Post-war America was an exciting time. It was an age characterized by backyard barbecues and beach parties, mai-tai cocktails and Ford Mustangs, high school hops, Hawaiian shirts and Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire. This book charts middle-class America's move towards an ethos of conspicuous consumption and sexual license during the fifties and sixties. Focusing on two of the period'smost visible icons -- the swinging bachelor and the vibrant teenager -- this book looks at the interconnected changes that took place for American youth culture and masculinity as consumption and leisure established themselves as the dominant features of middle-class life. The author draws on a wide variety of popular examples--men's magazines, fashion and style, books, film and music--to argue that the bachelor and the teenager were complementary and interrelated stereotypes that shaped America's youth. Magazines such as Esquire and Playboy, and bands like the Beach Boys, framed and shaped a new meaning of the young American male that contrasted sharply with previous values of sobriety and moderation. This book discusses the images and icons that shaped masculinity in particular. By focusing on the changes both in masculine identity and in the form and representation of youth culture, American life is looked at from a fresh and innovative perspective.

This book focuses on the social and intersectional determinants of mental health among youth. The innovative and cutting edge text arises out of multidisciplinary fields of academic, researchers, policy makers, practitioners, artists, and youth. Contributions from Canada, Germany, Portugal, South Korea, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, and Jamaica addresses the complexities and the opportunities for youth across contexts. Each chapter entails an introduction to the topic, literature review and research findings, discussion, and implications in regard to research, policy, and practice. A unique aspect of the book is the inclusion of a critical response to each chapter's content from diverse stakeholders (such as policy makers, front line workers, practitioners, community activists, artists and youth).The book is a critical and current contribution to exploring youth mental health and, specifically, the ways in which youth learn, live, and resist in a world around them. Topics examined include youth social engagement, civic integration, and political participation at multiple local, regional, and transnational levels.

What are the main music preferences of young people in Argentina? How do these preferences fit into Argentinean society, culture, and politics? The essays in this volume show how issues of religion, class, ethnicity, and gender are constructed and negotiated through a variety of musical practices. Rock, cumbia, and romantic music are all examined as elaborations of gender, sexual, class, and ethnic identities for young people, whose socio-musical lives go beyond the traditional stereotypes of Argentina, tango, and passion.

This edited collection focuses on different aspects of everyday violence, harassment and threats in schools. It presents a number of in-depth studies of everyday life in schools and uses examples and case studies from different countries to fuel a discussion on national differences and similarities. The book discusses a broad range of concepts, findings and issues, under the umbrella of three main themes: 1) Power relations, homosociality and violence; 2) Sexualized violence and schooling; and 3) Everyday racism, segregation and schooling. Specific topics include sexuality policing, bullying, sexting, homophobia, and online rape culture. The school is young people's central workplace, and therefore of great importance to students' general feeling of wellbeing, safety and security. However, there is no place where youth are at greater risk of being exposed to harassment and violations than at school and on their way to and from school. Threats are a relatively common experience among school students, but some aspects of these mundane and frequent harassments and violations are not taken seriously and are, therefore, not reported. Harassment and violations often have negative effects on youth and children, and increase their risks of such adverse outcomes as school dropout, drug use, and criminal behaviour. Contemporary research has shown that gender is of great importance to how students handle and report, or do not report, various violent situations. Studies have also revealed how the notions of masculinity and of being a victim can be conflicting identities and affect how students handle situations of threat, violence and harassment. The importance of gender is also particularly evident with regard to sexual harassment. Female students generally report greater exposure to sexual harassment than male students do.

