UNPACKING YOUNG PEOPLE’S NARRATIVES ABOUT THEIR ASPIRATIONS: A BOURDIEUSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Abstract
Drawing from Bourdieu’s theories on habitus, capital, and field, this article explores the complex relationship between social context and youth’s aspirations and perceptions of the future. Based on findings from interviews we conducted with young people in two distinct communities in British Columbia, Canada, we undertook a comparative analysis of the ways in which class and place influence young people’s “imagined futures”. Our findings suggest that family plays an instrumental role in shaping youth’s aspirations in both locations. Perceptions regarding opportunity and mobility varied greatly between the communities, and appeared to be influenced by racialized and gendered inequalities. A few youth had aspirations that resided outside of the narrative parameters mapped out by their peers. We explore the implications of these perspectives for community-level strategies aiming to improve young people’s future trajectories, which could have positive impacts on their current and future health and wellbeing. While Bourdieu’s theories do not explicitly consider adolescent-specific capital, we found them to be helpful in making sense of youth’s narratives about their futures.
Downloads
Metrics
Copyright (c) 2016 Cara Ng, Rebecca J Haines-Saah, Carla T Hilario, Emily K Jenkins, Joy L Johnson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Rights Granted After Publication
After publication, authors may reuse portions or the full article without obtaining formal permission for inclusion within their thesis or dissertation.
Permission for these reuses is granted on the following conditions:
- that full acknowledgement is made of the original publication stating the specific material reused [pages, figure numbers, etc.], [Title] by/edited by [Author/editor], [year of publication], reproduced by permission of International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies [link to IJCYFS website];
- In the case of joint-authored works, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission from co-authors for the work to be reuse/republished;
- that reuse on personal websites and institutional or subject-based repositories includes a link to the work as published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies; and that the material is not distributed under any kind of Open Access style licences (e.g. Creative Commons) which may affect the Licence between the author and IJCYFS.
