Diverse Spaces of Childhood and Youth ― Gender and Socio-cultural Differences

Diverse Spaces of Childhood and Youth focuses on the diverse spaces and discourses of children and youth globally. The chapters explore the influence of gender, age and other socio-cultural differences, such as race, ethnicity and migration trajectories, on the everyday lives of children and youth in a range of international contexts. These include the diverse urban environments of Istanbul, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Toronto, London, and Bratislava and the contrasting rural settings of Ghana and England. The analyses of children's, young people's, parents' and professionals' experiences and discourses provide critical insights into how gender and other socio-cultural differences intersect. The importance of everyday practices and performances in the formation of children's and young people's identities is revealed, through for example, friendships and everyday sociality, mobilities and movements across space in both rural and urban environments.

The volume shows how discourses of childhood, particularly those associated with risk, intersect with difference. The recognition of young people’s agency and participation is central to many of the chapters, whilst also raising methodological questions about how discourses of childhood and youth are researched. Overall, the book provides an original contribution to geographies of children, youth and families and research on diversity and difference in global contexts.

This book was published as a special issue of Children's Geographies.

Ruth Evans is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Reading. Using qualitative participatory methodologies, her recent research has investigated the experiences of children caring for parents with HIV in Tanzania and the UK, sibling care in youth-headed households in East Africa, and access to land, gender and intergenerational relations in West Africa.

Louise Holt is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Loughborough University. Her research interests focus on socio-spatial processes of exclusion, inclusion, embodiment and identity, and social capital. She has explored these theoretical and conceptual themes in empirical research investigating children, young people and families, disability, gentrification, and urban change.