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Rooted in adult fear, adult authority aims to protect and control youth (Gannon, 2008; Valentine, 1997). Continuously negotiating for freedom, youth search for adult-free public spaces and are therefore extremely attracted to social networking sites (boyd, 2007, 2014). However, a significant portion of youth now includes adult authorities within their Facebook networks (Madden et al., 2013). Thus, this study explores how youth navigate familial- and educational-adult authorities across social networking sites in relation to their local peer culture.

Through semi-structured interviews, including youth-centered and participant-driven social media tours, 82 youth from the Northeast region of the United States of America (9–17 years of age; 43 females and 39 males) shared their lived experiences and perspectives about social media during the summer of 2013.

In their everyday lives, youth are subjected to the normative expectations emerging from peer culture, school, and family life. Within these different and at times conflicting normative schemas, youth’s social media use is subject to adult authority. In response, youth develop intricate ways to navigate adult authority across social networking sites.

Adult fear is powerful, but fragile to youth’s interpretation; networked publics are now regulated and youth’s ability to navigate then is based on their social location; and youth’s social media use must be contextualized to be holistically understood.

This chapter focuses upon high school preparation and transition planning activities as they apply to students with disabilities. The reader will find a review of needs for reform of high school standards-based curricula, the development of inclusive general education curriculum content, and strategies for integrating functional and daily living skill training and meaningful transition planning activities, which include collaboration with adult agencies. The authors further present a number of evidence-based practices to address these needs and make recommendations for moving forward in ways to improve post-school outcomes for youth with disabilities.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is one of many approaches that enhance the quality of education by moving away from teacher-centered instructional methods and toward more student-directed approaches. This chapter describes the adult-centered program delivered by The College of New Rochelle, School of New Resources – a northeastern, liberal arts institution that is a pioneer in educating adult learners. A model program for educating today’s adult learner is introduced with particular emphasis on faculty implementation of IBL in the classroom and student’s responses to the Life Arts Project (LAP), which is incorporated in each six credit course seminar. Through the LAP, adult learners investigate course content through exploration and discovery, participate in critical inquiry, investigate various research methodologies, and experience project-based learning.

The history of the public library is long and rich, and continues to reflect this institution's initial mission: to respond to the needs of an evolving democratic society. From its early days as a subscription service for the middle-class, through its evolution to become an educational site for the lower-classes and new immigrants, the public library has served as a touch-stone for urban industrial society in North America (Lerner, 1998, p. 138; Shera, 1974). Over the past century, public libraries have evolved to respond to the growing needs of the communities they serve and continue to do so with recent advances in technologies (such as DVDs, electronic books, the Internet, etc.), and with a more global outlook on the ways that people seek and share information. Indeed, the public library's constituents today are exceedingly diverse, including children and adults from a broad range of socio-economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds, all of whom seek information for a variety of personal and work-related purposes. The fact that public libraries have been fulfilling patrons' information needs for well over a century is a testament to their enduring success and versatility as information providers, and also points to the overall effectiveness of public librarians as intermediaries in the provision process.

Purpose – To examine how youth appropriate and resist elements of the developmental discourse as they construct and enforce dating norms.

Methodology – In 2007, we conducted participant observation at a middle school summer camp for youth in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Youth ranged in age from 11 to 17 years old.

Findings – Youth borrowed the idea of a normative sequence of behaviors arranged by age from the developmental discourse to establish a set of age-appropriate dating norms for all campers, regardless of chronological age. Youth enforced these norms by treating other dating actions as too young or too old. By tying this linear trajectory to social age instead of chronological age, youth creatively altered the apparently rigid developmental discourse and established dating norms which addressed their own values and concerns. Youth established dating norms and maximized opportunities for pleasurable, collective discussions about dating and romantic relationships. Although the developmental discourse influenced the norms in this peer culture, we argue that the small, heterogeneous composition of the camp facilitated youths' ability to appropriate, refashion, and resist the developmental discourse.

Children and youth of color in White and adult-dominated societies confront racism and adultism that shapes their peer cultures. Yet, the “new” sociology of childhood lacks the theory and methodology to explore racialized peer cultures. Thus, this chapter aims to sharpen its research tools. Theoretically, this chapter draws from Technologies of the Self (Foucault, 1988) and Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012) to enhance Valentine’s (1997) “adult-youth binary” and Corsaro’s (2015) “interpretive reproduction.” Methodologically, it combines the “doing research with children” approach (Greig, Taylor, & MacKay, 2013) with Critical Race Methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) to do research with youth of color. These enhanced research tools are then used to explore how boys and girls of color (n = 150), 9- to 17-year olds, experience peer culture in suburban schools, under police surveillance, and on social media. In the field, interviewers navigated their adult privilege and racial/ethnic positionalities in relation to that of participants and the racial dynamic in the research setting, ultimately aiming to co-create a safe space for counter-storytelling. As a result, this chapter captured how White-dominated peer cultures used racial microaggressions against youth of color in suburban schools, boy peer cultures navigated racialized policing, and online-offline peer cultures curtailed protective and controlling racialized adult surveillance. Theoretically, the racially enhanced interpretive reproduction and adult-youth binary exposed the adultism-racism intersection that shapes youth peer cultures. Methodologically, counter-storytelling revealed the painful realities that youth of color face and that those with adult and/or White privilege would rather ignore.

The focus of the study was to explore the understanding of family among homeless adults in Southeast Texas. We incorporated both qualitative and quantitative methods by interviewing two key groups (short-term homeless, long-term homeless) over a 16-week period. Thirty homeless participants were interviewed using 18 questions designed to explore their understanding of family and the social supports that lead to resiliency. Participant ages ranged from 19 to 56 with an average of 44 years. Twenty-six participants were male and four were female. Half of all homeless participants claimed to lack familial support from either biological family or close friends. Among short-term homeless individuals, five of seventeen identified their biological family as fulfilling the role of a traditional family, while among long-term homeless adults, five of thirteen identified their friends as fulfilling the role of a familial unit. A recurring theme emerged in which participants defined family as those individuals who were consistently accessible for support, whether biological relations or non-related friends and companions. As we seek to improve our programs of assistance and advocacy, these findings become important as a step toward honoring our clients and recognizing the validity of their perceived realities as we reconstruct the models by which we facilitate interaction and intervention.

In the next decade, it is estimated that a large percentage of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will become of working age. With this projection, there is an urgent need to expand employment opportunities and to find ways to support individuals with ASD on the job. However, very minimal research investigates organizational practices needed to integrate individuals with autism in the workplace successfully. Training is one company practice that can significantly impact the behavior and work outcomes of individuals with ASD. Despite the importance of training interventions, research focused on relevant training techniques for individuals with ASD is lacking and fragmented. This chapter summarizes the types of training that are appropriate and most often utilized to foster skill development and aid employment outcomes for Generation A.

This chapter reflects on the author's unexpected responses to Young Adult (YA) literature as a cathartic and healing experience. It also focuses on the role of YA literature in reaching the emotional needs of both students and educators as they face their own buried trauma. It is necessary for educators to understand the role trauma plays in the classroom and to develop ways to broach these difficult subjects within a structured lesson to support the development of student resilience. Additionally, it is necessary for educators to challenge their own beliefs surrounding the selection of appropriate texts for classroom use and select texts that reflect student experiences. Through this chapter, the reader will gain practical ways to embrace YA literature in the classroom, as well as practical ways to grow through difficult life experiences and healthy methods to foster resilience in educational spaces.