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An interdisciplinary research centre that examines what it means to grow up in a global world.
Young people born after 1990 are growing up and making the transition to adulthood at a time when education, markets, technologies, and social demographics are changing rapidly. Through our teaching and research, we examine the wide-ranging implications of these changes for the youth of today.
Our teaching and research is comparative and multidisciplinary, and focuses on young lives in the Global North and Global South.
About us
- Expertise
Our core areas of interest and expertise are:
- global citizenship
- mobility, migration and cultural understanding
- youth civic engagement and youth voice
- youth transitions in the context of global inequalities and technological transformations
- wellbeing and resilience (including health, mental health, and sexualities)
- digital lives.
We put young people's experiences and perspectives at the heart of our teaching and research, and try to tackle questions such as:
- How are young people responding to the challenges and opportunities that are emerging from greater global integration?
- What are young people's perceptions of and attitudes towards these changes?
- What are the commonalities, differences and inequalities in experiences of growing up in a global world?
- Staff
Centre staff
- Avril Keating (Director)
- Sam Whewall (Research Associate)
Staff at UCL working on youth issues
Study with us
- Programmes
We offer a range of Education, Society and Culture BA modules that focus on youth issues, including:
PhD applications
We also welcome applications from prospective PhD students that are interested in studying youth issues at UCL:
Research
- Projects
UCL researchers are involved in a wide range of youth-related research projects, including:
- Coastal youth: Exploring the impact of coastal towns on young people's life chances | contact: Avril Keating
- Growing up in coastal towns: exploring the impact of place on young people’s life chances | contact: Avril Keating
- Being young in Brexit Britain: young people's attitudes towards and aspirations after the Brexit referendum | contact: Avril Keating and Laila Kadiwal
- The Crisis for Contemporary Youth: Young People, Opportunities and Civic Values (LLAKES website) | contact: Avril Keating and Andy Green
- Becoming Adult | contact: Elaine Chase
- Adolescents Our Future | contact: Russell Viner
- Publications
UCL researchers produce a large of youth-related publications each year. Some recent highlights include:
- Keating, A. (2021). Mobility for Me but Not for Others: The Contradictory Cosmopolitan Practices of Contemporary White British Youth. Sociology.
- Chase, E., & Allsopp, J. (2020). Youth Migration and the Politics of Wellbeing: Stories of Life in Transition. Bristol University Press.
- Chase, E. (2020). Transitions, capabilities and wellbeing: how Afghan unaccompanied young people experience becoming ‘adult’ in the UK and beyond. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
- Keating, A., & Janmaat, J. G. (2020). Immigrants, inclusion, and the role of hard work: Exploring anti-immigrant attitudes among young people in Britain. The Sociological Review, 68(6), 1212-1228.
- Hoskins, B., Leonard, P., & Wilde, R. (2020). How Effective Is Youth Volunteering as an Employment Strategy? A Mixed Methods Study of England. Sociology, 54(4), 763-781.
- Schoon, I. (2020). Navigating an Uncertain Labor Market in the UK: The Role of Structure and Agency in the Transition from School to Work. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 688 (1), 77-92.
- Anders, J. D., & Dorsett, R. (2017). What young English people do once they reach school-leaving age: A cross-cohort comparison for the last 30 years. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 8 (1), 79-107.
- Franceschelli, M., (2016). Identity and Upbringing in South Asian Muslim Families: Insights from Young People and their Parents in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
- Keating, A. (2016) Are cosmopolitan dispositions learned at home, at school, or through contact with others? Evidence from young people in Europe. Journal of Youth Studies, 19(3), 338-357.
- Wilde, R.J. (2016) 'Plugging Gaps, Taking Action': Conceptions of Global Citizenship in Gap Year Volunteering. Policy and Practice Development Education Review 23.
- Sukarieh, M. & Tannock, S. (2015) Youth Rising? The Politics of Youth in the Global Economy. London: Routledge.