Young people's lives continue to be the topic of public scrutiny and recurring 'moral panics'. Smoking cannabis, speeding, and engaging in street-level fights are depicted as activities based on 'poor choices' or simple hedonism, putting young people's futures at risk. Based on comprehensive, qualitative research with young people in Denmark, this book illustrates how such individualised accounts miss out on the inherently social character of risk-taking activities. Youth, Risk, Routine introduces a new approach to risk-taking activities as being an integral and routinised part of young people's everyday life. By applying social theories of practice, this insightful volume presents a framework for understanding the routinised dimensions of young people's engagement in risk-taking and how this is embedded in, intertwined with, and held in place by other everyday practices. Indeed, through extensive empirical analyses of the rich material at hand, the authors explore how routinisation, coordination, embodiment, and social context are central aspects for understanding how, why, and when young people engage in risk-taking practices. Youth, Risk, Routine will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, criminology, and social work as well as wider social science audiences, particularly those interested in exploring the empirical potential of social theories of practice.

Over recent decades criminological research has changed from a gender-blind discipline which equated crime with men and thus ignored questions about gender, to an approach that studied gender by showing statistical differences between men and women, and then finally to a more inclusive and elaborate gender-theoretical approach to crime and crime control. However, despite this development, research on gender - and in particular research on gendered norms and the construction and enactment of masculinities - within the criminological field has been unable to keep up with developments in gender research. Since 1990, only a few anthologies with a gender-theoretical orientation focusing on masculinities within the criminological research field have been published. Many of the theoretical developments in gender research still have difficulties in reaching into mainstream criminology, partly because such developments are often published in feminist and/or gender theoretical journals. This volume both problematizes and renders visible conceptions and norms regarding male behaviour and masculinities and shows how these affect the criminological field through providing a theoretically sound and clear gender perspective to this field of research. With sections based around the following three themes: negotiations of masculinity in institutional settings, vulnerable masculinities and risk-taking and masculinities, this volume will be of interest to scholars of criminology, sociology, social work and gender studies, as well as policy-makers, and law enforcement professionals.

Young people's lives continue to be the topic of public scrutiny and recurring 'moral panics'. Smoking cannabis, speeding, and engaging in street-level fights are depicted as activities based on 'poor choices' or simple hedonism, putting young people's futures at risk. Based on comprehensive, qualitative research with young people in Denmark, this book illustrates how such individualised accounts miss out on the inherently social character of risk-taking activities. Youth, Risk, Routine introduces a new approach to risk-taking activities as being an integral and routinised part of young people's everyday life. By applying social theories of practice, this insightful volume presents a framework for understanding the routinised dimensions of young people's engagement in risk-taking and how this is embedded in, intertwined with, and held in place by other everyday practices. Indeed, through extensive empirical analyses of the rich material at hand, the authors explore how routinisation, coordination, embodiment, and social context are central aspects for understanding how, why, and when young people engage in risk-taking practices. Youth, Risk, Routine will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, criminology, and social work as well as wider social science audiences, particularly those interested in exploring the empirical potential of social theories of practice.