Youth, Culture and Society

The University of Birmingham School of Social Sciences

Course Convenor: Prof. Hilary Pilkington, CREES

Office hours: Offices hours: Wednesdays 11-1, European Research Institute, (Elms Rd) 3^rd floor, Room 359

Lecturers: Prof. Hilary Pilkington, CREES, Andrew Bengry-Howell, Psychology, Dr Peter Webb, Sociology, Dr Gordon Lynch, Theology, Dr Stephen Webber, CREES, Dr Kerry Longhurst, IGS.

Availability: Second year undergraduate students from the School of Social Sciences and second year students from the Schools of Psychology, Geography and Arts and Humanities.

Credit value: 20 credits

Pre-requisites/Co-requisites: None

Student commitment: One two hour lecture/seminar weekly. One-hour classes are held twice a term (see below for dates). Attendance at classes is compulsory.

Time/place: Wednesdays 9-11 am. Arts Lecture Room 3

Assessment: First: Essay (max. 2000 words) to be submitted by 4pm on Monday, 12^th January 2004

Second: Project (max 4,000 words) to be submitted by 4pm on Wednesday 28^th April, 2004.

Course description

The course explores questions of youth and its cultures in contemporary societies in global, national and local contexts. It is interdisciplinary in nature and covers four key themes: the academic study of youth; youth in society (citizenship, transition from school to work, state policy and interventions, social inclusion and exclusion); youth cultural practice ('subculture', globalisation, consumption and identity, race and gender in youth cultural practice); and youth in the community (democratic participation, creative and artistic projects, youth and public space). The course draws on texts from a range of disciplines within the Social Sciences to allow students to develop an interdisciplinary social science approach building on the disciplines of their home departments.

Course objectives

To provide students with a thorough knowledge and critical understanding of youth as an object of academic study; To facilitate the study of the experience of a particular social group within global, national and local contexts; To introduce students to professionals working with youth in the community and provide the opportunity to conduct project work based on youth activity in the local community.

Reading

The key reading for each week is collated in a course pack obtainable from General Office, Sociology and Cultural Studies, 32 Pritchatts Rd.

Other recommended texts

The course pack contains key readings for each session and background reading is available in the library. The following books appear more than once in the reading list and you may consider purchasing them to supplement the course pack. It is not required that you do so.

Bennett, A. (2000) Popular Music and Youth Culture, Macmillan.

Bynner, J., Chisholm, L. and Furlong, A. (eds) (1997) Youth, Citizenship and Social Change in a European Context, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Cohen, P. Rethinking the Youth Question. Education, Labour and Cultural Studies. Macmillan, 1997.

Thornton, S. (1995), Club Cultures: music, media and subcultural capital. Polity Press, Cambridge.

Gelder, K. and Thornton, S. The Subcultures Reader. Routledge, 1997.

J. Roche and S. Tucker (eds) Youth in Society: Contemporary Theory. Policy and Practice, Open University Press/Sage, 1997.

Skelton, T. and Valentine, G. (eds) Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures, Routledge, 1998

Back, L.(1996) New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Racisms and Multiculture in Young Lives. London, UCL Press.

Furlong, A. and Cartmel, P., Young People and Social Change: Individualization and risk in late

modernity. Open University Press, 1997.

Recommended websites

http://www.dfee.gov.uk/socialexcl [UK government Social Exclusion Unit]

http://www.coe.fr/youth/home.htm [Council of Europe and Youth]

http://www.nya.org.uk/ [National Youth Agency]

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Sections/music.html [site with on-line articles on youth culture and popular music and links to on-line journals such as NME, Mixmag etc] http://www.ncl.ac.uk/youthnightlife/home.htm

Course Outline, Academic year 2003-04

Autumn Term

Week 1:1 October 2003 Introduction to the course

This session introduces the course and its objectives, the form seminars will take and assessment requirements.

Bloc 1 The origins of the Academic study of Youth

Week 2: 8^th October 2003

Keeping it real: Youth issues for the 21st century Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

In this session we will discuss what constitute 'youth issues' and 'youth research'. We will uncover some of the key themes in current academic and media debates on youth and youth culture and consider how the agenda for the study of youth as a subject of society and culture in the new millennium is being constructed.

