Young people speaking back from the margins

The line I want to take in this chapter is that the way we position young people has a profound bearing on how we deal with them, both in terms of policy and practicality. In taking this line, I want to draw upon some of the issues that have emerged from my own research with young people in Australia over the past two decades or so. The young people I have worked with are predominantly from backgrounds where they, their families, and their communities have been put at a disadvantage through the effects of social, economic, and political forces and by the flow-on effects of globalization that have effectively devastated their communities and lives. Their diminished educational opportunities and subsequent life chances have been dramatic, even to the point of being catastrophic. Having said that, these young people are not hapless victims nor are they passive recipients of deficit categories such as 'at-riskness,' which are placed upon them by the media, politicians, agencies, and some academics. Rather they are active agents exercising choices and making decisions about their lives in situations that amount to 'speaking back.