1. Changing rural landscapes -- 2. Thinking about young people -- 3. Constructing lives -- 4. Using education -- 5. Belonging, family and place -- 6. Working the land
Summary
“Young people making it work examines a generation's lives in rural Australia over the past two decades. Against a backdrop of dramatic social, economic and environmental change, the book tells the story of how a generation of young people have strived to remain connected to the people and places that matter to them... Now aged in their late thirties, these are participants in the Youth Research Centre's Life Patterns longitudinal study who left school in the early 1990s. They are members of generation X, and like their peers in urban places, they have used education to achieve their goals. Their stories reveal the powerful influence of both family and place on the decisions they have made since leaving secondary school... [draws] on contemporary theory from sociology, cultural geography and youth studies to provide new insights about youth transitions and young adulthood that are relevant not only to the rural context but to all young people.”