Questions

Why do youth studies need to 'keep it real'?

What should we study about youth in the twenty-first century?

Key reading

P. Cohen and P. Ainley 'In the country of the blind? Youth studies and cultural studies in Britain'. Journal of Youth Studies, vol.3, no.l, 2000, pp.79-95. [ISSN13676261]

Media articles reviewing 'Da Ali G show' [to be provided at the lecture]

Background reading

Bennett, A, Cieslik, M and Miles, S. (eds) Researching Youth, Palgrave MacMillan

[published November 2003, on order]

Bennett, A. (2000) ‘The sociology of youth culture' Chapter 1 of Popular Music and Youth Culture, Macmillan, pp.11-33.

Bucholtz, M. (2002) 'Youth and cultural practice', Annual Review of Anthropology, 31: 525-52.

Cohen, P. 'Rethinking the youth question' (Chapter 7) in Rethinking the Youth Question, Education, Labour and Cultural Studies. Macmillan, 1997.

Fornäs, J. and Bolin, G. (eds.), (1995), Youth Culture in Late Modernity, London, Sage

Gillis, J. Youth and History, Academic Press, New York and London, 1974.

Hollands, R. (2002) 'Divisions in the Dark: Youth cultures, transitions and segmented consumption spaces in the night-time economy', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol, 5, no.2, pp. 153-71.

Miles, S. (2000) Youth Lifestyles in a Changing World, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, Chapters 1-4.

Pearson, G. 'Victorian boys, we are here!' in K. Gelder and S. Thornton (eds) The Subcultures

Reader. Routledge, 1997. pp.281-92.

Willis, P. Common Culture. Open University Press, 1990.

Week 3: 15^th October 2003

Sociological approaches to youth studies: Subcultures and moral panics

Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

This session traces key strands in the sociology of youth as it has developed through the twentieth century. It considers the significance of the Chicago School and the four main theories associated with it - social disorganisation, early subcultural theory, differential association, and labelling - in establishing the key question of the relative balance between structure and agency, location and biography in understanding young people's life trajectories.

Questions

1. In what sense, if any, do contemporary sociological debates on youth draw on the pioneering research of the Chicago School?
2. Does the 'individualization' of experiences associated with late modern society mean that young people's life chances are becoming less determined by the social divisions of modern society (race, class and gender)?

Key Reading

Downes, D. and Rock, P. (1990) ‘The University of Chicago Sociology Department’ in Understanding deviance: A guide to the sociology of crime and rule breaking, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.57-87. [0-19-876-213-5]

Background Reading

Cohen, A. (1997) 'A general theory of subcultures', in Gelder, K. and Thornton, S. (eds) The Subcultures Reader, Routledge, pp.44-54.

Cohen, S. Folkdevils and Moral Panics, Routledge, 2002 [new edition]

D Downes and P Rock (1990) Understanding deviance: A guide to the sociology of crime and rule breaking, Oxford: Clarendon Press, Chapter on 'Culture and Subculture'

Clifford Shaw (1930) The Jack Roller, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ken Plummer (1992) Documents of Life, London: Unwyn Hyman.

Willis, P. (1981) Learning To Labor. How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, New York, Columbia University Press.

Week 4: 22nd October 2003

Sociological Approaches to Youth: Transition Theories

It reviews also the roots of'youth transition' studies in developmental and functionalist understandings of youth as a period of socialization into adult society. Finally we will look at how the notion of 'transition' (from school to work, from family of origin to family of destination, and from dependent to independent living) is being re-evaluated in conditions of late modernity and ask whether these changes might help us see how to bridge the gap between cultural and sociological studies of youth?

Key Reading

Nagel, U. and Wallace, Ñ. 'Participation and identification in risk societies: European perspectives' in J.Bynner, L.Chisholm and A.Furlong (eds) (1997) Youth, Citizenship and Social Change in a European Context, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited., pp. 42-55 Miles, S, Cliff, D. and Burr, V. (1998) 'Fitting in and sticking out': Consumption, consumer meanings and the construction of young people's identities', Journal of Youth Studies, 1,1: 81-91.

