Education and Youth Agency, 1st ed. 2016 Qualitative Case Studies in Global Contexts Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development Series

This book offers a comprehensive overview of studies on youth agency across various parts of the world. It explores diverse perspectives on education, citizenship and future livelihoods, modernity and tradition, gender equality, and social norms and transformations as they relate to how young people construct their agency. Drawing on case studies of young women and men from Africa, the Americas and South Asia, this book illustrates the different ways in which education affects youth?s beliefs, engagement, action, and identities in broader historical, social, cultural, economic, and political contexts. Chapters argue for education as a potential force for equity and explore how both formal schooling and informal educational programs may challenge and inspire youth through individual and collective action to change the social conditions affecting their lives and their communities.  The global nature of this book gives readers a deeper understanding of youth agency as a dynamic process in relation to changing economic, political, and social environments.

Featured topics include: 

• The role of community context and relationships in shaping U.S. youth?s citizen agency.
  
• Malala Yousafzai and media narratives of girls? education within Islam and modernity.
  
• Social capital, sexual relationships, and agency for Tanzanian youth.
  
• Boys? agency toward higher education in urban Jamaica.
  
• Children?s economic agency in Kanchipuram, India.
  
• Vocational training and agency among Kenyan youth.

Education and Youth Agency is an essential resource for researchers, educators, practitioners, and undergraduate and graduate students across such related disciplines as developmental psychology, international and comparative education, family studies as well as public health, educational policy and politics, youth studies, and social policy.

Joan DeJaeghere is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Development Education in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota and an affiliate faculty of the Interdisciplinary Center for Global Change. Her scholarly work and professional practice are concerned with inequalities in education and how education can foster future livelihoods, well being and social justice. She has co-edited two special issues and published articles and books chapters on educating for citizenship, youth agency, gender equality, as well as international development and educational policy in journals including:  Comparative Education Review, Compare, Comparative Education, International Journal of Educational Development, and Human Development and Capabilities Journal.  DeJaeghere’s research and education and development projects have taken place in several countries including: Bangladesh, Honduras, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam. 

Jasmina Josić is a Manager in the Efficacy and Research team of Pearson’s Global Product organization. She works with the product and research teams to develop research frameworks and implement evaluations of digital products in K-12, higher education, and English language learning sectors. Her research is concerned with examining the internationalization of higher education, dynamics of educational policies in urban spaces, youth citizenship and identity, and student engagement and achievement.  Josić has conducted multiple research studies with youth and managed youth programs in urban U.S. settings.  Josić received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota.

Kate S. McCleary is an Associate Researcher with the LEAD Center in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she focuses o

Synthesizes research from psychology, education, economic development, anthropology, gender studies, sociology, and youth studies

Conceptualizes agency from multiple theoretical perspectives

Explores how education fosters agency in some youth and constrains it in others

Offers cases of youth across socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts in the United States, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, and India