A reassuring, fact-packed book for girls on what to expect when growing up. From Dr Emily MacDonagh, practising NHS doctor and OK! magazine's popular Health and Parenting Columnist. Dr Emily talks about the physical and emotional changes of puberty in a simple and friendly way. Topics include: When and why will your body start to change? How will you feel different and why? What's happening to the boys? Plus expert tips on healthy eating, positive body image, self-esteem, and lots more. With colourful illustrations and useful diagrams. Written in collaboration with a Consultant Paediatrician and School Nurse. Mother of two and step-mother to teenagers, Dr Emily lives with her husband Peter Andre and children in Surrey. Also in Dr Emily's 'Growing Up' series: Growing Up for Boys: Everything You Need to Know

Most of the Muslim societies of the world have entered a demographic transition from high to low fertility, and this process is accompanied by an increase in youth vis-a-vis other age groups. Political scientists and historians have debated whether such a "youth bulge" increases the potential for conflict or whether it represents a chance to accumulate wealth and push forward social and technological developments. This book introduces the discussion about youth bulge into social anthropology using Tajikistan, a post-Soviet country that experienced civil war in the 1990s, which is in the middle of such a demographic transition. Sophie Roche develops a social anthropological approach to analyze demographic and political dynamics, and suggests a new way of thinking about social change in youth bulge societies.

This edited collection provides the first in-depth analysis of social policies and the risks faced by young people. The book explores the effects of both the economic crisis and austerity policies on the lives of young Europeans, examining both the precarity of youth transitions, and the function of welfare state policies.

How do young people get by in hard times and hard places? Have they become a "lost generation" disconnected from society's mainstream? Do popular ideas about social exclusion or a welfare-dependent underclass really connect with the lived experiences of the so-called "disaffected," "disengaged" and "difficult-to-reach"? Based on close-up research with young men and women from localities suffering social exclusion in extreme form," Disconnected Youth?" will appeal to all those who are interested in understanding and tackling the problems of growing up in Britain's poor neighborhoods.

The problem of children 'in trouble' is the subject of repeated media panics and of heated political rhetoric. Drawing on wide-ranging original research, Carol Hayden reviews evidence about children in trouble across a range of circumstances, demonstrating the tensions between welfare and justice, care and control in the treatment of these vulnerable young people and evaluating the methodological as well as practical implications of the current 'what works' debate within social policy. All students and professionals working with children, whether in social work, teaching or the criminal justice system, will find this book invaluable.

Children born during the post-WWII era of peace and prosperity entered history at a time dominated by I-Like-Ike politics and domestic security. As they approached adolescence, however, their world was shaken by major cultural, economic, social, and political upheaval. And although it was time of great innovation and progress, a sense of chaos and bitterness began to envelop the country. It was the a ~60s. For many Americans, a mere mention of this decade evokes an extraordinary time and place in the countrya (TM)s - and their own - history.

Adolescents who had been enjoying the technological and medical advances of the era - television, drive-in movies, rock-and-roll, vaccinations that prevented once-incurable diseases - now were also experiencing the fallout from the Civil Rights Movement, domestic terrorism, stagflation, and (perhaps most significant) the Vietnam War.

From Adolescence to Adulthood in the Vietnam Era provides a unique, detailed, long-term study of the psychological and social worlds of male adolescents who were on the cusp of adulthood as the 1960s were ending. This longitudinal analysis follows adolescent boys who graduated with the class of 1969 and transitioned into adulthood either through military service, full-time employment, or college life. The results examine the different pathways these boys chose and the affect these choices had on their transition from adolescents to young adult men.

What is a 'we' a collective and how can we use such communal self-knowledge to help people? This book is about collectivity, participation, and subjectivity and about the social theories that may help us understand these matters. It also seeks to learn from the innovative practices and ideas of a community of social/youth workers in Copenhagen between 1987 and 2003, who developed a pedagogy through creating collectives and mobilizing young people as participants. The theoretical and practical traditions are combined in a unique methodology viewing research as a contentious modeling of prototypical practices. Through this dialogue, it develops an original trans-disciplinary critical theory and practice of collective subjectivity for which the ongoing construction and overcoming of common sense, or ideology, is central. It also points to ways of relating discourse with agency, and fertilizing insights from interactionism and ideology theories in a cultural-historical framework.