Background Reading

Ball, S., Maguire, M. and Macrae, S. (2000) Choice, Pathways and Transitions Post-16: New Youth, New Economies in the Global City, London: Routledge/Falmer.

Bynner, J. (2001) 'British youth transitions in comparative perspective', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol,4, no.l, pp.5-24.

Furlong, A. and Cartmel, F., Young People and Social Change: Individualization and risk in late modernity, Open University Press, 1997. pp.27-39and 109-114.

Miles, S. (2000) Youth Lifestyles in a Changing World, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, Chapters 2-4.

R. Hollands (2002) 'Divisions in the Dark: Youth cultures, transitions and segmented consumption spaces in the night-time economy', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol, 5, no.2, pp. 153-71.

Hollands, R. G. (1990). The Long Transition. Class, Culture and Youth Training, London, Macmillan.

Johnson, L., MacDonald, R, Mason, P., Ridley, L and Webster, C. (2000) Snakes and Ladders: Young People, Transitions and Social Exclusion, Bristol: Policy Press.

R. Thomson, R. Bell, J. Holland, S. Henderson, S. McGrellis and S. Sharpe (2002) 'Critical Moments: Choice, Chance and Opportunity in Young People's narratives of Transition', Sociology. Vol. 36 (2): 335-54.

Week 5: 29^th October 2003

Youth, the 'underclass' and 'social exclusion'

Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

This session traces the emergence of underclass theory in the arguments of the U.S. Radical Right during the late 1980s, and its impact on British social theory and government policy through the 1990s and up to the present. British sociologist Rob MacDonald (1997) has argued that the impact of underclass theory in Britain has focused in particular on the position of working class youth, and the session will consider his work and other research studies that question the existence of a youth underclass in Britain. The session will employ debates about drug use among young people to explore the complexities of understanding the 'roots' of social exclusion.

Questions

How, and why, are young people viewed as prime subjects of the 'underclass'?

What is the relationship between drug use/misuse among youth and social exclusion?

Key reading

MacDonald, R. and Marsh, J. (2001)'Disconnected youth?', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 4, no.4, 373-91.

Background reading

Ball, S., Maguire, M. and Macrae, S. (2000) Choice, Pathways and Transitions Post-16: New Youth, New Economies in the Global City, London: Routledge/Falmer, chapter 4 'At risk of social exclusion: Debra and Ayesha', pp.42-57.

Coles, B. 'Vulnerable youth and processes of social exclusion: a theoretical framework, a review of recent research and suggestions for a future research agenda' in J. Bynner, L. Chisholm and A. Furlong (eds) (1997) Youth, Citizenship and Social Change in a European Context, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited.pp pp.69-87

Griffin, C. (1993) Representations of youth. Polity Press, chapters 3 and 6.

MacDonald, R. (ed) (1997) ‘Dangerous youth and the dangerous class' in Youth, the 'underclass' and social exclusion, London: Routledge. [ISBN: 0-415-15830-3.]

Young, J. (1999) The exclusive society: Social exclusion, crime and difference in late modernity. London: Sage. ISBN: 0-8039-8151-1. chapter 1. pp. 1-29.

Phoenix, A. (1990) Young mothers? Cambridge: Polity Press. [ISBN: 0-7456-0854-X]. chapter 1. pp. 18-35

Measham, F. Aldridge, J. and Parker, H. (2001) Dancing on Drugs. Risk, Health and Hedonism in the British Club Scene. London and New York: Free Association Books, Chapters 1 and 5 [on order]

Parker, H., Aldridge, J and Measham, F. (1998) Illegal Leisure. The Normalization of adolecent recreational drug use, London and New York: Routledge.

