What's Wrong with Being Poor? The Problems of Poverty, as Young People Describe them

Abstract

This article explores how young people living in low-income neighbourhoods problematise their own lives, using data generated as part of a participatory policy project with five groups of young people, aged 11-21. Three common problems were identified; housing, education and crime, as well as one common silence around their own agency. This silence is perhaps substituted by a focus on collective agency and politics, suggesting that perhaps young people can see poverty as a more collective problem than previous research may highlight.