In a constantly changing world, individuals are forever growing to meet the challenges and developments that emerge around them. In contemporary society, technology is at the heart of change. Literature, too, reflects the evolution of culture and increasingly represents and considers technology. And as children become young adults, their reading helps shape their understanding of the world. This book examines representative works of science fiction, children's literature, and popular culture to show how these works reflect the process of growing up in a technological world. The volume looks at the simple picture books and comic books that appeal to small children; the formulaic adventures that fascinate older children; the films and television programs that are watched by children and young adolescents; the music videos and programming that appeal to young adults; and the popular novels that interest older readers. Included are discussions of Superman, the Hardy Boys, Star Trek, science fiction films, and music videos. The book points to similarities among popular culture, science fiction, and children's literature and demonstrates the relevance of these works to contemporary society.

Educating young people about sex and sexuality remains one of the most controversial and political areas of the school curriculum. Drawing on young people's own understandings of their sexual selves, knowledge and practices "Sexual Subjects" considers the implications for how we conceptualize the effectiveness of sexuality education. Reshaping thinking around youthful (hetero)sexualities "Sexual Subjects" challenges current approaches to teaching about sex and sexuality.

This International Volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth shows the breadth of current empirical research that focuses on children and youth around the world. Coming from a range of methodological and theoretical orientations, this volume showcases the lives of children and the policies that shape children's lives on five continents. Across these research articles, it becomes clear that we cannot continue to assume a certain meaning of childhood, because this concept is bound by both cultural and structural factors. Cultural expectations influence how societies view children and how children view themselves. A handful of these studies show how immigrant children and youth provide particularly interesting insight as they navigate more than one cultural context. Structural factors also become salient, as children come from unequal backgrounds, different levels of economic development, and face varying political concerns. While these papers come from different doorsteps of the world, cultural and structural threads of continuity connect them as meaningful for children. This volume illustrates how international childhood researchers can use current concepts and theories into unlikely contexts exposing their limitations and helping to inform more versatile and robust lines of thinking for children and youth studies.

This book examines the lives of the sentenced to argue that 'sentencing' should be re-conceived to consider the human perspective. It combines a range of modern criminological and legal theories together with interviews with prisoners in New South Wales, to examine their lives during and beyond completing the terms of imprisonment, for a more continuous and coherent perspective on the process of 'sentencing'. This book makes a strong argument for the practical advantages of listening to the voices of the sentenced and it is therefore a useful tool for the correctional community engaged in providing services and programmes to reduce recidivism. A methodological and well-researched text, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of criminal justice and the penal system, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

This invaluable addition to Springer s Explorations of Educational Purpose series is a revelatory ethnographic account of the visual material culture of contemporary youths in North America. The author s detailed study follows apparently dissimilar groups (black and Latino/a in a New York City after-school club, and white and Indigenous in a small Canadian community) as they inflect their nascent identities with a sophisticated sense of visual material culture in today s globalized world. It provides detailed proof of how much ethnography can add to what we know about young people s development, in addition to its potential as a model to explore new and significant avenues in pedagogy.

Supported by a wealth of ethnographic evidence, the analysis tracks its subjects responses to strikingly diverse material ranging from autobiographical accounts by rap artists to the built environment. It shows how young people from the world s cultural epicenter, just like their counterparts in the sub-Arctic, construct racial, geographic and gender identities in ways that are subtly responsive to what they see around them, blending localized characteristics with more widely shared visual references that are now universally accessible through the Web. The work makes a persuasive case that youthful engagement with visual material culture is a relational and productive activity that is simultaneously local and global, at once constrained and enhanced by geography, and possesses a potent and life-affirming authenticity. Densely interwoven with young people s perspectives, the author s account sets out an innovative and interdisciplinary conceptual framework affording fresh insights into how today s youth assimilate what they perceive to be significant.

Supported by a wealth of ethnographic evidence, the analysis tracks its subjects responses to strikingly diverse material ranging from autobiographical accounts by rap artists to the built environment. It shows how young people from the world s cultural epicenter, just like their counterparts in the sub-Arctic, construct racial, geographic and gender identities in ways that are subtly responsive to what they see around them, blending localized characteristics with more widely shared visual references that are now universally accessible through the Web. The work makes a persuasive case that youthful engagement with visual material culture is a relational and productive activity that is simultaneously local and global, at once constrained and enhanced by geography, and possesses a potent and life-affirming authenticity. Densely interwoven with young people s perspectives, the author s account sets out an innovative and interdisciplinary conceptual framework affording fresh insights into how today s youth assimilate what they perceive to be significant.