MacGregor, S. (1999) 'Medicine, Custom or moral fibre: Policy responses to drug misuse', in N.South (ed.) Drugs. Cultures, Controls and Everyday Life, London: Sage. [on order] Bentley. Ò., Oakley, Ê et al (1999) The Real Deal. What young people really think about government, politics and social exclusion, London:Demos

M.Shiner and T.Newburn Taking tea with Noel: the place and meaning of drug use in everyday life', in N.South (ed.) Drugs: Cultures, Controls and Everyday Life, London, Sage, 2000, pp.139-15

Week 6: 5th November 2003

Class: Reflections on sociological theories of youth Lecturers: Hilary Pilkington and Andrew Bengry-Howell

The course will be divided into smaller groups for a one-hour discussion of issues raised in the seminars in Bloc 1. As preparation, key readings for all the seminars should be read.

Questions for discussion

What strategies are employed by young people to negotiate 'exclusion'? How successful are such strategies?

What are the key concerns of the sociology of youth? How have they changed during the course of the twentieth century?

Week 7: 12^th November 2003

Library week

Bloc 2: Youth cultural studies

Week 8: 19^th November

Cultural approaches to youth studies Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

This seminar traces developments in cultural theorizing about youth from the 1940s to the 1980s. It compares functionalist, understandings of youth as passive receivers of 'dominant culture' ('teenage consumers') with the radical, cultural theories that emerged from the Frankfurt School ('mass culture') and Birmingham School (CCCS 'resistance through rituals'). The session aims to highlight not only the theoretical differences underpinning these different approaches to youth, but also the historical contexts of their evolution (post-Second World War, western affluence in the case of the former and post-68 reassessment of class politics and economic slump in the case of the latter).

Questions

What were the key components of the CCCS notion of 'youth subculture' and how did it differ from earlier subcultural theories?

In what ways did cultural readings of youth challenge contemporary sociological understandings?

Key reading

P. Cohen 'Subcultural conflict and working-class community' [1972], in K. Gelder and S. Thornton (eds) The Subcultures Reader, Routledge, 1997, pp.90-9. [ISBN 0-415-12727-0]]

Background Reading

Abrams, M. (1959) The Teenage Consumer, London: London Press Exchange.

Brake, M. 'Just another brick in the wall. British studies of working-class youth cultures' (Chapter 3) of Comparative Youth Culture, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.

J.Clarke (1973) 'Skinheads and the study of youth culture¹, CCCS stencilled occasional paper 23, CCCS Birmingham.

Furlong, A. and Cartmel, F., Young People and Social Change: Individualization and risk in late modernity, Open University Press, 1997.

K. Gelder and S. Thornton (eds) The Subcultures Reader, Routledge, 1997, Part Two ‘The Birmingham Tradition and Cultural Studies’ pp.83-144.

S.Hall and T.Jefferson (eds) Resistance through Rituals. Youth subcultures in post-war Britain, Hutchinson, 1976.

Hebdige, D. Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Methuen, 1979.

Pilkington, H. 'On the road to nowhere? Understanding youth culture in the West', Chapter 1 of Russia's Youth and Its Culture: A Nation's Constructors and Constructed, Routledge, 1994, especially pp.14-35.

Willis, P. Learning to Labour, Saxon House, 1977.

Week 9: 26^th November 2003

Post-subcultural theories: from critique to rejection

Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

This session traces the origins of post-subcultural theories of youth back to early race and gender

critiques of the CCCS. Such critiques questioned not only the object of empirical investigation at the core of youth subcultural studies (white, male, working-class youth involved in 'spectacular' subcultures) but in so doing, revealed the multiplicity, diversity and hybridity of youth identities.

The session also shows how these fundamental critiques have been central to defining new empirical and theoretical agendas in youth cultural studies.

Questions

Who, and what, was missing from youth subcultural theories as developed by the CCCS?

How, and how effectively, have race and gender critiques challenged youth subcultural theory?

Key reading

Bennett, A. 'Subcultures or neo-tribes? Rethinking the relationship between youth, style and musical taste', Sociology, Vol.33, no.3, August 1999, Cambridge University Press, pp.599-617. [ISSN 0038-0385]

Background reading

L. Back (1997) '"Pale shadows": Racisms, masculinity and multiculture', in J. Roche and S. Tucker (eds) Youth in Society: Contemporary Theory, Policy and Practice, Open University Press/Sage, 1997, pp.35-48.

