Young recent issues

Moving in transition: Northern Ireland youth and geographical mobility

Cairns, D. — 2008-09-16

This article explores the geographical mobility of young people in Northern Ireland. Utilizing the results of recent empirical research conducted with a sample of university students drawn from four different academic disciplines, an overview is presented of mobility experiences in terms of where these young people are going, their main reasons for travel and the main characteristics of mobile youth. Indications of future mobility intentions are also explored, revealing that a majority of these young people (55 per cent) have intentions to live outside Northern Ireland at some stage in the future. The various forms of travel and the significance of these mobility experiences are subsequently discussed in more depth through the use of emblematic case studies, highlighting the importance of mobility in both the education-to-work transition and personal development.

Patterns of continuity and disruption: The specificity of young people's mental structures in three transitional societies

Kalmus, V., Vihalemm, T. — 2008-09-16

This article analyzes inter-generational continuity and cultural reproduction in three transitional countries: Estonia, Latvia and the Czech Republic. We compare the levels of internalization of factor structures of self-identification and values among young people and older generations. We focus specifically on a comparison of young people representing the two main ethno-linguistic groups in Estonia and Latvia: ethnic Estonians, or Latvians, and Russians. The data are derived from representative population surveys carried out in the three countries in November 2005 and spring 2006. In general, we observed greater inter-generational continuity in the Czech Republic, compared with Estonia and Latvia. Cultural reproduction among the ethnic minorities in both Baltic countries has been most vulnerable to transitional changes: Russian youngsters differ from their parents to a greater extent than do young Estonians and Latvians from theirs.

The socialization of hierarchic self-interest: Value socialization in the family

Hadjar, A., Baier, D., Boehnke, K. — 2008-09-16

The article reports research on family socialization of dominance values among adolescents. Dominance values were studied as expressed in Hierarchic Self-Interest (HSI), a value pattern that is typical for highly competitive market-oriented societies and has negative behavioural consequences. In analyzing socialization, the study concentrates on authoritarian and achievement-focused parenting, as well as structural and ideological predictors thereof. The relevance of HSI for attitudes and behaviours is studied by considering xenophobia and delinquency as its consequences. Using panel data of 443 families (mothers, fathers, and adolescent offspring) from Berlin (Germany), a structural equation model is estimated. Results show that adolescent HSI can be traced back to social-structural variables and parenting modes, but also develops through intergenerational value transmission. It has assumed negative consequences.

Young Estonians and Danes as online shoppers: A comparative study

Raamat, R., Keller, M., Martensen, A., Tufte, B. — 2008-09-16

In this study, interpretations of young Danes’ and Estonians’ online shopping are compared based on interviews with 23 Danes and 24 Estonians aged 12–18 years. The findings show that young Danes are more familiar with online shopping and buying, and view it more positively than do young Estonians. This is well reflected by the fact that Estonians focus mainly on the risks of online shopping, expressing various forms of distrust, while young Danes tend to emphasize benefits. Yet, both countries’ respondents show more confidence in regular shops with face-to-face contact than in online stores which are considered to be abstract and disembedded. Differences in representations of online shopping are related to a complex set of system and agential resources: different cultural contexts, institutional and economic factors, and social networks.

Youth cultural styles: From snob to pop?

Wel, F. V., Maarsingh, W., Bogt, T. T., Raaijmakers, Q. — 2008-09-16

This research examines whether opposition between higher and lower forms of youth culture still contributes to the emergence of groups with different cultural tastes. Do youth at higher levels of secondary education (for example, pre-university education) tend to display ‘omnivorous’ tastes nowadays (Peterson, 1992), just as highly educated adults do? A sample of Dutch adolescents (N = 226) completed a questionnaire concerning their preferences in several cultural domains (music, film and television, light reading and literature, receptive cultural participation). Four groups or clusters representing cultural styles were identified: omnivores, moderate omnivores, a group interested primarily in popular culture, and a culturally disinterested group; each group comprised about a quarter of the sample. Whereas girls were overrepresented in the first two groups, boys were more common in the latter two groups. The two groups with omnivorous tastes appear to fit the profile of ‘normal’ youth. Otherwise, the four cultural groups could not be linked to specific youth subcultures.

