Understanding Youth in the Global Economic Crisis

Professor Alan France is Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He has researched and written extensively for over 20 years on the ‘youth question’ and youth policy.

"This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand that the global financial crisis means for young people - it has astounding depth and breadth and sets new agendas in the field of youth studies." Johanna Wyn, Director, Youth Research Centre, The University of Melbourne "One of the strengths of the book - and the key to its undoubted value to non-academic readers - is France's mastery of both the detail of social policy, and how policy interacts with lives actually lived by today's young people." SPERI Blog "With a rare, global perspective, this is a timely, valuable and important book that maps the social and economic fortunes and likely futures of young people after 'the Great Recession'." Rob MacDonald, Teeside University "An extremely timely analysis of the conditions faced by young people in period following the Great Recession. With a strong theoretical foundation and an excellent empirical coverage of eight countries within the Global North, France explores the everyday worlds inhabited by young people, at the same time reminding us of the persistence of old inequalities and of the ineffectiveness of core policies." Andy Furlong, University of Glasgow

• Understanding Youth in Contemporary Times;Theorising Youth;The Global Crisis and the ‘Age of Austerity’;Education and Training; The broken promise;Education and Training; From public benefit to private responsibility;Unemployment and Work; Precarious futures;NEETs and the Disengaged; The ‘new’ youth problem;Divergence and Difference: Contrasting cross-national experiences of being young;Education, Work and Welfare in Diverse Settings;Youth and Mobility; Inequality, leaving home and the question of youth migration;After the Crisis; Social change and what it means to be young.