This book is about how to trigger the capacity to aspire among black youth. Examining the transition out of adulthood and imagined futures of black youth, Maja helps us understand how black youth aspirations might be raised, and how a better future for young people can be achieved.

This book is about how to trigger the capacity to aspire among black youth. Examining the transition out of adulthood and imagined futures of black youth, Maja helps us understand how black youth aspirations might be raised, and how a better future for young people can be achieved.

In recent years, the earnings of young blacks have risen substantially relative to those of young whites, but their rates of joblessness have also risen to crisis levels. The papers in this volume, drawing on the results of a groundbreaking survey conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, analyze the history, causes, and features of this crisis. The findings they report and conclusions they reach revise accepted explanations of black youth unemployment. The contributors identify primary determinants on both the demand and supply sides of the market and provide new information on important aspects of the problem, such as drug use, crime, economic incentives, and attitudes among the unemployed. Their studies reveal that, contrary to popular assumptions, no single factor is the predominant cause of black youth employment problems. They show, among other significant factors, that where female employment is high, black youth employment is low; that even in areas where there are many jobs, black youths get relatively few of them; that the perceived risks and rewards of crime affect decisions to work or to engage in illegal activity; and that churchgoing and aspirations affect the success of black youths in finding employment. Altogether, these papers illuminate a broad range of economic and social factors which must be understood by policymakers before the black youth employment crisis can be successfully addressed.

This open-access edited collection, focusing on Ghana and Nigeria, offers a transatlantic, transnational exploration of barriers that threaten the wellbeing of West African youth—ranging from Black immigrant youth in the American city of Newark, New Jersey, to students in Almajiri Islamic schools in Northern Nigeria. Incorporating themes of migration, vulnerability, and agency and aspirations, the book conveys the resilience of African youth transitioning toward adulthood in a world of structural inequality. It thus crosses the academic divide between Youth Studies and African Studies, while challenging conventional framings of Black youth as deficient and deviant—positing instead their individual and collective creativity and assets. The contributors employ different methodological approaches, including field research and autoethnography, from varying multidisciplinary and practitioner perspectives.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the position of young blacks in British society during the 1980s.

First published in 1986. Forty five percent of black women have at least one child by the time they are turn twenty compared to 19 percent of white women. Eight-six percent of the births to black teens occurred to unmarried mothers compared to 30 percent among whites. Research shows that teenage childbearing has negative medical, social, and economic consequences and that women who first gave birth as teenagers are more likely to raise their families in poverty. In Choice and Circumstance the authors explore tree factors underlying the racial differences in the incidence of early childbearing; information about sex, pregnancy and contraception; need for family planning and abortion services; and motivation for postponing parenthood, including aspirations for schooling, employment plans and desire for children within marriage. They consider which teens postpone sex and pregnancy and why, and whether the kinds of motivation necessary to prevent early pregnancy vary by race in the United Sates, perhaps explaining the race differences in early childbearing.

This core textbook provides students with comprehensive coverage of African American psychology as a field. Each chapter integrates African and American influences on the psychology of African Americans, thereby illustrating how contemporary values, beliefs, and behaviors are derived from African culture translated by the cultural socialization experiences of African Americans in this country. The literature and research are referenced and discussed from the perspective of African culture (mostly West African) during the period of enslavement, at other critical periods in this country (e.g., early 20th century, civil rights era), and through the present. Chapters provide a review of the research literature, with a focus on applications for contemporary living.