Policy activism with and for youth in transition through public education

This paper provides an analysis of international literature and focus group data arising from a three-year critical ethnographic study with 795 young people, educators and parents speaking about transitions through public education in Canada. It fills fissures in qualitative and process-based sociological work on youth transitions and redresses school transitions as critical, nested social ensembles. Moving from elementary to secondary school evokes emotional, social and academic paradoxes for young people. Policy and practice shifts are required and a policy activist stance begins to cut through embedded ideological and practical goings-on surrounding youth. The paper takes particular aim at that which continues to encourage individualised and pathologised treatment of this social transition, including the continued use and abuse of ‘at-risk’ labels, and the need to support transitions teams with and for youth living through complex resiliency.