Geographies of Youth in Changing Societies

Course goals

Please note: The information in the course manual is binding.

Learning objectives
Upon completion of the course, students are able to …..

1.. demonstrate an understanding of the dynamic ways in which young people experience and use various places.
2.. explain how childhood and ‘being young’ are connected to social, cultural, economic, political, spatial and translocal processes and inequalities.
3.. apply this knowledge to a specific research-oriented project around geographies of youth.
4.. communicate the findings effectively in a ‘youth-friendly' communication product.
5.. reflect critically on timely and sometimes controversial topics relating to geographies of youth and establish concrete connections to their own lives.
 

Content

Description of course content:
The key aim of ‘Geographies of Youth in Changing Societies’ is to understand how young people (between 4-25 years old) experience and use various places in changing societies, based on the premise that their experiences differ from those of adults. The lifeworlds of children and young people have mostly been absent in geographical understandings in (changing) societies. To explore how young people shape and are shaped by places in multiple and dynamic ways, the course examines what happens at the intersections of age and life-course (e.g. children, youth, teenagers, young adults), and places (body, home, street, neighbourhood, community, city, urban, rural, (trans)national, translocal, global).

In this course, we consider young people’s lives from various but interconnected perspectives. Transformations in the context of globalization, migration and societal change define young people’s lives across the world. However, growing up in an increasingly interconnected world affects young people in different and unequal ways depending on local relations and historical contexts. This course contributes to students’ existing knowledge of geography by teaching them about how geographers and spatial planners understand and examine youth-related themes, youth’s positions in various societies and places, and their subjectivities and orientations in a constantly changing world with new possibilities as well as risks.

The course provides an in-depth understanding of processes and dynamics that shape young people’s lives on various spatial scales. The places where we are born, go to school to, play, hang out, exercise, study and work are an important part of young people's lives, their everyday experiences and their identities. But young people’s relationships with these places are subject to ongoing transformations due to changing priorities, needs and aspirations across their life course. The concepts of childhood and adolescence are, however, relatively recent phenomena in Geography. Rather, in much scientific work by geographers and spatial planners, young people are seen as ‘adults in becoming’, even though the perspectives of young people on the world are qualitatively different than those of adults.

To secure safe and sustainable futures for all children and young people, an understanding of their various and dynamic life worlds is thus key. Hence, the course offers students new and complementary perspectives within the field of geography on youth-related themes by highlighting concepts, theories and methodological approaches that zoom in on young people’s agencies and capabilities. As a result, the learning outcomes of the ‘Geographies of Youth in Changing Societies’ course will also be of use to students who are interested in spatial planning and public policy design. Spatial patterns and processes related to youth are often missing from the agendas of policymakers which makes young people similar to and dependent on adults. Similarly, young people’s presence outside the home and school spaces is often problematized in public debates as the spatialities of youth are generally absent in the design and planning of public space.

The course consists of lectures and tutorials. Guest lecturers from the various sections within the Human Geography and Spatial Planning department will introduce different perspectives on young people’s geographies. In the first part of the course, we start with an overview lecture that recapitulates youth as a socio-spatial construct. We then delve deeper into the geographies of youth by exploring relevant themes, such as identities and belonging, inequalities, and youth & public space. In the second part of the course, students will investigate a youth-related topic by working on their own research group project. Towards the end of the course, students will reflect on what they have learned by writing a reflection report.

During the lectures and tutorials, students are stimulated to bring up and discuss their views and opinions on youth-related themes. This also means that your input as a student is important in shaping the course. The course requires reflections on personal aspects of positionality, i.e. the implications of being a young person yourself.