Sarah Mills is a Reader in Human Geography at Loughborough University, UK. Her research focuses on the geographies of youth citizenship, informal education, and volunteering across contemporary and historical contexts. In 2017, she received the Gill Memorial Award from the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers.

• 1. Introduction 2. Moral Geographies of Childhood, Youth and Education: Learning to be Citizens of Good Character 3. Character Nation: Geographies and Geopolitics of Education in England 4. Grit and Gumption 5. ‘Be Prepared’, ‘Be Resilient’: British Youth Movements and Civil Society 6. ‘The lessons they don’t teach in class’? National Citizen Service and Social Action 7. Character, Citizenship and Values: From National Debates to Global Geopolitics 8. Conclusion

"The book makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on the geographies of youth and education as well as the role of geopolitics in shaping young people’s everyday lives in both formal and informal education spaces " Dr Yi’En Cheng, National University of Singapore, reviewed in Social & Cultural Geography, 2022"Mills’ volume will appeal to students and scholars of human geography, childhood and youth, education, cultural studies and history. It contributes an important geographic dimension to our understanding of neoliberalism and the effects of character education" Professor Jennifer Helgren, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA, reviewed in History of Education, 2022"A fascinating account…useful and highly readable…this ambitious book is to be commended for its rich fieldwork" Dr Jennifer Crane, University of Oxford, reviewed in Children’s Geographies, 2021