Key Concepts in Youth Studies

Mark Cieslik, Donald Simpson, SAGE Publications Ltd

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781848609853, 9781848609846
• eBook ISBN: 9781446290460
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

What is youth? How do we understand youth in its social and cultural context?

Mark Cieslik and Donald Simpson here provide a concise and readily accessible introduction to the interdisciplinary field of youth studies. Drawing upon the latest research and developments in the field, as well as discussing the fundamental ideas underlying the discipline as a whole, it offers a comprehensive yet unpacked understanding of youth as a social phenomenon.

Illuminating the many abstract and contested concepts within youth studies, the book offers explanations to questions such as:

• How might we define youth?
• How can we understand young people in relation to their social identities and practices?
• What is the relationship between youth and social class?
• How do youth cultures develop?
• How can we understand youth in a globalized perspective?

 Key Concepts in Youth Studies stands out as a natural companion for students on youth studies, sociology, criminology and social science programmes. It will also be useful for youth practitioners such as social workers and teachers.

Major Concepts, Issues and Debates

11

Young People and Leisure

Young people in most societies tend to have more leisure time than adults so how young people use their free time has been the subject of much research. Leisure is usually understood as that free time outside of the obligatory activities (such as formal education, domestic work and responsibilities and waged employment) that structure young people’s lives (Roberts, 1983). Leisure activities for young people are important as they are often seen as playing a key role structuring the later life course transitions, social identities and youth cultures of adolescents (Hendry, 1983). The emergence then of distinctive classed, racialised and gendered adult selves is seen to flow in part from the activities, interests and relationships that make up young people’s leisure pursuits. The patterning of opportunities and resources that are so important for the routes that we take through life can also be traced to these earlier leisure activities. As we go on to show, social scientists suggest that leisure activities can have both positive and negative influences; helping to foster interpersonal skills and informal learning on the one hand or promoting anti-social behaviour and delinquency on the other. Much research has focused on trying to understand the causes of these different outcomes from leisure activities and how policy and professional practice might influence young people’s leisure. A further theme in leisure research documents the long-term commercialisation of leisure and how this contributes to processes of individualisation in contemporary societies (Furlong and Cartmel, 2007: 72; Rojek, 1985). Leisure can be a key way young people develop a unique sense of self but one that involves consumerist lifestyles that generate huge profits for global corporations.

The work of thinkers such as Freud, Mead and Piaget all stressed the significance of free time and play to cognitive development and so many commentators viewed the expansion of young people’s leisure during the twentieth century as a positive development. The growth in incomes, consumption and changing patterns of employment also contributed to post-war debates about the emergence of a leisure society (Davis, 1990; Rojek, 2009: 21). The discussion during this period was that new free time available to young people allowed for their experimentation with new counter-cultural ways of life that gave rise to Psychedelic and Hippy subcultures in the 1960s. Involvement in new forms of music, drugs, politics and style during this time all hinged on the expansion of leisure opportunities for some young people. Seminal studies in the social sciences documented the lives of young people’s leisure, where the street corner (Whyte, 1993), home (Deem, 1986) and youth club (McRobbie, 1978) are the locus of distinctive youth peer relations and socio-cultural identities. Early studies documented different leisure activities because of class background – the wider more varied and consumerist pursuits of affluent youth contrasted with the less commercialised and narrower activities of working-class youth (Clarke and Critcher, 1985: 177; Roberts, 1999). Researchers also documented how young women tended to occupy domestic spaces listening to music with friends and reading while males spent more time outside of the home playing sports and ‘hanging out’ with friends on the street (Deem, 1986; Frith, 1978). Hendry et al. (1993) noted that around three quarters of boys (aged thirteen to twenty) played sport each week whereas less than half of girls did. The authors suggest such differences originate in boys associating competitive sport with emerging masculine identities while many young women see such sports as unfeminine. Studies of sports activities illustrate the role of football in particular in the UK underpinning patterns of socialisation where young males acquire a sense of local and class cultural identity and are introduced to the drinking and physical violence that is often associated with working-class masculinities (Nayak, 2003). Studies have also noted the changing pattern of leisure activities as children mature into young people and into adulthood – moving from organised activities when young through to casual and commercialised leisure as teenagers and young adults (Hendry, 1983). When young, children tend to be supervised by adults, involved in structured leisure moving to more independent peer-based pursuits as young teens and into more commodified activities as they approach adulthood, shaped by the onset of intimate relationships and increasing disposable income.