Supported by a wealth of ethnographic evidence, the analysis tracks its subjects responses to strikingly diverse material ranging from autobiographical accounts by rap artists to the built environment. It shows how young people from the world s cultural epicenter, just like their counterparts in the sub-Arctic, construct racial, geographic and gender identities in ways that are subtly responsive to what they see around them, blending localized characteristics with more widely shared visual references that are now universally accessible through the Web. The work makes a persuasive case that youthful engagement with visual material culture is a relational and productive activity that is simultaneously local and global, at once constrained and enhanced by geography, and possesses a potent and life-affirming authenticity. Densely interwoven with young people s perspectives, the author s account sets out an innovative and interdisciplinary conceptual framework affording fresh insights into how today s youth assimilate what they perceive to be significant."

Devoted to understanding and enhancing the education of adolescent students, this title covers areas including: the social structure of the American high school; social relationships and school adjustment; motivation in adolescence; race and gender influences on teen parenting; and school violence.

As a steady source of juvenile delinquents and an incubator for future adult offenders, the youth gang has long been a focus of attention, from their origins and prevalence to intervention and prevention strategies. But while delinquent youth form gangs worldwide, youth gang research has generally focused on the U.S.

"Youth Gangs in International Perspective" provides a needed corrective by offering significant studies from across Europe, as well as Trinidad-Tobago and Israel. The book spans the diversity of the field in the cultural and scholarly traditions represented and methods used, analyzing not only the social processes under which gangs operate and cohere, but also the evolution of the research base, starting with the Eurogang Program's definition of the term "youth gang." Cross-national and gender issues are discussed, as are measurement concerns and the possibility that the American conception of the youth gang is impeding European understanding of these groups. Among the topics covered:

Gang dynamics through the lens of social identity theory.Defining gangs in youth correctional settings.Gang gender composition and youth delinquency.From Stockholm: a holistic approach to gang intervention.Gang membership as a turning point in the life course.The impact of globalization, immigration, and social process on neo-Nazi youth gangs.

Filling a critical gap in the literature, "Youth Gangs in International Perspective" will find a wide audience among criminologists, policymakers specializing in youth crime, and researchers and graduate students in criminology, political science, and youth studies.

"

The story of a girl who is doing everything to hurt herself and a mother who would try anything to try to save her.

True, she had stopped coming down for breakfast. Stayed up in her room, ran out the door late for school, missed the bus and had to have a ride. But you think, well, that's how they are, aren't they, teenagers? And you try to remember how you were, but you were different and the times were different and it was so long ago. And she's suddenly so angry at you, but then, another time, she's just the same. She's just your little girl. You sit with her and you talk about something, or you go shopping for school clothes and everything seems all right. And you forget how you stood in her room and how the center of your stomach felt so cold. When you found the cigarette. When you found the blue pipe. When you found the little bag she said was aspirin.

For the past several years, child advocates, parents, and educators have expressed concern over the sexualization of girls. Has the cultural sexual objectification of girls and women increased? Are younger and younger girls sold a "sexed-up" version of femininity, and are adult women sold a girlish sexuality?
The Sexualization of Girls and Girlhood: Causes, Consequences, and Resistance includes the best empirical research, theory, and practice stemming from the report of the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Contributors discuss evidence for this phenomenon from media and marketing, to interpersonal interaction, to girls' own efforts to fashion themselves after sexualized role models around them. A variety of consequences of the sexualization of girls and girlhood--for girls themselves, for others, and for society at large--are presented. Individual chapters cover topics such as athletics as a solution and problem for the sexualization of girls, sexual harassment by peers, gendered violence, body image, adolescent girls' sexual development, and healthy sexuality for girls and young women. Importantly, positive alternatives and suggestions are included so that those who care for girls can address this troubling cultural trend and help counter the significant risk to girls' wellbeing that it represents. This volume is a valuable resource for child advocates, parents, and educators and useful for undergraduate and graduate courses that address gender across disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, communication, media studies, and women's, and sexuality studies.

