A comparative analysis of Toronto and Quito street youth

This thesis is an investigation of street youth in Toronto, Canada and Quito, Ecuador. In this thesis, street youth are youth who are working in the streets. It was the purpose of this thesis to explore whether street youth in Toronto and Quito experience similar dimensions of exclusion, such as family, economic, education, justice system and mental health/emotional/dietary/drug use exclusion. It was found that Toronto and Quito street youth experience these dimensions of exclusion in different ways, and fall on different points within the dimensions of exclusion. Toronto street youth have different backgrounds than Quito street youth. Toronto street youth experience more individualistic obstacles, compared to Quito street youth who are more greatly limited by structural factors in their economy.; These results are analyzed within the framework of the underclass debate and social exclusion, in a Third World setting. While street youth in Toronto and Quito were found to experience the dimensions of exclusion in diverse ways, the findings of this thesis undermine the underclass thesis for both groups of street youth, and suggest that they experience social exclusion but in culturally specific contexts.