Understanding Youth: Perspectives, Identities and Practices addresses the changing context and nature of youth, encouraging readers to understand different conceptualizations of youth, issues of identity and the key social practices that give shape to young people's lives in the contemporary period.

Nationally and globally, childhood has become a crucial topic of sociopolitical debates and policy initiatives. Understanding Childhood offers a fresh look at how childhood has changed in recent years. It reveals how children s needs and experiences have achieved a new visibility in wider social and political discourse.Despite the privileges afforded to children in the West, the typical childhood experience there is no longer seen as an ideal model for other parts of the globe. Recent reports and policy concerns suggest that growing up in the West may be marked by the commercialization...