Not so different: Teenage Attitudes Across a Decade of Change in Northern Ireland - Softcover

Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. ~ Kofi Annan *** Based on data collected by Young Life and Times - the longest-running annual cross-sectional attitude survey among any of the UK or Ireland's young people - this book is a rich resource for anyone interested in Northern Ireland's teenagers and their attitudes and viewpoints over the last decade. Covering community relations, rights and democratic participation, mental health, loneliness, play and leisure, sexual grooming and sexual exploitation, and the positive contributions that 16 year olds make to society, the book features contributions from academics and social policy makers, all nationally and internationally recognized as experts in their fields. This record of their coming of age of the first post-conflict generation in Northern Ireland is of significant importance in that community, as well as in others looking to move on from past struggles. A chapter by 16-year-old Ewan Nixon also illustrates the challenges facing young people everywhere. Highlighting the influential role that adults can have on adolescents - both positively and negatively, at times when they struggle to find their own space in an adult dominated world - the book is a powerful reminder of why we must all listen.

Paula Devine is Deputy Director of ARK and is based at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at Queen's University Belfast.

Dirk Schubotz is Young Life and Times Director of ARK. He is lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at Queen's University Belfast.