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Youth and their Multiple Relationships with the City: Experiences of Exclusion and Belonging in Montréal

2020; Emerald Publishing Limited; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1108/s1537-466120200000026006

1537-4661

Natasha Blanchet‐Cohen, Juan Torres, Geneviève Grégoire-Labrecque,

Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

Abstract This chapter examines how young people relate to and engage with their city. Framed by a sociological approach to childhood, we assert that young people are competent social actors, living a complex relationship with their urban environment, while facing paternalism. The study draws on participatory activities including focus group discussions, neighbourhood walks, city mapping and song and video creation with 54 youth aged 9–17 years from six areas of Montréal (Canada). Our findings point to young people's mixed experiences and views of Montréal. On the one hand, the city is experienced as unwelcoming, excluding, homogenising and stressful. Among recreational facilities, mental health services and venues to hang out, there is little that meets youth's specific needs and aspirations. They also pointed out the inequalities across neighbourhoods, pressures to fit into uniformising models, the limitations of gender roles and a lack of support from adults. On the other hand, youth are responding to and shaping their environment by seeking belonging in the city. They question the inequalities and homogenising forces, seek meaning in places and community and value relationships and diversity. We contend that moving towards child–youth friendly cities calls for better listening to youth to enhance the type of opportunities that reflect their needs and aspirations, while providing for inclusive cities that feature alternative forms of citizenship, accessibility to local places, diversity and community. Keywords Youth City Diversity Belonging Place Child–youth friendly cities Citation Blanchet-Cohen, N., Torres, J. and Grégoire-Labrecque, G. (2020), "Youth and their Multiple Relationships with the City: Experiences of Exclusion and Belonging in Montréal", Sriskandarajah, A. and Bass, L.E. (Ed.) Rethinking Young People's Lives Through Space and Place (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 26), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 85-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120200000026006 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited Urban settings are today home for a majority of children and youth. Quantitative data inform us about many conditions of such urban life, but qualitative approaches are also useful to bring a better understanding of the ways youth experience contemporary life in cities and how these environments shape them. Understanding young people's viewpoints and perspectives is important in order to develop policies, programmes and services to better support youth's well-being in inclusive cities (Derr, Chawla, & Mintzer, 2018; Lynch, 1977). This chapter presents a study carried out with young people in Montréal, the second largest metropolis in Canada, in the francophone province of Québec. The study was undertaken in the context of growing concerns about Canadian children: ranked among the wealthiest countries in the world, Canada lags behind with respect to children's well-being, dropping from 12th (out of 40 rich industrialised countries) in 2007 to 25th in a decade (UNICEF Canada, 2017). Furthermore, when Canadian young people rated their own well-being, they ranked 24th out of 29 of the richest countries in the world (UNICEF Canada and Students Commission of Canada, 2017). Recognising a need to focus on children, the Foundation of Greater Montréal, a city-based philanthropic organisation, dedicated its biannual Vital Signs report to drawing a statistical portrait of children's situation in Montréal (Foundation of Greater Montréal, 2017). Complementary to this quantitative portrait, and with the aim of understanding young people's perspectives, we initiated a qualitative study, creating a space to listen to the voices of children and youth. How do young people in Montréal experience and see their city? This chapter explores this question by engaging groups of young people from six areas in the city in sharing their views, reflecting on and envisioning their city. Youth and Participation in the City Framing this study is the recognition that young people are competent social actors who make sense of and contribute to the world in unique ways (D'Amico, Denov, Khan, Linds, & Akesson, 2016; James, Jenks, & Prout, 1998). As members of households, families, friendship networks, consumer markets and communities, they are capable and interested in being involved in decisions that affect their lives (Hadfield-Hill, 2013), especially with regard to their living environment. Furthermore, drawing on the sociologic models of childhood proposed by James et al. (1998), we adopt a "minority" approach, sensitive to both, the paternalism children and youth face, and their agency. Young people experience their city and neighbourhood differently from adults (Hörschelmann & van Blerk, 2012). Growing research shows that youth's interactions with their urban environments are complex and dynamic. It points to youth's multifaceted feeling towards city life: one of exclusion but also how they experience and seek a sense of belonging. Indeed, many youth experience urban settings as inhospitable; they do not feel considered or included in the same way as adults. Osborne, Baldwin, Thomsen, and Woolcock (2017) in their research with 5- to 14-year-old children in a suburban town in Australia found that youth felt the built environment restricted their ability to bridge social capital. Being constrained and unwelcomed in public spaces limited their interactions with and connectedness to the community, resulting in a certain disengagement. Young people experienced exclusion and judgement by adults, in streets