Intersectional Youth Justice: Analysis of Seismic Shifts in Canada

This report analyzes the major issues affecting Canadian youths, including diversity, migration to cities, increased education levels, and disparities in opportunities based on socioeconomic background. It highlights challenges such as high school drop-out rates, barriers to further education, youth unemployment, poverty, and negative impacts of technology. The report emphasizes the credibility of its sources and applies the concept of intersectionality, particularly regarding race and gender. It discusses the implications for social service work, advocating for social justice and addressing issues like unemployment and drug abuse. The report also examines the relevance of social justice theory in addressing unequal resource distribution and proposes innovative solutions to improve the lives of Canadian youths. Desklib offers a wide range of study resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in their academic endeavors.

Understanding the seismic shifts in that are shaking Canada’s youths
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Report summary
The article describes major issues affecting the Canadian youths. The first theme revolves
around the diverse nature of Canadian population where around 16% of youth belong to a
minority group (O’Rourke, 2012). Furthermore, the youth are leaving to major cities to seek
education and employment opportunities. It is interesting to note that the education level has
increased over the last ten years between 2000 and 2010 that is evident by increased enrollment
rate in tertiary institutions and secondary schools. However, the youths from rural and low-
income communities have high rate of school drop outs compared to those from urban centers.
The high school dropouts have low chances of being employed and those lucky to be employed
record low quality job performance (O’Rourke, 2012).
The article further highlights various barriers to further education that are majorly poor
family backgrounds and high cost of post-secondary education. This has created huge debt loads
for the students forcing them to stop after attaining secondary education thus creating huge
disparity in income compared to the university graduates. According to report, the youth
unemployment doubles the national average forcing some graduates to move into low-skill jobs.
The poverty also remains high among the Canadian youths (33.3%) that is associated with poor
health status since high-income youths reported low levels of diabetes and asthma (O’Rourke,
2012).
The report further highlights negative effects of technology among youths including
cyberbullying, increased inactivity and stress causing increased cases of obesity. Though
smoking rates have dropped among Canadian youths, those from low income families have
higher smoking habits compared to their counterparts from highest income families.
Furthermore, the youths especially girls are at high risk of experiencing emotional distress

causing high medical expenditure in Canada. However, there were some positive finding from
the reports including decreased crime activities among youths.
Credibility and trustworthiness
The report is credible and thus the information provided can be consumed by the
audiences. Accessing credibility of information is important in research due to increased source
thus one has to determine the sources that can be trusted. In order to evaluate credibility of this
report one has to check the sources of data contained in the report. With this regard the report has
used credible sources comprising mostly the scholarly works that have been published in the
referred journals. The author used high quality resources to support his arguments regarding
Canadian youth problems thus enhancing the credibility and trustworthiness of the report.
Critical information contained in the report has been cited well and the reference list provided at
the end of the document. Furthermore, the objective and the tone of the language used in writing
the report is impartial thus raising its credibility. Consequently, the report has been written by a
scholar who is expert the youth sociology. The document is also free of grammar and spelling
errors.
Intersectionality
There is interconnection among the social categorization like class, gender and race as
they apply to the youths. The role of race and gender was eminent from in this report. The
findings concerning various attributes and problems facing the youths were compared for the
different races. The report compared unemployment rates among countries such as France,
Sweden, Ireland, Italy, UK, Poland and South Africa; these countries represent different races.
The race also played significant role in the phenomena studied and it was reported that that the

race affected social behavior of youths. The Aboriginal youths in grade 9 to 10 living off-reserve
reported high cases of smoking compared non-Aboriginal counterparts. Recent studies focusing
on discourses about role of race in society have indicated that race affects individual’s decision
and thoughts. It is encouraging to note that a shift in attitudes and beliefs has minimized racial
discrimination in the US especially between Blacks and Whites. The intersectionality in this
report has therefore paid sufficient detail to social location.
The classwork covered sufficiently on the research methodologies. The class work has
helped me in identifying various social constructs with race being the main one. The social
constructs provide background to researches relating to societal problems since the majority
racial groups tend to cause undue suffering to the minority ones. The classwork also helped in
understanding how deviant behavior among people affects the society. This is important for the
current research to identify youth problems focusing on cause and effect of deviant behavior.
Social Service Work Practice
The social workers provide support and social support to individuals in need including
families and the community. They work in variety of setting like schools, hospitals, domestic
setting, health clinics, community centers and private practice. The findings from this research
help social workers to develop best solution to youth problems such as unemployment, distress
from use of technology, crime and drug abuse. For social workers to effectively help the needy
persons, it is important to understand the underlying issues. This report highlights various
problems affecting youths including rising cost of education and difficulty in getting jobs. This
therefore calls for considerations of various models during their study to achieve accurate results
that can help in transforming societal problems. The models appropriate for the current study are
discussed below.

Implications for social service practice
The research has indicated there are numerous youths in Canada who cannot fulfil basic
and secondary needs. This means that the social service is needed in Canada to help the
vulnerable youths to get social justice and right to education. The youths staying in rural
communities are reported to face difficulties in accessing post-secondary education while some
started abusing drugs at early age. The social workers need to rise and voice concerns of
unemployed youths whose voices are not being heard. The social workers have to tackle issues
mentioned in the report to help youth reach their potential and make Canada a better place to
live. The social workers also have to dedicate their time and resources to enable youths take
action to improve their lives. This can be achieved by coming up with innovative ways to resolve
challenges facing the youths.
i) Social justice theory
The theory of social justice tends to solves various problems of distributive justice by
applying device of social contract. Justice is a term commonly used to refer to consequent
distribution of burden and benefits. This model advocates for individuals to be accorded with
what is due to them. This theory can be applied to current study to help in integrating balance of
the society through the responsibilities of leaders as per the qualities of social justice. The theory
provides rich ground for understanding social, political and moral philosophy that is relevant to
answering problems relating to social justice among the youths. The model further advances the
principle arrangements in light of laws and rules that govern how things can be owned, acquired
or transferred in a system. This is important in understanding the role of public policy in

addressing various problems affecting Canadian youths. This model recognizes the fact that
conflict arises from unequal distribution of resource thus causing current state of suffering
among youths from minority groups or low-income families.

References
O’Rourke, D. (2012). Understanding the seismic shifts in that are shaking Canada’s youths.
Community Foundations of Canada and Vital Signs, 1-16.