Youth in Comparative Contexts: School, Society, and Public Policy

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course takes youth as the central focus for investigations into schooling, society, and policy. Children and youth are often the object of international development programs and national policies that recognize the promise of youth when channeled toward productive ends and the problem of youth when familial, social supports and formal structures break down. Many of these programs and policies argue youth are “idle” and the solution is empowerment through hard work, education, self-improvement, and formal employment. Consequently, youth have received much attention from NGOs, governments, media, and local organizations–all aim to shape youth into their version of ideal, self-empowered adults. As a result, youth are confronted with different versions of who they can and should become, contributing to the already ambiguous nature of what it means to be youth and to become an adult. Throughout the course we will investigate the various ways in which youth are constructed as both the problem and the solution. We will also interrogate the various representations of youth in cross-cultural contexts, and how these representations shape experiences in the context of schooling, the role of youth in society, and in public policy in urban cities in the U.S. and in urban contexts across Africa.