and parks. Particularly in poorer neighbourhoods, adults considered youth to be at risk or threatening and engaged in antisocial behaviour (Brown, 2013). With the increasing privatisation of space in urban areas (UN-Habitat, 2013), young people also experience a reduction in the number of and the access to public places (Laughlin & Johnson, 2011). The decline in youth mobility and youth's use of public spaces is also unequal, affected by gender, by attitudes and perceptions of parents, including social fears, and by one's location in the city, the danger of traffic, the accessibility/proximity of desired locations (Shaw et al., 2015). The deterioration of urban environments and public spaces that youth experience is often unfair: [it] is not class-, gender-, race-, or disability-neutral; it does not affect everyone equally. […] And public space is not just streets, parks, fields. It is also local libraries, swimming pools, youth clubs, museums, learning spaces and meeting points. (Gerodimos, 2018, p. 83) Despite these feelings of exclusion, youth prove to be responsive, finding meaning in experiences (Harris, Wyn, & Younes, 2010; Nayak, 2003). Bourke's (2017) qualitative study with 9- to 10-year-old children in Dublin shows that children construct a sense of place in an urban context by being in the place, via their day-to-day interactions. The act of using the same paths over and over again creates layers of memories and meanings that are social, sensory and practical (Lee & Ingold, 2006). Laughlin and Johnson (2011) in a study with 10- to 16-year-old youth in Toronto, found that they distinguish among and value various types of public spaces: wide open streets and parks, quasi-public sites that offer more programmed activities such as youth or community centres and libraries and privately owned spaces such as stores and malls. Young people identified three qualities expected in these public places: easily accessible, fostering a sense of belonging and enabling to find and spend time with friends. Thus, place, as referring to the physical, embodied and locale, is considered to be intertwined with the abstract and relational aspects of space. It is in this sense that youth value both the physical and social dimensions of the public realm. Local places play a substantial role in shaping young people's sense of belonging and identity (Hoey, 2010; Van Der Bly, 2007). Young people's daily interactions with peers, family and institutions give them meaning and a sense of self within the wider context (Warming, 2018). As Farrugia (2015) states, Spaces, places and different spatial scales must be seen as produced, contested, connected, and in flux. In this way, children and young people's lives can be analyzed in terms of processes that intersect and produce spaces, with identities embedded in places that span localities, nations, and increasingly, the globe. (p. 614) Wood (2013) found that feelings are a central aspect of young people's embodiment of citizenship; emotions incite them to socialise in schools and challenge controversial issues. While being and doing in shared spaces, young people are configuring their "citizenship imagination" (p. 56). Drawing on Osler and Starkey (2005), Wood (2013) explains citizenship as feeling a sense of belonging, in contrast to the conventional idea of formal citizenship as a status with rights and a practice connected to duties. Wood (2012) refers to liminal spaces regulated and controlled by adults, but, where young people enact agency, young people's political participation actions and identities are shaped by spatial interactions within places … [which] draws attention to how their occupation in mundane and everyday politics bears out in terms of their thinking about and acting on politics. (p. 344) This is part of the growing call to take interest in and value how young people are being engaged in ways that are meaningful to them, instead of being labelled as disinterested and disengaged in formal political processes. In ordinary youth's everyday lives, informal, less visible and less conventional examples of politics and participation arouse interest (Wood, 2012). It is with friends, in informal classroom environments, and on the Internet, that they participate, expressing and sharing social and political views and concerns (Harris et al., 2010). Of significance is a growing recognition that it is through giving opportunities for living, learning, and action for change in everyday spaces that young people develop the capacity for democratic action (Percy-Smith, 2018). Instead of urban policies and programmes that target controlling, organising or isolating young people to specific areas and adult-defined programmes, opportunities should be provided for action research or identity projects (Edin, DeLuca, & Clampet-Lundquist, 2016) that are grounded in young people's everyday realities. Through community social learning processes, youth, and particularly youth in the margins, are provided with more meaningful and realisable opportunities for participation and empowerment. Derr and Tarantini's (2016) study of a two-year, multiage participatory process in Boulder suggests that if the commitment and structures are in place, these processes can also impact the planning and design of child-friendly public spaces. They show the importance of process – that it is in providing for listening and making dialogue opportunities that youth can impact decision-makers. A major benefit of involving youth is their inclusive thinking about their city in general. Our research is an investigation in understanding both how young people relate to and engage with their city. This dual emphasis on how youth currently enact their agency and citizenship as well as the potential for enhancement can inform urban planning and the provision of services and programming. In the following section, we provide a portrait of Montréal where few studies of this nature have been undertaken, and the methodological approach selected to explore young