Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship

Sexual citizenship is a powerful concept associated with debates about recognition and exclusion, agency, respect and accountability. For young people in general and for gender and sexually diverse youth in particular, these debates are entangled with broader imaginings of social transitions: from ‘child’ to ‘adult’and from ‘unreasonable subject’ to one ‘who can consent’. This international and interdisciplinary collection identifies and locates struggles for recognition and inclusion in particular contexts and at particular moments in time, recognising that sexual and gender diverse young people are neither entirely vulnerable nor self-reliant. 

Focusing on the numerous domains in which debates about youth, sexuality and citizenship are enacted and contested, Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship explores young people’s experiences in diverse but linked settings: in the family, at school and in college, in employment, in social media and through engagement with health services. Bookended by reflections from Jeffrey Weeks and and Susan Talburt, the book’s empirically grounded chapters also engage with the key debates outlined in it's scholarly introduction.

This innovative book is of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality, health and sex education, and youth studies, from a range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, including sociology, education, nursing, social work and youth work.

Peter Aggleton is an emeritus professor at UNSW Sydney, Australia; an honorary distinguished professor at The Australian National University, an adjunct professor in the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia; and an honorary professor at University College London, UK.

Rob Cover is an associate professor in media and communication in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Western Australia.

Deana Leahy is a senior lecturer in health education in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Daniel Marshall is a senior lecturer in literature in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.

Mary Lou Rasmussen is a professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia.