I'm not who you think I am: identify formation and the experience of informal learning for regional young people

'The primacy of culture’s role as an educational site where identities are being continually transformed, power is enacted, and learning assumes a political dynamic as it becomes not only the condition for the acquisition of agency but also the sphere for imagining oppositional social change' (Giroux 2004 p. 60). 'Youth' or 'the young person' is an abstract concept; used often, unthinkingly, but without concrete, or universally agreed upon definition. Are young people the future or the ‘problem’ with society? Varying discourses define the young person in a number of ways, with the formative features of young derived from their social position and status, age and demographic, and role in wider social hierarchies. Adding to this complexity of definition, young people themselves also define themselves and the idea of ‘youth’ in a variety of ways. How a young person forms an identity1, and on whose terms, is hence a vexed problem. The research that guided this dissertation aimed to explore how the idea of the young person was constructed, represented and viewed within three informal learning settings located in regional Queensland. The first cohort included a group of ‘disengaged’ young people within an alternative educational setting. This group was identified by the case school as disengaged and in need of a remediation program to ‘get them back on track’. The second cohort included a group of young people who attended a fortnightly LBGTQI social support group. The group, founded by Headspace Toowoomba, met with the aim of providing a social opportunity for LBGTQI identifying young people, aged between 12 and 18 years old, to be able to connect with each other in a supportive environment. The third cohort was a group of mountain bikers who would get together, ‘hang out’ and ride their bikes together. This group formed based on the desire for a group of young mountain bikers to ‘hang out’, practise their riding, and teach each other new skills. Via these three ‘sites’, the experience of these groups of young people was examined in an effort to understand the dynamic nature of identity formation, how young people come to develop a sense of Self and, more generally understand their place within wider social contexts. This research highlights that young people have a profound understanding of their ‘place’ in the world and the challenges that confront them. Significantly, young people contend with a range of social views and stereotypes that pathologise and position young people in ‘fixed’ ways. This thesis outlines how a more comprehensive understanding of young people might develop and how opportunities for informal learning,2 engaged by young people, can mediate this process

Informal learning in the secondary school: behaviour remediation programs and the informal learning environment as a space for re-engagement

How is it that a group of young people, encountered in a program designed to remedy behaviour issues and disengagement from schooling, can be found to be engaged (and engaging) learners? What does it mean for these young people when the ‘regular’ classroom becomes a site within which they cannot effectively engage in learning? More intrinsically, what might it mean for these young people, and the communities within which they live, when the prospects for those who leave formal education early will likely include extended periods of unemployment, increased probability of reliance on government assistance and a greater likelihood of social exclusion (The Longitudinal Study of Australian Youth, 2000; Flint, 2011; Deloitte Access Economics, 2012)? Informal Learning in the Secondary School: Behaviour Remediation Programs and the Informal Learning Environment as a Space for Re-engagement (hereon Informal Learning in the Secondary School), sought to respond to these questions. Drawn from empirical evidence gathered as part of a long-term ethnography of an alternative learning program delivered in a secondary school setting, this project outlined how informality functioned as a central component of a ‘relational pedagogy’ within the alternative learning space. As a defining feature of the alternative learning program investigated here, informality was expressed as an ‘irreverence’ for the structures and modes of conduct otherwise enacted within the school. A ‘looseness’ pervaded the interactions and practice of the program and it was with this that a range of inter-relationships different to those typically experienced elsewhere in the school emerged. The case site became a ‘disorienting’ space because of this looseness and accordingly provoked new possibilities for learning. The findings offered in this report suggest that informality, expressed as a core aspect of a ‘relational pedagogy’ and witnessed variously within the modes of instruction, sites of learning and practices of interpersonal interaction that were foundational to the alternative learning space provided a powerful means for extending student learning, enhancing positive inter-relationality and furthering engagement. From this, the conceptual tripartite ‘relationships-behaviour-pathways’ was used to position understandings of the ways students came to, and experienced, the alternative learning program. In particular, this report highlights that the informality of the program enabled different forms of relationality to prosper. By emphasising this connection between informality and the relationality between students and students and teachers, this report outlines how meaningful re-engagement in school might be made more fully possible through a relational pedagogy of informality