people's views on their city. Research Context and Methodology Montréal is one of the largest cities in Canada, with 1.7 million inhabitants (4.1 million in the metropolitan area). Those below 18 years of age represent 20% of the city's population (Foundation of Greater Montréal, 2017), of which 30% live in low-income households (Statistics Canada, 2013). Compared to the rest of the province, there is a high concentration of immigrants representing 62.2% of the student population. A recent city-wide survey with sixth-grade students shows that 59% have parents born outside Canada, and 57% of children speak a language other than French at home (Direction Régionale de santé Publique, 2018). Many families are isolated and do not access public resources. In this context, the City of Montréal launched in 2016 a Policy on Children to intensify their actions in support of young people, with a five-year action plan targeting five areas of intervention: safety and accessibility of urban environments; healthy eating and food security; academic perseverance and success; access to culture, sports and recreation; and families and communities. The next year, the Foundation of Greater Montréal dedicated its 2017 Vital Signs report to drawing a quantitative portrait of children, compiling available statistics and in collaboration with more than 30 local organisations. As members of the Vital Signs advisory committee, and seeing the need to engage and capture young people's views, we initiated a complementary qualitative study (Blanchet-Cohen & Torres, 2017). Drawing on experience and research on participatory methods for engaging with young people in cities (Blanchet-Cohen & Torres, 2015; Torres & Blanchet-Cohen, 2016), our research design adopted a participatory approach with different groups of youth. Beyond consulting youth, we proposed a space for discussion and for the production and sharing of youth-created material, allowing them to explore and express their views on what they wanted for their city. The use of visuals and prospective activities have been shown to be effective in inclusive city planning with youth (Derr, Chawla, Mintzer, Flanders Cushing, & Van Vliet, 2013; Derr et al., 2018), in the exploration of youth participation in their community (Horgan, 2016), in the encouragement of geographical awareness and political participation in the city (Mitchell & Elmwood, 2012), in youth's setting course of action for their well-being (Kiyimba, O'Reilly, & Lester, 2018). In our case, the focus was threefold: identifying issues related to their living environment, analysing together the data available on these issues and developing courses of action. With each group, we designed three 1.5-hour research sessions that incorporated multiple methods, keeping at the core the focus group. During the first session, we facilitated conversation aimed at exploring and sharing on the best and worst parts of the neighbourhood and the city, as well as discussing the data gathered for the Vital Signs statistical portrait. These data were organised in four themes, defined by the Vital Signs advisory committee, based on their importance for local policy development: education, sense of belonging, mobility and mental health. In the first session, we also used drawing as a means for eliciting discussion, where young people express themselves individually on their experience of the city (Derr et al., 2013). At the end of the first session, the children were asked to select a chosen topic of interest and, using the medium of their choice, create something they could share with others about that topic. In the second session, our meeting focussed on helping them with their creations. Examples of what they made included videos showing glimpses into their daily lives, interviews and surveys with peers, songs with lyrics that reflect their concerns and results of surveys undertaken with their peers about body image. In the last session, the creations were shared with the group. Finally, participants also engaged in a role-playing activity in which they projected themselves 25 years into the future. The game involved identifying conditions that would allow Montréal, in the year 2042, to become the best city for children. With two groups, we did a neighbourhood walk, with youth identifying key places in their surroundings and discussing how these were significant to them. The participatory activities were carried out over a six-month period, involved youth from six areas of Montréal and conducted with the help of members of the Vital Signs advisory committee. Since the members represented different community-based organisations, they facilitated contact with community groups from different urban areas that serve youth from various socioeconomic backgrounds. Following standards from the ethics committees at our universities, we obtained parental consent for the participation of children, as well as agreement from the young people themselves. The groups participating came from: two youth centres from low-income neighbourhoods; two schools – one welcoming young people with mild intellectual disabilities and another on the south shore of Montréal, with a high representation of indigenous students; an environmental youth leadership group; and a group of newcomer Syrian refugee youth that was comprised of youth living in different sectors. A total of 54 youth (25 girls and 29 boys), aged 9–17 years, participated. The sessions were facilitated by teams of three, including one of the principal co-investigators, a research assistant facilitator and a note taker. An adult member of the community organisation was also present. Recordings of the sessions were transcribed, and the 12 sessions were thematically analysed according to dominant themes. The research activities were held both in French and English, and often a mix of French and English. Results According to this study, mixed experiences and responses make up youth's views of Montréal. Comments reveal that youth have an appreciation for the