ABSTRACT

The chapters in this final section address some of the issues central to the lives of young people. There is a good deal of rhetoric concerning the need for young people to become full participants in their societies. Yet this frequently conflicts with a social order which disadvantages and discriminates against certain groups through the operation of its education/training arrangements. While the focus is, in the main, Western Europe and the United States, fundamental questions are explored in relation to integration into society at large against the backcloth of diversity and inequality, structures of power relations, and the capacity of state and inter-state machinery to aid the process of transition to full citizenship.