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Drawing on findings from a large EU-funded research project that took place over three years, this book analyses educational trajectories of young people in eight European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.Contributors explore interactions between structural and institutional contexts of educational trajectories, the individual meaning attached to education and the strategies adopted by young people to cope with its demands. The book also analyses the decision-making processes of individual students, placing them firmly within the social contexts of their families, local schools, national education systems and welfare states, as well as transnational policy contexts. In considering educational disadvantage, the book is based on primary, cross-national research with systematic analysis of the different themes addressed. As every chaptersis co-authored by two or three researchers, each based in a different country, the book goes beyond the usual country-based chapter design to provide an enriched insight into both comparative theory and research methods.

In a period where social unrest manifests itself by coinciding with young people's dissatisfaction with formal political involvement and the diversification of protest movements across the globe, the question of youth participation is at the forefront of democratic societies. This timely book offers a fresh look at youth participation: examining official and unofficial constructions of participation by young people in a range of socio-political domains, exploring the motivations and rationales underlying official attempts to increase participation among young people, and offering a critique of their effectiveness. Based on original research data, Youth participation in Europe provides a thorough analysis of participation initiatives at the implementation level and gives a transversal approach to various areas of youth participation. Drawing on examples from different European countries, it analyses the results of structure on youth participation and the effects of youth agencies on types of mobilisation.