Future Right Now: Youth Policy and Representation in Australia and the UK
Young people are framed as either at risk or a risk but rarely as partners in responding to issues such as the climate crisis. Professor Ariadne Vromen examines how these narratives shape youth policy in Australia and the UK, and what genuine partnership with young people could look like.
© Western Sydney University
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Three seemingly disparate areas of youth policy - social media access, the future of work, and climate action - share common representations of young people as both at risk and engaged in risky behaviours. Underpinning these representations is a nostalgic imaginary of how childhoods and youthful transitions ought to be, that rarely reflects the current lived experience and agency of young people, or broader structural transformations.
Join Professor Ariadne Vromen for a free public lecture using current youth policy agendas in Australia and the UK to explore how these representations travel and gather momentum. Hear how young people can collectively present counter-narratives and discover what it means to raise expectations of older generations, government and industry to meaningfully listen to, and partner with, young people in fostering new policy agendas.
Professor Ariadne Vromen
© Ariadne Vromen
University of Glasgow, UK
Ariadne Vromen is the inaugural Head of the Division of Political and International Studies at the University of Glasgow. Before moving to Scotland in early 2025 she was the Sir John Bunting Chair of Public Administration at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and Deputy Dean Research for the Australia and New Zealand School of Government. Prior to this, she was Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Sydney. Ariadne is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and a former President of the Australian Political Studies Association.
Ariadne's long-term research interests include: citizen engagement, digital politics and governance, women and the future of work, policy advocacy, and young people and politics. Her latest book is: Filippo Trevisan, Michael Vaughan & Ariadne Vromen (2025) Story Tech: Power, Storytelling and Social Change Advocacy, Michigan University Press.
