Using the Concept of Generation in Youth Sociology

Abstract

While youth studies is a diverse area of research, two approaches commonly labelled ‘transitions’ and ‘cultures’ have dominated the field over recent years. The ‘transitions’ perspective focuses on young people’s transitions to adult statuses, particularly the transition from education to employment. The cultures perspective investigates young people’s cultural practices – particularly involving music and ‘style’ – investigating among other questions the potential political content of these practices and their role in identity creation. Researchers working primarily in one approach have tended towards either indifference or antagonism towards research from the other approach. Yet the separation between the two is becoming more difficult to sustain as the changing contexts of young lives highlight the necessary intersection of complex, often messy, transitions to adulthood with young people’s cultural practices. Concurrently, theoretical approaches, new and old are gaining influence within youth studies that challenge the separation of structural patterns and cultural responses. This chapter traces the history of the transitions and cultures strands of youth research, as well as the ongoing efforts to bridge the divide between the two. The chapter finishes by looking at recent attempts to work across the two approaches using the concept of ‘generations’.