West African Youth Challenges and Opportunity Pathways

Download or read book West African Youth Challenges and Opportunity Pathways written by Mora L. McLean and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-21 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.