Book Reviews

2008-09-16

J-Pop and performances of young female identity: Music, gender and urban space in Tokyo

Toth, C. — 2008-05-01

This article examines the staging of sexuality and femininity in Japan Pop (J-Pop) and its related club-cultural scenes. While historical research on many aspects of gender in Japan has been extensive, the relationship between popular music culture, gender, and urban space has been given little recognition. Based on extensive field research in Japan, the article provides an analysis of not only how present-day female stars, Ayumi Hamasaki, Shina Ringo and Misia reproduce and enact prescribed gender and sexual roles, but also reveals how, in many instances, they transgress those. These female performers managed to carve out a representational space by highlighting girl themes that energized girl solidarity, and held up the possibility for rearticulating young femininity. They represent different angles of Tokyo's current music and style scenes, and cultural geography. These are scenes and geographies shaped by and inseparable from urban markers that female fans follow night after night in Tokyo in order to reach clubs playing the music of their favorite stars. Girls’ active engagement in clubs with commercialized media texts that J-Pop performers produce assists them with the development of their identity and formation of relationships with other young females. The study argues that from trans-ethnic ‘white’-style scenes, ‘black’ soul, and rhythm and blues (R&B)-oriented clubs in Shibuya to Shinjuku's ‘seedy’ disco bars, young women explore possibilities for new ethnic (trans-Asian, ‘Asian black’), gender and sexual, and generational identities. The essay hopes to contribute to applied, transnational gender and cultural studies as well as music criticism.

The influence of cultural images and other people on young women's embodied agency

Liimakka, S. — 2008-05-01

Drawing on young Finnish women's group discussions and individual written accounts of their body experiences, this article discusses the role of cultural images and other people in young women's body experiences, and the spaces available for young women's embodied agency. Through using insights from Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1945/2003) and George H. Mead (1934/67), it is shown how other people play a significant role in a young woman's relation to cultural body ideals and to her own body. The situation of a young woman, her own body being often compared by others and by herself to the image of the ideal woman, and as such, becomes an inhabited and presented visual space (Frost, 2005), a spectacle (Tseëlon, 1995), which creates a context of living as an objectified body. However, this context also allows possibilities for particular forms of agency, which are discussed in the article.

Orientations of young adults in Slovenia toward the family formation

Ule, M., Kuhar, M. — 2008-05-01

The article explores the circumstances influencing family formation in Slovenia. Public opinion surveys in Slovenia have shown that young people have high aspirations regarding family life. These findings, however, stand in sharp contrast to demographic indicators, that is, delayed parenthood and a low birth rate. The qualitative analysis comprised both the personal factors, such as family lifestyles identified by young people as being desirable and the role of the family in their plans for the future, as well as structural factors affecting the starting of a family (housing, employment, etc.) and the problems and obstacles accompanying this process. One crucial finding is that personal factors rather than structural constraints are a key barrier to family formation.

Constructing adulthood in a world of uncertainties: Some cases of post-Communist Estonia

Nugin, R. — 2008-05-01

Rapid changes in the society have surrounded the lives of young people with uncertainties, resulting in the construction of flexible identities. Since traditional values are undergoing a process of change as well, crucial age concepts have become obscure, and have come to depend on a given context. However, in a transitional society, like post-Communist Estonia, these uncertainties are constantly changing and different age cohorts face different uncertainties, and are thus forced to develop different ways of coping with them. This article studies two age cohorts — one born in 1972–74 and the other in 1985–86 — and describes the way these people view uncertainties and cope with them. It is argued that this dealing with uncertainties may also influence generational identity as a whole.

Resources and (in(ter))dependence: Young people's reflections on parents

Lahelma, E., Gordon, T. — 2008-05-01

The lives of young people are lived in the context of social changes associated with neo-liberal politics. In neo-liberalism, individuals are considered autonomous units who steer their own futures, and the transition from youth into adulthood is understood as a change from dependence into independence from family ties. It has been assumed that autonomy is the endpoint of this development. Yet this approach has turned out to be too restricted. Several studies suggest that the family still remains a significant component in the social, educational, emotional and material lives of young people. Parents are important resources in young people's paths to adulthood.

In this article, we discuss changing reflections of young Finnish women and men on their relationships with their parents. We analyze parents as providers of material resources, as well as emotional and social ones, in order to facilitate the transition to adulthood. We suggest that whilst young people are willing to move from semi-dependence to independence in relation to material resources, in emotional and social terms they strive for interdependence. We came to know these young people in an ethnographic study when they began secondary school. This article draws from re-interviews with the same young people at the ages of 17–18 and 19–20.