Clarke, G. 'Defending ski-jumpers: A critique of theories of youth sub-cultures', CCCS Stencilled Occasional paper, no.71, University of Birmingham, 1982 [this paper is partially reproduced in Gelder. K. and Thornton, S. (eds) The Subcultures Reader, Routledge, 1997, pp. 175-80].

P. Gilroy (1987) There ain't no Black in the Union Jack. The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. Unwin Hyman. pp. 153-222. [ISBN 0-415-08410-5]

Leonard, M. 'Paper planes. Travelling the new grrrl geographies' in T. Skelton and G.Valentine (eds) Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London and New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 101-20.

A. McRobbie (1980) 'Settling accounts with subcultures - a feminist critique', Screen Education 34, pp.37-49. [ISSN 0306-0691]

A. McRobbie and M. Nava (eds) Gender and Generation, Macmillan, 1984.

Roman, L. (1988) 'Intimacy, labor, and class: ideologies of feminine sexuality in the punk slam dance', in L.Roman and L. Christian-Smith (eds) Becoming Feminine: The Politics of Popular Culture, London: The Palmer Press.

Muggleton, D., Inside Subculture. The Postmodern Meaning of Style, Oxford, Berg, 2000, chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 1-32).

G. Stahl 'Still winning space? Updating subcultural theory' in Invisible Culture. An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies, 1999, accessible at http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/issue2 /stahl.htm

Thornton, S. (1995), Club Cultures: music, media and subcultural capital, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 1-25 and pp. 116-62.

H.Wulff (1995) 'Inter-racial friendship: consuming youth styles, ethnicity and teenage femininity in South London', in V.Amit-Talai and H.Wulff (eds) Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, London: Routledge.

Week 10: 3rd December 2003

Post - Subcultures, Scenes, Neo-Tribes, and Milieus. Lecturer: Pete Webb

There has been much debate about the nature and organisation of contemporary youth culture and particularly youth culture based around music and style. This session explores some of the competing discourses that have emerged post-subcultural theory. The theory of Subculture dominated academic discourse on youth and music throughout the 1970's and 80's since then competing theories have tried to grapple with the changing terrain of cultural life in 1990's through to the new century. We will explore these competing theories through a discussion of contemporary music scenes and a look at theory that attempts to illuminate the current constellation of youth practices.

Key reading:

Cohen, S. (1999) 'Scenes', in B. Horner and T. Swiss (eds), Key Terms in popular Music and Culture, Blackwell, chapter 18.

Webb, P. (2004) 'Interrogating the production of sound and place: The Bristol Phenomenon, from Lunatic Fringe to Worldwide Massive', in Sheila Whiteley, Andy Bennett and Stan Hawkins (eds) Music, Space and Place: Popular Music and Cultural Identity, Ashgate Press.

Additional Reading:

Longhurst, Brian. 1995: Popular Music and Society. Polity Press, chapter 7.

Cohen, S. 1991: Rock Culture in Liverpool: popular music in the making. Oxford: Clarendon.

Finnegan, R. 1989: The Hidden Musicians: music making in an English town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shuker, Roy. 2001 or 1994 (2^nd Edition better): Understanding Popular Music. Routledge, chapter 11.

Negus, K. 1996: Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction. Polity Press, chapters 5 and 6.

Hannerz, U. 1990: Cosmopolitans and Locals in World Culture. In M. Featherstone (ed), Global Culture, Sage, pp237-251.

Bennett, A. 2000: Popular Music and Youth Culture: music, identity and place. Macmillan, chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Hebdige, D. 1979. Subculture the Meaning of Style. London: Methuen.

Willis, P. 1978. Profane Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Muggleton. D. 2000. Inside Subculture: The Postmodern meaning of Style. Berg: Oxford.

Week 11: 10th December 2003

Class: Reflections on youth cultural studies

Lecturers: Hilary Pilkington and Andrew Bengry-Howell

The course will be divided into smaller groups for a one hour discussion of issues raised in the seminars in Bloc 2. As preparation, key readings for all the seminars should be read.

