Anthropological Perspectives on Student Futures

"This book is a remarkable and ethnographically very rich contribution to the field of youth studies. Bringing together anthropological debates on youth, education, and temporality in diverse regional settings, the book has much to add to our understanding of the complex routes and prospects that shape young people's livelihoods in situations of uncertainty. An extremely timely book!" (Karen Valentin, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Anthropology, Aarhus University, Denmark) "This rich volume argues for a shift away from policy studies of classrooms and schools to a broader perspective in which student horizons of aspiration, expectation, and hope are placed at the center of the analysis. Far from being simple paths to social mobility, schools are shown to primarily be sites where youth learn to engage, debate, contest, and evaluate the practices of aspiration through which education refracts larger social constraints on future-building. This book is indispensable for all scholars of youth, education, and globalization." (Arjun Appadurai, Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University, USA)

This book examines diverse ways in which young people from around the world envision and prepare for their future education, careers, and families. The book features cutting-edge anthropological essays including ethnographic accounts of schooling in India, South Africa, the US, Bhutan, Tanzania, and Nigeria.

This book examines diverse ways in which young people from around the world envision and prepare for their future education, careers, and families.  The book features cutting-edge anthropological essays including ethnographic accounts of schooling in India, South Africa, the US, Bhutan, Tanzania, and Nigeria. Each chapter focuses on today’s generation of students and on students' use of education to create new possibilities for themselves. This volume will be of particular interest to practicing teachers and anthropologists and to readers who seek an ethnographic understanding of the world as seen through the eyes of students.