Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement

Rethinking Youth Citizenship After the Age of Entitlement asks hard questions about how young people understand, experience and enact their citizenship in uncertain times and under the new social contract which those times promote. It examines how familiar modes of exclusion are being compounded by punitive youth policies in ways that are concealed by neoliberal discourses. It considers the role of key institutions such as schools in constructing and constituting young people's citizenship and looks at the ways in which some young people are opting out of established expressions and enactments of citizenship while creating new ones. It also reinvigorates the discussion about citizenship rights, and what these might mean for young people in the neoliberalist era.

The book draws on global theories and understandings of citizenship and on recent research which describes global youth experiences, with a particular focus on the Australian context. This is because Australia provides a useful test case of young people's citizenship: it is a unique example of a country that has fared well economically in recent years, and yet is currently mimicking the austerity measures witnessed within the United Kingdom and Europe. It concludes with an argument for a rethinking of citizenship which takes account young people's rights as citizens and the ways in which these interact with their lived experience after the age of entitlement.

Lucas Walsh is Associate Professor and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia. He was previously Director of Research and Evaluation at the Foundation for Young Australians.

Rosalyn Black is Senion Lecturer in Education at Deakin University, Australia. She is a member of the the Youth Studies Australia International Editorial Board, the Australian Sociological Association and the Australian Association of Research in Education.