From the bestselling author of Necessary Journeys--here is the book every mother of a maturing girl will need to have on her shelf."Just as we once peered over the crib rails to search our newborn daughters' faces for signs of personality or family resemblance, so too, during the years of adolescence, mother and daughter alike will look into the mirror of each other's faces, searching for hints of their past and future selves, of resemblance and connection, as part of a journey of self discovery . . ." --excerpt from Girl in the Mirror Drawing on the latest research and interviews with experts in different fields, Girl in the Mirror sheds new light on one of life's most important passages, the journey that is adolescence. Unlike other books, Girl in the Mirror focuses on the interaction between mother and daughter during this decade-long process, and illuminates how both the mother and her understanding of her parental role need to evolve and change as her child enters a new and crucial phase of emotional and psychic growth. A recognized authority in the field of women's health, Dr. Snyderman lays to rest some of the myths about adolescence, among them: "raging" hormones and inevitable rebellionthe meaning of adolescent "autonomy"the adolescent girl's need for "separation" from her motherthe negative role of peer influences Filled with practical wisdom and stories drawn not only from her experience with her own two adolescent daughters but those of other mothers from around the country, Girl in the Mirror offers readers a new vision: To see the years of adolescence as a time not of conflict but of opportunity for personal and spiritual growth for mothers and daughters alike.

This book challenges and revises existing ways of thinking about leaving care policy, practice and research at regional, national and international levels. Bringing together contributors from fifteen countries, it covers a range of topical policy and practice issues within national, international or comparative contexts. These include youth justice, disability, access to higher education, the role of advocacy groups, ethical challenges and cultural factors. In doing so it demonstrates that, whilst young people are universally a vulnerable group, there are vast differences in their experiences of out-of-home care and transitions from care, and their shorter and longer-term outcomes. Equally, there are significant variations between jurisdictions in terms of the legislative, policy and practice supports and opportunities made available to them. This significant edited collection is essential reading for all those who work with young people from care, including social workers, counsellors, and youth and community practitioners, as well as for students and scholars of child welfare.

This book proposes a new conceptual framework for theorising young people's relationship with crime. It emerges from a critique of the narrow approach advocated by developmental criminology and argues for an analysis that recognises and includes the important contribution that the young themselves can make to the theorising and understanding of their relationship with crime. Explicitly using the voices of a group of working class young people who are defined as 'a social problem', this approach emphasises how criminal identities and pathways are strongly influenced by the interactions embedded in political ecological systems and relationships.
Drawing upon the work of the social psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this book explores young people's 'nested' and 'political' ecological relationships with crime. A Political Ecology of Youth and Crime examines the impacts of these relationships through an empirical investigation of the important 'places' and 'spaces' in young people's lives; in their social relationships with peers and family members; and within formal institutional systems such as education, youth justice and social care. This book makes an important new contribution to how we understand the relationship between youth and crime in the contexts of sociology, criminology, social psychology and education.

Why are young women today deeply unhappy with their own bodies? Why do even young girls inflict serious harm to themselves by dangerous patterns of bingeing and dieting? Drawing on a wide source of feminist perspectives this book examines this epidemic of body-hatred.

Drawing on interviews and focus groups with young mothers and fathers, their parents and other relatives, this book provides a rich exploration of the experience of being a teenage parent now, and for earlier generations, closely examining teenage pregnancy and parenting in families where two or more generations have been teenage mothers. Brown also explores the cultural and social contexts of teenage parenting by including the views of people who have many years' experience of working with young parents in health, social and welfare settings. The book challenges policy contexts which focus on negative aspects of teenage parenting, and shows that for many young people, parenting can be a positive experience. It will appeal to academics, policymakers and professionals with an interest in teenage pregnancy and parenting.