metropolis (especially in comparison to other cities) but also feel a certain malaise and a sense of exclusion linked to the lack of welcoming spaces adapted to their needs, preferences and aspirations. Youth also actively engage in giving meaning and connecting to local spaces, peers and communities and question inequalities and imposed norms. Below, we present these parallel and contrasting experiences, echoing our approach to childhood and youth as a minority (James et al., 1998), where seeking belonging occurs in response to paternalism and exclusion. Experiencing Exclusion: The City as a Hostile Terrain This first section focuses on the idea of the city as a hostile terrain. Dominant themes in our data were around the city: (a) as unwelcoming given unequal opportunities, lack of youth specific services and programmes and racial profiling; (b) as pressuring to fit in with normative expectations and confining gender roles; and (c) as stressful with unsupportive adults. The City as Unwelcoming Youth consider the city inhospitable. They remarked on how they were left out of city programmes and events and had the impression that many of the organised activities are meant for adults or kids but not teens. "There isn't that much to do that is inexpensive and interesting for a certain period of life" (C2).1 They also remarked on the racialisation and ethnic diversification of poorer boroughs: There are young people who do bad things and who don't have a choice … [There's] inequality of opportunities among young people and injustice depending on what neighbourhood you come from. There are some neighbourhoods that get way fewer services and less attention than others. (C2) The same was noted by a youth from another neighbourhood regarding the city's neglect of certain areas of the borough, not only in terms of failing to meet youth's needs in recreational facilities, mental health services and youth-friendly restaurant venues but also in providing for basic urban services such as repairing streets and bus stops, timely snow removal operations and ensuring safety: What I don't like in my neighbourhood is the construction work, dirt on the street, broken streets, favoritism, and the police. And the music, too, it looks like there are always parties. There is a lot of violence here, things that happen, like illegal things. (C1) Youth repeatedly recounted instances of unfair treatment from the police, referring to racial profiling: "Here, police stop people walking in the streets. There's someone White that does something wrong, then there's someone Black walking in the street, then he gets arrested like that" (C1). They cited race as the main reason why their neighbourhood and their priorities do not receive appropriate attention and support from city council. They noted that sometimes it only takes walking to another street to feel the difference. This discrimination can also be experienced between young people. I find that some kids are not nice if you are Kahnawake kids. They say we are not important and that makes me mad. We told the teacher, but she did nothing. (C6) Young people's drawings also reflected the neglect by city services and the violence they experienced in their neighbourhoods (see Fig. 1). Young people believe the inequality among neighbourhoods constrains their future. Opens in a new window.Fig. 1.Illustration by youth from C1. Safety is particularly compromised for teenage girls, as two participants emphasised: My parents often advise me not to go downtown alone during the night. There are also some places in Montréal where you don't feel safe, like where it's not well lit. Imagine if you were a girl all alone. You have difficulty moving around, and it is much more stressful. (C3) Two participants from communities 3 and 4 also described intimidation as an issue that youth face everywhere: "Bullying is not just in school. It can happen on the street, in your apartment" (C3). Inequality between youth and adults, as well as racism and gender discrimination prevent youth from feeling secure; they feel unsafe and out of place. Navigating the city for young people is difficult. The City as Pressuring to Fit In In addition to the unwelcoming tone and inequalities within the city, youth expressed frustration with regard to the various pressures to fit into a mould. The school environment is a key homogenising space about which the youth were particularly vocal and critical. They mentioned the general rules in the schools, teachers' conduct towards students and the school curriculum. Youth were uneasy with the discipline and codes of conduct imposed by adults and teachers in the school environment. Whether it was a question of clothing style, the school's academic regulations or mere behaviour, schools are seen as places with zero-tolerance attitude in relation to students who do not conform. The youth were concerned about not having a say in the school's operations; formal ways of participation such as student councils were perceived as ineffective. A youth from community 3 described the school as instilling values and knowledge in a robotic way with minimal acknowledgement of students' creativity, contributions and input. Participants feel pressured and judged by teachers who are critical, blaming them for lack of effort and laziness. As one youth said, "The teachers put pressure on the children, You have to work harder, you have to succeed, you've been lazy" (C3). Youth point to the inadequacies of programmes and the teaching methods prevalent in schools: "Often it is not the subjects/topics that will be useful. […] It has too much to do with memorizing […]. We don't learn what is necessary for adult life" (C3). The same is noted from recently immigrated youth from community 5 who pointed out the school's disinterest in integrating newcomers, citing a lack of informative sessions about Montréal and Canada, and of language courses for students who speak neither French nor English. Parents were said to be unhelpful when their children faced difficulties