Fengshu Liu situates the lives of Chinese youth and the growth of the Internet against the backdrop of rapid and profound social transformation in China. In 2008, the total of Internet users in China had reached 253 million (in comparison with 22.5 million in 2001). Yet, despite rapid growth, the Internet in China is so far a predominantly urban-youth phenomenon, with young people under thirty (especially those under twenty-four), mostly members of the only-child generation, as the main group of the netizens’ population. As both youth and the Internet hold the potential to inflict, or at least contribute to, far-reaching economic, social, cultural, and political changes, this book fulfills a pressing need for a systematical investigation of how youth and the Internet are interacting with each other in a Chinese context. In so doing, Liu sheds light on what it means to be a Chinese today, how ‘Chineseness’ may be (re)constructed in the Internet Age, and what the implications of the emerging form of identity are for contemporary and future Chinese societies as well as the world.

This book examines the use and culture of digital media in Chinese cities. By examining examples and data from Chinese and global social media platforms, the book argues that digital media facilitate Chinese people’s sense of local self and local identity. In doing so, the book moves on from the polarised debate regarding the democratic function of Chinese internet to instead examine the connection between digital technologies and the country’s history, culture and eventually, people and their everyday lives. It offers a rich analysis of a Chinese city in the digital age, and challenges the nationalistic approach to study China’s digital media culture.

The second and completely revised edition of the Routledge Handbook of Youth and Young Adulthood draws on the work of leading academics from four continents in order to introduce up-to-date perspectives on a wide range of issues that affect and shape youth and young adulthood. It provides a multi-disciplinary overview of a dynamic field of study that offers unique insights on social change in advanced societies. It is aimed at researchers, policy-makers and advanced students on a global level. The Handbook introduces the main theoretical perspectives used within youth studies and sets out future research agendas. Each of the ten sections covers an important area of research – from education and the labour market to youth cultures, health and crime – discussing change and continuity in the lives of young people, introducing readers to some of the most important work in the field, while highlighting the underlying perspectives that have been used to understand the complexity of modern youth and young adulthood.

In A Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century Peter Kelly and Annelies Kamp present an edited collection that explores the challenges and opportunities faced by young people in an often dangerous 21st century. In an increasingly globalised world these challenges and opportunities include those associated with widening inequalities, precarious labour markets, the commodification of education, the hopes for democracy, and with practising an identity under these circumstances and in these spaces. Drawing on contemporary critical social theories and diverse methodologies, contributors to the collection, who are established and emerging scholars from the Americas, Europe, and Asia/Pacific, open up discussions about what a critical youth studies can contribute to community, policy and academic debates about these challenges and opportunities. Contributors are: Anna Anderson, Dena Aufseeser, Judith Bessant, Ros Black, Daniel Briggs, Laurie Browne, David Cairns, Perri Campbell, James Côté, Ann Dadich, Maria de Lourdes Beldi Alacantra, Nora Duckett, Deirdre Duffy, Angela Dwyer, Christina Ergler, Michelle Fine, Madeline Fox, Andy Furlong, Theo Gavrielides, Henry Giroux, John Goodwin, Keith Heggart, Luke Howie, Amelia Johns, Annelies Kamp, Peter Kelly, Fengshu Liu, Conor McGuckin, Majella McSharry, Filipa Menezes, Magda Nico, Pam Nilan, Henrietta O'Connor, Jo Pike, Herwig Reiter, Geraldine Scanlon, Keri Schwab, Michael Shevlin, Adnan Selimovic, Joan Smith, Jodie Taylor, Steven Threadgold, Vappu Tyyskä, Brendan Walsh, Lucas Walsh, Rob Watts, Bronwyn Wood, Dan Woodman, and David Zyngier. A Critical Youth Studies for the 21st Century is now available in paperback for individual customers.

This book examines how emerging forms of citizenship are shaped by young people in digital spaces as way of making sense of contemporary Chinese society, forming new identities, and negotiating social and political participation. By focusing on Chinese young adults' everyday online practices, the book offers a unique treatment of the topic of young people and the Chinese Internet that navigates between the dominant focus on censorship on the one hand and protest and politicized action on the other. The book brings the focus of research from highly visible or spectacular forms of collectivity, belonging, and identification exhibited in young people's online practices to young people's everyday social and cultural engagement through new media. It brings new insights by understanding the meanings of young people's mundane and everyday online engagement for their citizenship learning, identity performance, and their formation of political subjectivity. Readers will gain insights into citizenship in China, and young people and the Chinese Internet.

While previous research has explored the academic adaptation or acculturation processes of Chinese students studying abroad, limited attention has been paid to students’ own perspectives and narrations of their experience. To contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this highly mobile group, this study takes a closer look at the students’ self-identity narratives. How do they make sense of their foreign adventure? How do they position themselves among their peers and their family members, as well as within the greater transnational context? Based on 29 in-depth, biographical interviews with Chinese students in the United States, the findings show the participants’ continuously interpreting and revising their individual, academic, and cultural identities. In the familial context, a recurring narrative of the high-potential only-child could be observed. Many students (and their family members) felt that their unique talents and personalities were not appreciated within the Chinese educational system and thus sought more holistic environments abroad.

The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Culture and Society is an interdisciplinary resource that offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary Chinese social and cultural issues in the twenty-first century. Bringing together experts in their respective fields, this cutting-edge survey of the significant phenomena and directions in China today covers a range of issues including the following: State, privatisation and civil society Family and education Urban and rural life Gender, and sexuality and reproduction Popular culture and the media Religion and ethnicity Forming an accessible and fascinating insight into Chinese culture and society, this handbook will be invaluable to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, area studies, history, politics and cultural and media studies.