Gangs out! School, public space and exclusion

Abstract

The article focuses on exclusion processes, which imply one of the most marginalized and mediatized category among youth with migrant origin in contemporary Spain: gangs. Groups labelled, through stigma and a public and shared deliberation, as dangerous towards society. The article describes, for the two context of analysis (Madrid and Barcelona) the process of exclusion of youth in gangs from schools, public equipments, youth centres, and more generally from urban space. The methodology is based on in-depth interviews with different stakeholders (police officers, social workers, gangs leaders, social policies officers, priests, judges) and on a large ethnographic research realized among street gangs.