Urban transformations, youth aspirations, and education in India

Abstract

Rapid urbanisation and demographic transition have significant implications for India, making it one of the largest urban agglomerations and youngest nations in the world. Each of these involves complex and multilayered changes, specially with neo-liberal transformations leaving their impact on youth lives, aspirations, and culture. While the ‘urban’ remains the site for realising youth aspirations, neo-liberal transformations of this space are such that youth face many barriers in realising their dreams for a secure future. This includes enhanced social exclusions of youth from marginalised social castes and from rural areas. Also, there is the domination of a globalised middle- class in cities that now aspire to be aesthetic world-class spaces. The assertive middle class also brings in cultures of conspicuous consumption from which the youth from marginalised social backgrounds are somewhat disconnected. In the midst of these transformations, the central question this volume seeks to explore is about the life experiences, aspirations, trajectories of social mobility and agency of youth in India.