No abstract

This qualitative study explores the effect of the availability and quality of support networks on young African American men's models of masculinity. Two groups of young men comprised of ten men (group A) who had no reported criminal record and 11 men (group B) who had a reported history of criminal activity were interviewed individually with regards their masculinities strategies and their trajectory through age typical developmental experiences. Issues of parental availability, disciplinary regimes, support networks, school functioning, attitude to authority and peer relations were explored in depth. Findings suggested that young men who experienced strong oversight stayed out of criminal activities but were often unable to articulate and pursue age typical life goals due to difficulty accessing facilitating networks. Young men with weak oversight demonstrated a premature autonomy and tended to be embedded in networks that promoted high risk behaviors. The research highlights the importance of support networks that protect and facilitate through legitimate means the achievement of age appropriate masculinities.

This paper is a brief, psychoanalytically informed exploration of youth development, with a focus on the often-negative psychosocial impact of neoliberal ideologies on low-income Black youth. Neoliberal policies have influenced the psychological development of low-income Black youths, who are embedded in psychosocial contexts that are often under-resourced and negatively racialized. This substantially constrains their attempts to love and work. There is often a paucity of safe places, identity capital and caring tutors of the imagination that might facilitate good outcomes for these young people. As a consequence of being embedded in such emotionally austere and unsafe places, they often adopt postures that lead to their under-development and, too often, their early demise. The paper also discusses some strategies of resistance to neoliberal ideology and policy.The outlook for vulnerable populations in general, and Black youth specifically, is quite mixed at this point in time. Neoliberal ideologies over the past thirty years have redefined the role of the state, from one of ensuring safety and adequately providing resources to facilitate equality of outcome, to one of holding the individual and the market responsible for achieving this outcome. With this diminished state support, many people find themselves unprotected, and some are tempted to embrace primitive and archaic models of masculinity or overly restrictive lifestyles that often lead to impoverished and foreshortened life spans.Neoliberalism assumes that individuals are well-informed, rational actors capable of making choices for themselves and needing little state-facilitated