EDITORIAL

2008-02-11

The practice of free-traveling: Young people coping with access in post-Soviet Russia

Zuev, D. — 2008-02-11

The article explores the case of youth travel in modern Russia. Free-traveling is conceptualized as a spatial practice which is a set of techniques that allows young people to gain access to foreign space and in foreign space. The issue of free-traveling is problematized in the context of spatial dimension of social exclusion of young people — access and its physical, financial and information aspects. The concept of spatial practice is proposed to explain how young people struggle with information, financial and physical limitations of access. Through the analysis of free-traveling the author intends to show how young people in Russia cope with the issue of access.

Online journals as virtual bedrooms?: Young people, identity and personal space

Hodkinson, P., Lincoln, S. — 2008-02-11

This article considers the increasing importance of personal, individualized spaces in the lives and identities of young people through a comparative examination of the contemporary use of the physical space of the bedroom and the ‘virtual’ territory of the online journal. Particularly popular among those in their teens and early twenties, online journals constitute an interactive form of web log whose content tends to be dominated by reflections upon the everyday experiences, thought and emotions of their individual owner. We propose here that such online journals often take on for their users the symbolic and practical properties of individually owned and controlled space — something we illustrate through a comparison with young people's uses of the primary, individual-centred, physical space in their lives — the bedroom. This discussion is informed by research by each of the authors, on young people's bedrooms and on the use of online journals respectively. The article identifies and explores understandings and functions of these two spaces for young people, identifying a number of apparent similarities in their use. Through doing so, we illustrate the potential value of the bedroom as a prism through which to understand online journal use at the same time as helping to illuminate the general significance of personal space to the lives and identities of contemporary young people.

Juvenile and drugs: Fascination of contesting identities

Suoninen, E., Virokannas, E. — 2008-02-11

The article focuses on the self-conceptions of a juvenile who uses drugs. Different dimensions of categories and connotations are analyzed in an interview given by a young girl who has used hard drugs for several years. The analysis aims at making clear the spectrum of culturally given resources that are available for a young person with a drug history when she attempts to make her life understandable. By concentrating on one young person's story, the analysis illustrates that a variation of self-conceptions is not about differences between individuals, but is more about the general cultural alternatives of different categories. The variation of self-conceptions is abstracted into four alternative identity types that associate with very different attributes and activity types. The analysis demonstrates how a young person with a drug history both applies the attributes of generally known categories and takes distance from these depending on the identity type. Based on the analysis of these four identities, some conclusions are drawn about the possibilities of parents or other adults to support the identity constructions of a juvenile with a drug history.

Dancing bodies, decaying bodies: The interpretation of anorexia among Israeli dancers

Gvion, L. — 2008-02-11

This article examines the meaning Israeli female dancers assign to extra-thin bodies. It claims that dancers interpret extra-thinness as an essential tool for the making of an ideal body-machine which allows entrance to a professional world of dancers. Working in a demanding professional world, anorexic bodies are seen by dancers as indicators of success and commitment. It is a means to win recognition from significant others and make the most out of a short-term and risk-embedded career. An haute-ecole of dance was chosen as a location for this study because it is a social setting that sets its own rules of transforming the body into an instrument of training. This study allows us to understand why certain professional and age groups tend to develop anorexia and helps understanding how anorexia, once embedded in a professional ideology, is hard to overcome.

Modernization of upper secondary school in Denmark: Headmasters' reform interpretations and constructions of students

Boje, J. D. — 2008-02-11

The Danish upper secondary school is currently undergoing a hyper complex process of modernization where new organizational forms, teacher-student roles and principles of management are introduced. The process is set-off most directly by a new reform. This article explores the implementation of that reform by focusing on how it is interpreted locally and put into practice by the headmasters of two different schools. On the basis of that analysis the article discusses the consequences that different ways of interpreting and managing the reform might have for the students — how do they understand, recognize and execute the new pedagogical discourses and constructions of students that the headmasters are launching? The theoretical and methodological approach of the article is based on Basil Bernstein's sociology of education. Empirically the article draws on qualitative interviews with the headmasters under analysis.

