Chapter 1. Conceptualizing Youth Agency.- Part 1. Youth Agency and Historical, Politics, and Community Conditions.- Chapter 2. "You are Building on Something": Exploring Agency and Belonging Among African American Youth Adults.- Chapter 3. Community Context and Relations Conditioning U.S. Youth's Citizen Agency.- Chapter 4. Confronting "The Conditions" of Senegalese Higher Education: Reframing Representation and Activism.- Part 2. Youth Agency and the Intersectionality of Gender, Religion, and Class.- Chapter 5. Agency as Negotiation: Social Norms, Girls' Schooling, and Marriage in Grujarat.- Chapter 6. Enactments of Youth Agency to Resist, Transgress, and Undo Traditional Gender Norms in Honduras.- Chapter 7. Exploring Boys' Agency Towards Higher Education: The Case of Urban Jamaica.- Chapter 8. The Last Great Hope for Transforming the Lives of Girls: The Rhetorics of Girls' Education in Upper Egypt.- Chapter 9. Malala Yousafzai as an Empowered Victim: The Media Narratives of Girls' Education, Islam, and Modernity.- Chapter 10. Peers, Sexual Relationships, and Agency in Tanzania.- Part 3. Youth Agency and Socioeconomic Contexts.- Chapter 11. Considering Children's Economic Agency: Work and School Decisions in Kanchipuram, India.- Chapter 12. Social Capital, Agency, and Creating Micro-Enterprises: A Case of Entrepreneurship Education for Tanzanian Youth.- Chapter 13. Vocational Training and Agency Among Kenyan Youth.- Chapter 14. Youth Agency and Education: Reflections and Future Directions.

Joan DeJaeghere is an Associate Professor of Comparative and International Development Education in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota and an affiliate faculty of the Interdisciplinary Center for Global Change. Her scholarly work and professional practice are concerned with inequalities in education and how education can foster future livelihoods, well being and social justice. She has co-edited two special issues and published articles and books chapters on educating for citizenship, youth agency, gender equality, as well as international development and educational policy in journals including: Comparative Education Review, Compare, Comparative Education, International Journal of Educational Development, and Human Development and Capabilities Journal. DeJaeghere’s research and education and development projects have taken place in several countries including: Bangladesh, Honduras, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam.

Jasmina Josić is a Manager in the Efficacy and Research team of Pearson’s Global Product organization. She works with the product and research teams to develop research frameworks and implement evaluations of digital products in K-12, higher education, and English language learning sectors. Her research is concerned with examining the internationalization of higher education, dynamics of educational policies in urban spaces, youth citizenship and identity, and student engagement and achievement. Josić has conducted multiple research studies with youth and managed youth programs in urban U.S. settings. Josić received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota.

Kate S. McCleary is an Associate Researcher with the LEAD Center in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she focuses on evaluation and assessment of higher education programs. McCleary has worked in international education and carried out research on gender in education, youth agency, and intercultural learning. After holding fellowships with Save the Children and CARE International, McCleary served as the director of the Global Education Office at Washington College prior to her current position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Educational Policy & Administration with a focus in Comparative International Development Education.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of studies on youth agency across various parts of the world. It explores diverse perspectives on education, citizenship and future livelihoods, modernity and tradition, gender equality, and social norms and transformations as they relate to how young people construct their agency. Drawing on case studies of young women and men from Africa, the Americas and South Asia, this book illustrates the different ways in which education affects youth’s beliefs, engagement, action, and identities in broader historical, social, cultural, economic, and political contexts. Chapters argue for education as a potential force for equity and explore how both formal schooling and informal educational programs may challenge and inspire youth through individual and collective action to change the social conditions affecting their lives and their communities. The global nature of this book gives readers a deeper understanding of youth agency as a dynamic process in relation to changing economic, political, and social environments.