NCJ Number
115279
Date Published
Unknown
Length
37 pages
Annotation
This paper traces and critically reviews youth culture sociology in the United States and Great Britain, with attention to youth radicalization, moral panics, family influences, patriarchy, race relations, and 'forgotten forms of labor.'
Abstract
A discussion of youth culture theory from the 1960's addresses youth culture as the focal point for dissent and challenge to the status quo among middle-class youth. This is followed by the 'moral panic' about the behavior of working class youth at the end of the 1960's. A feature of the latter discussion is the theoretical model of 'deviancy amplification,' which views deviancy as an escalation of unacceptable behavior as the social response to initial problem behavior trends to alienate problem youth from youth viewed as normative. The 1970's saw a focus on family life and social attitudes as factors in the molding of youth culture. Patriarchal attitudes are examined as factors in the molding of youth culture, particularly as it determines the divergent behavioral development of juvenile males and females. The late 1970's saw some British studies on the impact of interactions between working-class white and black youth, as working-class white youth sought to reassure themselves of their superiority to black youth involved in the same kinds of labor. Some areas of youth behavior which have not received much attention in youth culture studies include behaviors associated with housework (female juveniles), service-sector wage work, the informal economy, and sexual behaviors. Neglect of the latter area is apparently changing with the current focus on high-risk sexual behaviors associated with the transmission of AIDS. 4 notes, 62-item bibliography.