In recent decades there have been several themes to research in young people’s leisure. There has been the continuing concern and moral panics about the ways young people occupy public spaces – the street, shopping precincts and parks. The media often document the incidence of substance misuse (alcohol, drugs, smoking), violence and anti-social behaviour associated with young people’s use of free time in public spaces (France, 2009). Attention has focused not only on the problems that young people may cause for residents but also for themselves in terms of health problems and the possible drift into youth offending. In the UK governments have introduced much more punitive policing and criminal justice approaches to young people, lowering the age of criminal responsibility and employing street surveillance such as CCTV and street warden schemes (Newburn and Hayman, 2002). Commentators have suggested that young people’s use of drink and drugs in their leisure time may simply be reflecting wider changes in society and the shift to more liberal attitudes towards such behaviours. The growth in the night-time economy in the UK together with relatively cheap alcohol from supermarkets have also fuelled what some see as a predictable increase in young people’s misuse of alcohol (Chatterton and Hollands, 2001; Hall and Winlow, 2006).

Some research has also suggested that shifts in Western culture and changing notions of masculinity and femininity have impacted on young people’s leisure participation. Research has pointed to greater numbers of children and young people developing more home-based leisure interests with the growth of computer technology (Livingstone, 2003). Most young people now spend several hours a day surfing the web and playing TV and computer games and less time in more traditional sports-based pursuits (ONS, 2005). Predictable concerns have been raised by researchers about the growth of this more sedentary way of life and the associated health problems this may bring to new generations of young adults. Data in Western societies show an increasing number of young people and adults with obesity and weight-related health problems such as diabetes. In the USA, for example, almost 20 per cent of children and young people are obese – the suggestion being that such problems in part are associated with the sedentary lives of young people today (Ogden and Carroll, 2010).

Sweeting and West (2003) also point to significant numbers of young women now spending more time outside of the home, involved in street-based free time activities compared to earlier generations of young women. Free of the surveillance that frames domestic activities the authors point to increased alcohol and smoking among young women. Griffin et al. (2009) have also suggested greater numbers of young women are now using pubs and clubs and drinking greater amounts of alcohol than in the past – forms of adolescent behaviour that tended to be associated more with male rituals of growing up than those of young women. Such research poses some interesting questions, as one might suggest that the breakdown of traditional gendered leisure pursuits offer greater equality for women to experience public leisure pursuits. Or conversely, one might argue that the greater misuse of drink and the risks that this brings should not be applauded as young women are mimicking the least desirable aspects of an old fashioned muscular masculinity. The mass media have also documented how alcohol misuse can be linked to incidences of young women’s vulnerability to assault and violent offences (The Guardian, 2012). There is the question therefore about the balance between greater freedoms to enjoy leisure and the increase in risk and wider social costs (such as anti-social behaviour) associated with these freedoms.

Commentators also point to an expansion of leisure opportunities promoted through various government policies in the UK. Aiming High schemes and funding such as the Youth Opportunities Fund have encouraged many more young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, to participate in a wider range of leisure activities (DCSF, 2009). The Cultural Olympiad associated with the 2012 Olympic Games in the UK also promoted widespread participation in leisure and cultural activities for young people between 2010 and 2012 (Cultural Olympiad, 2012). Many of these recent initiatives drew on technological advances such as Facebook, Twitter and other online technologies to encourage young people to engage in drama, video, music and dance projects. Though often designed as simply fun activities these projects also offered deeper, creative possibilities for young people to explore their social identities, relationships with peers and their place in the world (Arts Council England, 2011).

Nevertheless, at the same time surveys also point to the fact that many young people from poorer backgrounds are experiencing relatively narrow leisure careers, where ‘hanging about doing nothing’ is a key component together with watching significant amounts of TV and watching sport (MacDonald and Marsh, 2005). Though commentators talk of the transformative potential of recent social change to impact positively on young people’s leisure careers, there is much evidence that points to the persistence of quite traditional patterns of leisure participation that are structured by class, gender, ‘race’ and region.

REFERENCES

Arts Council England (2011) West Midlands Culture Programme for London 2012. Birmingham: Arts Council England.

Chatterton, P. and Hollands, R. (2001) Changing Our ‘Toon’: Youth, Nightlife and Urban Change in Newcastle. Newcastle: Newcastle University Press.

Clarke, J. and Critcher, C. (1985) The Devil Makes Work: Leisure in Capitalist Britain. London: Macmillan.

Cultural Olympiad (2012) www.london2012.com/cultural-olympiad (accessed 7 July 2012).

Davis, J. (1990) Youth and the Condition of Britain: Images of Adolescent Conflict. London: Continuum Press.

Deem, R. (1986) ‘All Work and No Play?’ The Sociology of Women and Leisure. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) (2009) Aiming High for Young People. London: DCSF.

France, A. (2009) ‘Young people and anti-social behaviour’, in A. Furlong (ed.), Handbook of Youth and Young Adulthood: New Perspectives and Agendas. London: Routledge, pp. 430–35.

Frith, S. (1978) The Sociology of Rock. London: Constable.

