Urban Youth Problems

The book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz details the challenges two young boy’s face by being raised in the inner city housing project (Henry Horner Homes). These challenges stem from racism, discrimination, the social construction of reality, social location, social class, and the deviance theory, which is due to their location and influences at which causes many youths to lead a life of crime. The book focuses on the Conflict and Symbolic Interaction theories of sociology. What is the true cause of their struggle? Is it the run down housing, lack of education, race, gangs, violence and drugs? I think that all of these play a part into their everyday

Street youth repeatedly face a brutal sequence of challenges. Despondent and hopeless, youth can sometimes self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, steering to harmful exchanges with law enforcement. Additionally, lack of self-sureness and self-value, living on the streets generates a swarm of added challenges for youths in this area, (i.e. greater risk of sexual abuse and sexually spread diseases, mental health concerns, reduced access to health care, and detrimental relationships).

Youth that reside in communities that are deprived socially and economically, have ongoing violence, drugs,

The book “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz details the challenges two young boy’s face by being raised in the inner city housing project (Henry Horner Homes). These challenges stem from racism, discrimination, the social construction of reality, social location, social class, and the deviance theory, which is due to their location and influences (social control) at which causes many youths to lead a life of crime. The book focuses on the Conflict and Symbolic Interaction theories of sociology. What is the true cause of their struggle? Is it the run down smelly housing project completely taken over by gangs, where murders and shootings are an everyday thing, is their family, school, society, the system, race; or maybe it's because of the economical disadvantages. While others may argue, I believe that it isn't just one of these reasons; it's all of them all together.

In every city there are neighborhoods that struggle with the issue of violence, crime and aggression. These neighborhoods have also taken on the names of slums and ghettos. The same areas where children are faced with growing up too fast because of the violence, crime and drug trafficking that has taken over these communities. Not only do these children and young adult face with these issues, they are also faced with the reality that in these disorganized neighborhoods, there is a breakdown of the traditional family therefore they must learn and master the code of conduct and or the rules of the streets in order to survive. Not to mention learning the demands of socially regarding displaying appropriate behavior when they are outside of the disorganized community.

Anderson notes that two groups coexist simultaneously in the inner-cities which he labels as the “decent” and the “streets.” Although both groups suffer economic difficulties, they differ in values mainly instilled through parenting and the home environment. The decent group seeks to adopt mainstream middle-class values, such as a love,

Youth who are placed in large metropolitan areas are significantly less likely to be in the moderate (26% less likely) or high (24% less likely) service groups compared to youth in smaller metropolitan areas. In contrast to large metropolitan areas, those in large fringe areas are not significantly different from the smaller metropolitan

Decades of research shows that this resulting racial and economic isolation created toxic, severely under-resourced learning environments for black and brown students, from Detroit to Philadelphia to New York City.( Nikole Hannah-Jones)” Living in communities where urban students are surrounded with drug dealers and some of the dealers being people urban students know personally whether they went to school with the person who is now the drug dealer or they grew up with. Urban

Although less segregated than a decade ago, many communities are still mainly comprised of households that contain only one ethnicity or racial group (Carr, 2008). According to Orfield & Lee, children in impoverished communities experience a loss of successful role models; most being unemployed or under-employed. Their parents also lose access to networks in order to obtain better paying jobs and often experience a severe loss of resources to support high-quality schools (2005). In fact, more

Many youth who have or are still living on the streets have faced sexual or physical abuse from an adult at some point in their lives and the data states that 61% of all youth face this (McKay, E, (2009). Seeing the Possibilities. The Need for a Mental health Focus Amongst Street-Involved Youth: Recognizing and Supporting Resilience. Toronto: Wellesley Institute.). Approximately 1,500 – 2,000 homeless youth make up the total amount of homeless people sleeping on the streets every night in Toronto; this number is considerably large and it continues to grow because the issue of youth homelessness or homelessness in general is not thought of as a priority by various levels of government and therefore

Homeless youth are a standout amongst the most underestimated gatherings in our general public. Numerous specialists recognize much more elevated amounts of different issue practices among these adolescent contrasted with their non-homeless associates. The current study analyzed the utility of social capital in foreseeing issue practices among homeless youth.

Homelessness is a major problem in the United States. An incredibly vulnerable group is the homeless youth due to their young age and lack of education. According to Edidin, Ganim, Hunter, & Karnik (2012) on any particular night in the United States there are ~2 million homeless youth living on the streets, in shelters, or in other temporary accommodation. Youth become homeless for multiple reasons whether it be because they have aged out of foster care, ran from home, were kicked out of their home, or because they have become homeless along with their family members. Within the umbrella categorization of homeless youth there are high at risk subgroups, common misconceptions, and a serious concern of lack of support and medical services.

Youth homelessness can be define as young individuals, ranging from age 12 to around 25, who are without any support from their families, and are either living on the streets or at a shelter. There are often “referred to as “unaccompanied” youth.” (National Coalition for Homelessness (NCH), 2007). Unaccompanied youths can be categorized as runaway-homeless youths, throwaways, and independent youths. Runaway- homeless youths are youths that leave home without any parental permission. Youths that leave their homes because parents encourage them to leave are categorize as throwaways. The final classified as independent youths who leave home because of family conflicts or other issues. (Aratani, 2009).

Most inner city schools are not challenging their students and not allowing them to be creative. Yet, challenging students is their normal practice in the better school. On the other hand, all inner city schools should give their students with the same amount of education as private schools in order to better their education. There are different methods of teaching between these schools, especially when it comes to economics and geography. “Scholars in political economy and the sociology of knowledge have recently argued that public schools in complex industrial societies like our own make available different types of educational experience and curriculum knowledge to students in different social classes” (Anyon, 1980). Even though years after Brown versus Board of Education, where the Supreme Court declared segregation to be unconstitutional, Caucasian, African and Hispanic Americans continue to learn in different worlds. As long as each race has low incomes, there will always be unequal education.

Social exclusion is a frequently discussed topic that not only haunts current generations, but also targets and preys on future generations to come. Social exclusion is defined as the marginalization of a group of people from an established social system, its rights, and its privileges as a result of belonging to a minority. Unfortunately, there are countless breeds of social exclusion todays that prey on our youth, elderly, homeless, refugees, and many other minorities as well. Out of all kinds of social exclusion; however, the marginalization of youth proves to produce the greatest impact on society. According to the UNESCO (n.d.), the youth is defined as the group of people transitioning from childhood into adulthood. In other words, the