Victims and agents: Young people's understanding of their social world in an urban neighbourhood in India

Ganguly-Scrase, R. — 2007-12-10

Scholarly accounts of children of the urban poor in South Asia often decry the exploitative conditions of child labour — the harsh and debilitating environmental conditions. At the same time, these accounts treat young people merely as victims and consequently leave out the felt experiences of working-class children and youth. Based on fieldwork among a marginalized leather worker community in an urban neighbourhood in India, this article aims to go beyond countering homogenizing perspectives and the challenge to the exploitation narrative. In doing so, I examine their specificity through ethnographic accounts of the ways in which young people actively construct their own identities, and reinterpret and negotiate adult notions of labour, caste, and community solidarity. Significantly these perspectives help us to comprehend the nature of youth discontent towards their traditional occupation. I analyse their discontent with the general declining employment opportunities in a globalizing Indian economy. Focusing on the youth cultures in the neighbourhood, I explore the conflicts within and between genders and generations emanating from the changing economic conditions.

New technology and young people's consumer identitites: A comparative study between Finland and Brazil

Wilska, T.-a., Pedrozo, S. — 2007-12-10

This article investigates new definitions of the self and identity vis-à-vis digital media and consumption styles among young people. The research is based on an empirical survey conducted in Finland in 2001 and re-done in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2003–04. The main goal of this study is how information and communication technology (ICT) relates to young people's consumer identities in two very different countries. In Finland, equal access to new technology is widespread. In Brazil, digital exclusion is predominant due to social inequalities in income distribution. The results showed that young people's use of and attitudes towards ICT are surprisingly similar in both countries, and in both countries we found connections between consumer identities and ICT use and related attitudes. However, in Brazil, the father's educational level explained attitudes towards ICT better than consumer identities did. In Finland, gender was a more powerful determinant than in Brazil, which is a bit surprising. However, social and cultural differences make this comparison a bit difficult and the results must be treated with caution.

'We can't just sit the whole day watching TV': Negotiations concerning media use among youngsters and their parents

Hagen, I. — 2007-12-10

Media use is often a source of negotiations between children and their parents. Children's and young people's ideas about how much and what they want to watch on TV may differ from those of their parents. In addition, there might be disagreements in the family regarding who should use the computer and for what purpose. With new media like cable TV and computers/Internet increasingly available to modern families, there is intensified public pressure on parents to monitor and regulate their children's media use. The purpose of this article is to discuss questions related to these negotiations and regulations.

Basic skills and transitions to adulthood

Simpson, D., Cieslik, M. — 2007-12-10

This article reports on the findings of a qualitative research project conducted in the North East of England. This project involved interviews with 55 young adults in an attempt to explore the impact of poor basic skills on transitions to adulthood. Poor basic skills have been identifued across Europe as a problem facing nation states, groups and individuals. But apart from large-scale survey-based studies (Bynner and Parsons, 2001), previous youth research has neglected the process through which basic skills play a role in transitions to adulthood. Proposing a social theory of situated basic skills as communal and individual resources, the authors develop an approach that is sensitive to both structure and agency in theorizing the role of literacy, numeracy and oracy in transitions. They claim that the mobilization of basic skills resources and their role across the life-course can best be understood by using a conceptualization of agency that recognizes the importance of reflexivity as a mediating link between subjective (agential) and objective (structural) dimensions of transition.

Citizenship among young adult Somalis in Norway

Fangen, K. — 2007-12-10

This article analyses young Somalis’ citizenship in the sense of their civic activities on different geographic levels, and the interrelationship between civic activity, class, ethnicity and age. What are the participatory roles of the young Somalis, and how do they relate to entities such as politics, nation and ethnicity? How does class influence different levels of orientation? Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five Somalis who had returned to Somaliland after living in Norway for many years, and 45 Somalis in Norway, but this article is a case study of three of the latter. Somali organizations give young adult Somalis from all backgrounds an opportunity to become involved and feel that they are doing something for other Somalis. For some, participation in these organizations is a stepping-stone to further political involvement in Norway, in Somalia or internationally. We especially see this among Somalis with a higher education, whereas those with less education are mostly involved in activities on the community level. Being active within Somali organizations in Norway combines the aspect of being well integrated in the host society with maintaining a commitment to one's own background and culture. The young Somalis associate doing something for others to becoming an adult; however, they also regard this sense of responsibility as an integral part of being Somali.

Book Reviews

2007-12-10