The constraints of youth: young people, active citizenship and the experience of marginalisation

This paper charts the experiences of a group of young people and their involvement in a local government initiative to engage young people in public decision-making. Activated through a youth leaders’ council that sought to influence and inform local government decision-making, the participating young people were given responsibility for enacting focus projects in collaboration with local government personnel. However, this method of simply bringing young people together with local government decision-makers did not automatically alter the way that decisions came to be made and ironically resulted in interactions that went some way to further reinforce existing perceptions of young people as incapable in situations of public administration. This paper reports on a case example detailing an interaction between the youth leaders and local government councillors, and will suggest that the experience of the young people involved in the youth leaders’ council can be understood against a dynamic of ‘constraint’

Engaged and active: engaging young people across the Toowoomba Region. Toowoomba Regional Council Youth Study

This report outlines findings from this study of the region’s young people. In particular, focus was given to identifying the ways that young people engage with services designed to support their own personal development and connection to their communities, and the perceptions young people have of life within the Toowoomba region. Within this, the data captured for this study highlighted that young peoples’ awareness of the opportunities available varied, and that perceptions of initiatives and services aimed at further supporting young peoples’ participation in community- formation remain, in some instances, ill-informed. In particular, the findings outlined in this report highlight that: • the ways that services are provisioned vary across the region; • the provision of opportunities for young people to participate as active members of the community require a more cohesive and planned agenda of inter-agency collaboration; • the ways that young people participate in initiatives and engage as active members of the community requires cognisance of the diverse backgrounds, lifestyles and interests that young people hold, and that; • the ways that young people are envisioned and conceptualised as a group requires attention in order to shape more positive representations of young people as integral members of the community. Using themes derived from the analysis of a dataset comprising interview, focus-group and documentary material, along with a comprehensive review of policy documentation from Local and State government levels, the findings outlined in this report identify that: • The meaningful engagement of young people in decision- making requires more than tokenistic consultation and engagement of young people in limited areas of focus. • The provision of services aimed at the support of young people would benefit from greater inter-agency collaboration and coordination. It emerged as a major theme in this study that those service providers currently working with young people in the Toowoomba region are ‘stretched’ (in some cases beyond capacity). Although a sector-wide challenge, the ‘separation’ experienced by the region’s service providers between policy directives and funding compacts and the day-to-day realities of service provision represent a major hurdle to effective service delivery and sustainable practice. • Young people do hold the capacity to contribute to decision-making and the formation of their communities, but are rarely afforded the opportunity to meaningfully do so. Further, providing young people with the skills and capacity to develop their own awareness of issues affecting their community, and opportunities to engage in directing their futures is crucial. • More can be done to shift, particularly negative, preconceptions of who young people are. Prevailing stereotypes of young people do exert an influence on how young people engage-with and are received-by their communities

Promoting help-seeking among adolescents and young adults through consideration of the adaptive functions of low mood: a pilot study

Encouraging young people to seek help when feeling depressed is commonly agreed to be an important strategy in reducing the risk of suicide behaviour. Many programmes have attempted to increase young people's knowledge of depression and other mental illnesses, on the assumption that increased knowledge will lead to increased help-seeking behaviour. The information presented to young people has phrased depression as an illness analogous to a physical illness. This pilot study examined whether framing depression on the basis of evolutionary explanations for mental illness would influence help-seeking behaviour relative to a standard illness explanation. Participants were 54 young adults, average age 19 years, 5 months (s.d. = 1.59) and 32 school-aged participants with an average age of 15 years, 2 months (s.d. = 2.79). After viewing information sheets, the participants rated which one they preferred according to how likely it would be to encourage them or others to seek help if feeling depressed. The majority of young adults preferred the evolutionary explanation, with even support for the two approaches from the school-aged participants. This study was limited in its sample size and recruitment strategies, but does offer opportunities for further research into discourse on depression for young people