Youth and the Politics of the Present
Coping with Complexity and Ambivalence
Routledge Advances in Sociology Series

Youth and the Politics of the Present presents a range of topical sociological investigations into various aspects of the everyday practices of young adults in different European contexts. Indeed, this volume provides an original and provocative investigation of various current central issues surrounding the effects of globalization and the directions in which Western societies are steering their future.

Containing a wide range of empirical and comparative examples from across Europe, this title highlights how young adults are trying to implement new forms of understanding, interpretation and action to cope with unprecedented situations; developing new forms of relationships, identifications and belonging while they experience new and unprecedented forms of inclusion and exclusion. Grounding this exploration is the suggestion that careful observations of the everyday practices of young adults can be an excellent vantage point to grasp how and in what direction the future of contemporary Western societies is heading.

Offering an original and provocative investigation, Youth and the Politics of the Present will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as Youth Studies, Globalization Studies, Migration Studies, Gender Studies and Social Policy.

A complex uncertainty: young people in the riddle of the present

Enzo Colombo and Paola Rebughini

Part I: Complexity

1. Learning (not) to labour: how middle-class young adults look for creative jobs in a precarious time in Italy

Lorenzo Domaneschi

2. Negotiating reality through the prosumption of the 'unreal' self: young people’s identities in an age of economic precarity

Konstantinos Theodoridis, Steven Miles and Kevin Albertson

3. ‘Flexi-lives’: facing the mobility imperative

Valentina Cuzzocrea

Part II: Uncertainty

4. Fragile transitions from education to employment: youth, gender and migrant status in the EU

Çetin Çelik, Fatoş Gökşen, Alpay Filiztekin, İbrahim Öker and Mark Smith

5. Precarious and creative: youth facing uncertainty in the labour market

Sonia Bertolini, Valentina Moiso and Marge Unt

6. Youth and precariousness in Spain: beyond a waiting time

Benjamín Tejerina

7. The myth of flexibility: young adults’ expectations of work in the digital economy in Milan

Alessandro Gandini and Luisa Leonini

8. Uncertainty management strategies in the process of identity formation of Polish young adults

Monika Banaś

Part III: Involvement

9.Young women of Muslim background in France and Britain: personal and public projects

Danièle Joly

10. Occupying the city: from social housing to the theatre

Antimo Luigi Farro and Simone Maddanu

11. 'I would rather choose a mixed school': young people’s secondary school choice in a low-income, multi-ethnic neighbourhood

Kirsten Visser

12. Our Nation’s Future: youth visions of a post-Brexit Britain

Marco Antonsich, Panagiota Sotiropoulou, Leila Wilmers, Cuomu Zhaxi and Sophie-Louise Hyde

Enzo Colombo is a Professor of Sociology and Culture at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Italy.

Paola Rebughini is Professor of Sociology of Culture at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Italy.