Furlong, A. and Cartmel, F. (2007) Young People and Social Change: New Perspectives. 2nd edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Griffin, C., Bengry-Howell, A., Hackley, C., Mistral, W. and Szmigin, I. (2009) ‘“Every time I do it I absolutely annihilate myself”: loss of (self)-consciousness and loss of memory in young people’s drinking narratives’, Sociology, 43 (3): 457–76.

The Guardian (2012) ‘Enduring myths about rape victims lead to acquittals’, 30 January. www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/30/rape-victims-acquittals-chiefprosecutor (accessed 7 July 2012).

Hall, S. and Winlow, S. (2006) Violent Night: Urban Leisure and Contemporary Culture. London: Berg.

Hendry, L. (1983) Growing Up and Going Out: Adolescents and Leisure. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.

Hendry, L., Shucksmith, J., Love, J.G. and Glendinning, A. (1993) Young People’s Leisure and Lifestyles. London: Routledge.

Livingstone S. (2003) ‘Children’s use of the Internet: reflections on an emerging research agenda’, New Media and Society, 5 (2): 147–66.

MacDonald, R. and Marsh (2005) Disconnected Youth? Growing Up in Britain’s Poor Neighbourhoods. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

McRobbie, A. (1978) ‘Working class girls and the culture of femininity’, in Women’s Studies Group: Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham, Women Take Issue: Aspects of Women’s Subordination. London: Hutchinson, pp. 96–108.

Nayak, A. (2003) Race, Place and Globalisation: Youth Cultures in a Changing World. Oxford: Berg.

Newburn, T. and Hayman, S. (2002) Policing, Surveillance and Social Control: CCTV and Police Monitoring of Suspects. Cullopton: Willan Publishing.

Ogden, C. and Carroll, M. (2010) The Prevalence of Obesity Among Children and Adolescents. United States Trends 1963–65 through 2007–08. www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_07_08/obesity_child_07_08.pdf (accessed 7 July 2012). ONS (2005) Social Trends 35. London: Office for National Statistics.

Roberts, K. (1983) Youth and Leisure. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Roberts, K. (1999) Leisure in Contemporary Society. Wallingford: CABI Publishing.

Rojek. C. (1985) Capitalism and Leisure Theory. London: Routledge.

Rojek, C. (2009) The Labour of Leisure. London: Sage.

Sweeting, H. and West, P. (2003) ‘Young people’s leisure and risk-taking behaviours: changes in gender patterning in the West of Scotland during the 1990s’, Journal of Youth Studies, 6 (4): 391–412.

Whyte, W.F. (1993) Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. 4th edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

12

Youth and Crime

Social scientists tend to make the distinction between crime and deviance, where the former is understood as acts that contravene legal principles that govern behaviour (using hard drugs, for example) and the latter as acts that contravene moral or cultural rules of behaviour (wearing outlandish clothes or sporting a facial tattoo). Such simple distinctions become more complicated when we acknowledge that the power of the media, politicians, law enforcement agencies and public opinion can greatly influence how these categories are constructed. The media focuses attention on violent crime against the person, though in England and Wales it only accounts for around 6 per cent of recorded offences, and although 60 per cent of indictable crime is committed by people over twenty-one years of age, the media focuses a great amount attention on youth offending (Muncie, 1999: 14). More recent surveys suggest that around 20 per cent of recorded crimes in England and Wales involve violence against the person and 40 per cent of first time offenders are young adults (Natale, 2010: 2). In other countries such as the USA surveys suggest that though significant numbers of young people are involved in offending they make up a minority of those arrested – 16 per cent of arrests for violent crimes and 26 per cent for property crimes in 2008 (CDC, 2010: 2). Nevertheless despite these data there are regular moral panics about rising youth crime (The Telegraph, 2008), which result in the general public developing inaccurate perceptions of the incidence of youth offending. Recent examples in the UK have centred on youth gangs and knife crime, whereas overall incidents of knife crime were falling against a media campaign that suggested significant increases in young people using knives against each other (British Crime Survey, 2008; Silvestri et al., 2009).

Around 40 per cent of indictable offences in England and Wales are committed by young people under twenty-one years of age and some three quarters are committed by males (Muncie, 1999: 14). The majority of offences involved theft and handling stolen property. One international study of crime found that in England and Wales incidents of young people (aged fourteen to sixteen) convicted or cautioned for a violent crime rose from 360 per 100,000 in 1986 to 580 per 100,000 in 1994 but, like crime more generally in the UK and other societies, youth offending fell after 1994 (NACRO, 2003; Pitts, 2008). Though as Pitts (2008) notes, citing data from the 1992 British Crime Survey that uses qualitative interviews with householders, the spatial distribution of crime has been changing with a greater concentration in poorer areas in UK. Hence those living in disadvantaged areas ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Making Sense of Young People Today?
• Foundational Concepts, Issues and Debates
• Major Concepts, Issues and Debates