicate that curiosity towards sex and sexuality issues, personal appearance, peer pressures, exposure to print and electronic media and financial motives are key factors in encouraging premarital sexual intercourse. Conclusion: There is a need to disseminate more information on the risk of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies, targeting young people which would encourage them to engage in safer sexual behaviour

Using popular culture to enable health service co-design with young people

This paper reports on participatory service design with young people with type 1 diabetes – a long-term condition that can impact their emotional wellbeing and where poor self-care often leads to negative health consequences. The paper describes a project working with young people with type 1 diabetes to design innovative health services. The project consisted of eight creative workshops, in which we used popular cultural references as a means to create enjoyable activities and encourage the young people to engage with design. These cultural references can be understood as creating design language games that allowed the young people to understand and participate in the activities required at each stage of the design process. However, not all popular culture references worked equally well and this paper explores the reasons for this

Young AIDS Migrants in Southern Africa

Many young people in southern Africa engage in AIDS-related migration. Research conducted with urban and rural-based children in Malawi and Lesotho revealed that children are commonly sent to live with relatives resident elsewhere. They move in order to receive care, to care others, or to support their own livelihoods. Migration has a variety of impacts on young people, many of which are exacerbated by the effects of the epidemic. It is advocated that policy approaches for AIDS-affected children take into account the interests of children themselves and the needs of households that accommodate them

Media Multitasking Among American Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and Pairings

In recent years, the issue of media multitasking has sparked a broad discussion about the potential impact on children and youth and has raised concerns among non-profits about how best to engage young people with social marketing campaigns.To help advance understanding about the issues that surround media multitasking, the Kaiser Family Foundation hosted a forum, The Teen Media Juggling Act: The Implications of Media Multitasking Among American Youth.Forum participants included executives from MTV and eMarketer, a leading market research firm, along with one of the nation's top cognitive neuroscientists, and experts on media use among young people

The Games in Schools: PE & Cross Curricular Impacts

School-based initiatives are the most effective way to use the Games to engage and excite children and young people. 1- Can short school based initiatives have a longer-term impact on sport participation, learning and behaviour? 2- Are there Olympic and Paralympic themes beyond sport that can engage and excite children and young people? 3- Is it realistic to try to use the Games to get children and young people who don’t like sport to play more

‘Probing with the prototype’:using a prototype e-participation platform as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth engagement with the environment

This study describes how we used a prototype e-participation plat-form as a digital cultural probe to investigate youth motivation and engagement strategies. This is a novel way of considering digital cultural probes which can contribute to the better creation of e-participation platforms. This probe has been conducted as part of the research project STEP which aims at creating an e-participation platform to engage young European Citizens in environmental decision making. Our probe technique has given an insight into the environ-mental issues concerning young people across Europe as well as possible strat-egies for encouraging participation. How the e-participation platform can be utilised to support youth engagement through opportunities for social interac-tion and leadership is discussed. This study leads to a better understanding of how young people can co-operate with each other to provide collective intelli-gence and how this knowledge could contribute to effective e-participation of young people