in their studies. They expected their children to have good grades and be successful at school. The absence of family support puts the burden on youth to deal with the situation alone without resources and support. As a result, there is a feeling of stress and isolation on a daily basis. One young boy explained, "In the morning at school I am cranky because I have problems sleeping. I have lots of stuff on my mind" (C6). Another dimension of homogenisation that young people spoke to eloquently is the public narrative around body image, showcasing images and models that reflect dominant societal ideals, to which the youth felt compelled to conform. The latter amplify pressure to fit in a mould and, thus, the feeling of being excluded from society. Many participants, especially females, spoke about situations that overexpose youth to beauty advertisements that portray representations of perfection that are either unattainable or simply unrepresentative of reality: When you go in shopping malls, especially if you don't have like the criteria that society is asking of everybody, you will feel like a little below society. You can feel like excluded. (C3) In that sense, youth feel self-conscious about their presence in public areas, which spurs a spiral of unhealthy judgements about themselves and others: You have nothing else to see than the people around you. Then, of course that is what you will look at. You will begin to judge around you, then you will feel judged. (C3) As a result, this pressure to fit in is internalised by many teenage girls as they measure themselves against these ideals, depleting their self-esteem and sense of well-being: "You look at yourself in the mirror and you are not happy about what you see about yourself" (C3). The imposition of beauty standards and body ideals leads young people to feel uncomfortable in their bodies which impacts their mental health. The City as Stressful In the context of city life, most, if not all youth participants reported feeling overwhelmed and isolated due to stress caused by feelings of insecurity, as well as societal pressures related to academic achievement and physical appearance. In addition, they felt misunderstood, not to mention unsupported, by adults in their lives, which contributed to further marginalisation and increased stress levels. A youth mentioned teachers' tendency to trivialise their distress: "People don't see that we are stressed. And they are like 'Oh it's fine, stress passes'" (C3). Another one explained: I have known people who were scared to admit they were being bullied and that they felt that they were living in a circle and that talking would all fall back on them. (C3) They pointed to the inadequate help and non-existent mental health support in schools and how this could lead to them dropping out of school. Moreover, not many youths sought help from their families when they needed emotional or psychological support. Simply navigating the parameters of city life also has negative effects on youth mental health, whether at school, commuting or in public places. Two boys from C1 chose to write a song about mental health, explaining that this issue "really spoke to us in the community." Their lyrics were poignant and the accompanying guitar lethargic. The song opens with "Feeling down, be the last to cry to hear the distant mistrust has taken their lives." Another participant captured well the situation in his description of a robotic lifestyle devoid of meaning and purpose: We really feel that there's an atmosphere as if there was no life, no joy. Just like if it was a robot who was going to school, studying his classes, and going home. (C3) A participant made a video that depicts a girl walking in the Montréal metro threatening to throw herself onto the subway tracks ending with the note that yearly 30 young people die from suicide in the metro. When asked to explain the importance of mental health, one girl responded: "It is important for education and the sense of belonging" (C3) and another replied: "It is a theme that can connect what society thinks. It affects a lot of things in Montréal" (C3). Young people consider their affective assessment of the city to be integral to their well-being. Experiencing Agency: Seeking Belonging in the City Despite the stress, homogenisation, discrimination and exclusion that youth expressed, discussions revealed that young people were also actively appropriating the city: (a) by giving meaning to local people and places that make sense to them; and (b) by valuing relationships, diversity and questioning inequality. A girl encapsulates the challenge to come to terms with urban living as follows: "There are a lot of contradictions. Then, we have to find the middle ground, whether we like it or not. We must be able to be accepted by society" (C3). Young people yearn to belong and take actions accordingly. Youth Give Significance to Places and Community One expression of youth agency is how they ascribe meaning to specific places, with a distinct attachment that is both social and physical. Indeed, they show a sense of belonging to their community that is intimately connected to their peers but through places. A boy explained: "When we say 'the hood', you see the people talk? That's the hood" (C1). The localised spaces, like a rock, a parking lot, a community centre, a street or a back alley, are imbued with stories that connect youth concretely, but also through their meaningful and shared experiences. For instance, a rock was identified not only as a key meeting place for youth to share stories and get to know each other but also as the core of the community as it is perceived foundational in their daily lives: That is our rock. Our life is there. There were all the stories, like, what happened in our life. It is here that we have shared all our secrets, and we spent a lot of time here. You could say that it is the heart of the hood. (C1) Another important place valued by youth are community organisations. These provide spaces an