Youth, Education, and Marginality

This edited collection with contributions by scholars, educators, policy-makers, and notably, dozens of young people endeavours to cast a critical light on the nuances, complexities, and menacing subtleties of youth marginalization in "a moment of making space" (p. 2) for renewed alternatives and reinvigorated voices.The text is at once hopeful and heartbreaking, at times frustrating, even incredulous, but never lacking self-reflexivity and an appreciation for the myriad factors that serve to reproduce disparity and exclusion.Certain contributors quite justifiably point fingers (see King, Edwards, and Blackstock's scathing appraisal of the federal government's treatment of Aboriginal communities in Chapter 5), but more so the reader is encouraged to prepare for an interior journey of introspection and self-critique (see especially the self-incriminating tone of Smyth in Chapter 2).Several themes dance and mingle throughout the text.For instance, juxtaposition of disparate youth experiences is used to emphasize plural particularity over and above universal abstraction.This tactic effectively demonstrates the globally applicable threads of marginalization without relegating any individual or population to some holographic universal status, which collapses under the weight of its own particularity.Rummens and Dei portray this in simpler language in their exploration of racialized, immigrant, and Aboriginal youth: Important to note is that while marginalization trajectories may be unique both to specific individuals and different groups both within and over time, the overall processes of social exclusion are often very similar.The same is true of the attendant detrimental impacts and outcomes.(p.119)

Media studies · Sociology · Education Systems and Policy · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Psychology · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics