Book Launch: Life skills Education for Youth: Critical Perspectives

Group Submission Type: Book Launch

Description of Session

Life skills education has gained considerable attention by education policymakers, researchers and educators as being the sine qua non for later achievements in life. It is nearly ubiquitous in global and national education policies, including the SDGs, because life skills are regarded as essential for a diverse set of purposes: reducing poverty, achieving gender equality, promoting economic growth, addressing climate change, fostering peace and global citizenship, and creating sustainable and healthy communities. Yet, to achieve these broad goals, questions persist as to which life skills are important, who needs to learn them, how they can be taught, and how they are best measured.
This open access book critically reviews a diverse body of scholarship and practice that informs the conceptualization, curriculum, teaching and measurement of life skills in education settings around the world. It discusses life skills as they are implemented in schools and non-formal education, providing both qualitative and quantitative evidence of when, with whom, and how life skills do or do not impact young people’s lives in various contexts. Specifically, it examines the paradigms that underlie life skills programming and how these different paradigms shape curricular content. It looks at the synergies and differences between life skills educational programs and the way in which they promote social and emotional learning, vocational/employment education, and health and sexuality education. Finally, it explores how life skills may be better incorporated into education and how such education can address structures and relations of power to help youth achieve desired future outcomes, and goals set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This book launch will first provide a brief overview of the book and some frameworks for understanding both the current research and practice of life skills education, and ways to consider them for ‘living life well’. Our attention to life skills for wellbeing utilizes a capabilitarian approach to consider both the multi-dimensional nature of wellbeing and how it is situated within specific contexts, power structures and values. We will feature authors of several chapters that call for critical conceptualizations of life skills education that move beyond preparing individual youth to survive in precarious social and economic environments. The chapters offer examples and considerations for reframing life skills conceptually and pedagogically to address structures of power related to gender, class, caste, and indigeneity so that young people can thrive and achieve their valued futures.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Book Launch

Chairs

• Joan Dejaeghere, University of Minnesota

• Erin Murphy-Graham, University of California Berkeley

Book Launch Presenters

• Rebecca Bailey, Harvard University

• Christina Ting Kwauk, Kwauk and Associates

• Catherine A Honeyman, World Learning

• Aditi Ashok Arur, Christ University