Notes from the margins: systems of exclusion

Just as the Jewish religious system in Jesus’ day was an order of exclusion – so society in Australia has promoted exclusion. Fortification and ghetto-isation are profoundly disturbing communities. Suburbs with high walls, gates and security entries are being built. Public housing of the 70s has been refurbished and sold off at inflated prices. By the same token, low cost housing is placed in isolated areas and with no, little or poor quality infrastructure support!

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin

Notes from the margins: reclaim public space!!

Some of the “antisocial” (as promoted by politicians and media) activities of young people are simply an attempt to reclaim public space. Space from which young people have and are being systematically excluded. Train stations, parks, amenities, etc. 

The young people are excluded from access; yet when they try to reclaim access, they get labeled as antisocial

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin

Notes from the margins: fighting someone else's battle

Asking young people to ‘fight their own battles’ is both hopeful and naive. While some young people can and even do. For example, young people, writing through the Internet, have developed plausible youth policy and submitted it to government. Government assumed the writers were adults… However, at the same time – youth are only young for a short time…and just when they get used to fighting their own battles and start to get good and it – it becomes someone else’s battle…

Although I have 25 years of experience working in the community welfare sector and most of that in direct line youth work - now I'm just an old guy as far as most younger people are concerned.  All I'm "good for" is policy...  but at the same time, some young people are now so good at writing policy that I'm not really needed!  So long as the Government don't realise this great policy information is actually coming from young people themselves, they really take it on board.

That's why the Internet is so important, that's why we need to teach our little children about it and get people of all ages connected.  I heard someone quoted (I think it might have been Bill Gates) as saying, "Chance favours the connected mind."  Young people need to be connected to each other - and that synergy will develop plausible youth policy!

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin

Notes from the margins: be normative!

There’s a constant push for young people to “take responsibility” for themselves: appearance, language, manners, public image, public self-image, public performance… that leaves little room for any deviation from what the older people see as ‘normal’.  The phrase "take responsibility" is really just saying, be normative by our standards.  No one really wants those young people to take responsibility... just to fit their mould.

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin

Notes from the margins: constucted media images

The constructed media images of youth are not truly real…they are constructs to “sell” the media’s product. Be that newspapers, ratings or advertising dollars. However, the perceptions take over and all parties (not in a political sense but in an identified group) start to believe the constructed images. It becomes a self- fulfilling prophesy. Fear and threat over take the adults… and young people believe that the behaviour displayed in the media is normative. Further to this, class and age polarisation over-take the false constructs of media. Young people are pushed further towards the margins.

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin

Notes from the margins: crime of being marginalised

The ‘criminalisation of the marginalised’ has become commonplace in society – this treats the people as the problem; rather than the structures causing the marginalisation. So it essentially becomes a crime to be marginalised (to be different, isolated, or financially pressured).

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin

Notes from the margins: modern learning vs ancient methods

The other day, my wife did a course “on-line”. It was a skills upgrade/policy training course required by her employer. She did the course in one night, the system produced a certificate of completion, which was printed immediately – and all requirements were met: An excellent example of modern learning. Young people are now more computer and on-line savvy than ever before. But much training still continues to be delivered by the methods of the 1950s.

Notes from the margins were taken from notes I made while reading the book “Rethinking Youth”. Johanna Wyn and Rob White. Rethinking Youth. St Leonards, NSW. Allen and Unwin. 1997.

Posted by Peter Hotchkin