This award will support travel of 10 U.S. participants to a U.S.-France Workshop on studies of poor urban youth in France and the United States in Berkeley, California, Spring, 1996. The organizers are Manuel Castells, University of California, Berkeley and Michel Schiray of the Social and Political Sciences Group of the French National Center for Scientific Research. The participants include established researchers and graduate students. The workshop addresses current research on the causes, mechanisms and consequences of urban marginality in large cities of advanced societies. In particular, the participants will present papers on the social experiences, trajectories and strategies of poor youth in French and American metropolitan areas. The workshop provides an opportunity for U.S. and French social scientists to assess the current state of knowledge and to develop a detailed collaborative research agenda. The participants will discuss the relationship of poor urban youth to the educational system, to the urban labor market and to activities within the neighborhood. They will also investigate urban youth responses to marginalization, delinquency, street violence, and police and criminal justice systems. This workshop is related to the National Science Foundation's Human Capital Initiative. Specifically it addresses issues that are encompassed in two subfields: (1) Neighborhoods and (2) Poverty. The workshop's agenda will identify important topics for fundamental research.