1. What were the key components of the CCCS notion of 'youth subculture'? How did it differ from earlier subcultural theories? Who and what were missing from these theories?
2. What evidence is there in everyday cultural practice that young people's cultural identities are 'fleeting' and 'unfixed'?

Semester Two

Week 1: 14^th January 2003,

Class: Thinking about a project Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

In this class we will discuss the project assessment, outlining what is expected and how to formulate your ideas into a feasible project. Advice will be given on suitable topics and how to go about establishing the contacts you might need.

Bloc 3 Youth Cultural Practice

Week 2: 21st January 2004

'Rave' and the new dance culture Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

This session looks at recent texts on 'rave' and club cultures to explore new themes dominating contemporary research in youth culture including: gender, the body and sexuality; identity and community; the club and its role in negotiating the late modern city; 'classlessness' and subcultural capital.

Questions

1. Is the dance scene 'classless'?
2. What is it in the practice of 'rave/dance culture' which has caused sociologists to rethink how youth cultural identities are formed?

Key reading

B. Malbon 'Clubbing: Consumption, Identity and the Spatial Practices of Every-Night Life', in T. Skelton and G.Valentine (eds) Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London and New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 266-88. [ISBN 0-415-14920-7]

Background reading

A. Bennett (2000) 'Dance music, local identity and urban space', Chapter 4 of Popular Music and Youth Culture, Macmillan.

Ingham, J. (1999) 'Listening back from Blackburn: virtual sound worlds and the creation îf temporary autonomy' in A. Blake (ed.) Living Through Pop, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 112-28.

Richard, B. and Kruger, H. (1998) 'Ravers' paradise? German youth cultures in the 1990s' in T. Skelton and G.Valentine (eds) Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 161-174.

McRobbie, A. 'Shut up and dance: Youth culture and changing modes of femininity', (chapter 9) of Postmodernism and Popular Culture, Routledge, 1994.

Malbon, B. Clubbing, Routledge, 1999.

Pini, M. (1998) 'Peak practices': The production and regulation of ecstatic boides' in J. Wood (ed.) The Virtual Embodied: Presence/Practice/Technology, Routledge. Pp. 168-77.

Redhead, S. (ed.) (1997) The Clubcultures Reader, Blackwell, Chapters 7 and 9.

Thornton, S. (1995), Club Cultures: music, media and subcultural capital, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp. 98-115. [ISBN 0-7456-1442-6]

Week 3: 28^th January 2004

"Generation X", popular culture and the pursuit of meaning Lecturer: Gordon Lynch

This session will examine the notion, proposed by the American theologian Tom Beaudoin, that 'Generation X' is now more likely to find religious meaning in life through engaging with popular cultural 'events' or 'texts', than through participating in traditional religious institutions. We will spend time critiquing his ideas by examining his 'theological' reading of the video to REM's song 'Losing My Religion' and by considering the potential significance for viewers of the religious themes and symbols in the film 'The Matrix'. This will lead into discussion of the degree of significance the pursuit of religious meaning has in contemporary youth cultures.

Questions

1. What is the significance of the term "Generation X"?
2. To what extent is the pursuit of religious meaning a significant part of contemporary youth cultures?

Key reading

Beaudoin, T. (1998) Virtual Faith. Chichester: Jossey-Bass, pp.21-36 and 41-47. The Matrix (1999), film directed by Andy & Larry Wachowski.

Background reading

Baker, J. (2001) 'Alternative worship and the significance of popular culture,' at

http://freespace.virgin.net/adam.baxter/grace/zine/altworshipandmodernculture.html

Coupland, D. (1991) Generation X. London: Abacus.

Coupland, D. (1994) Life After God. London: Simon & Schuster.

Coupland, D. (1998) Girlfriend in a Coma. London: HarperCollins.

Lynch, G. (2002) 'After Religion: "Generation X" and the Search for Meaning'. London: Darton, Longman and Todd.

Muggleton, D. (2000) Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style. Oxford: Berg.

Riddell, M., Pierson, M. & Kirkpatrick, C. (2000) The Prodigal Project: Journey into the Emerging Church. London: SPCK.

The Coupland File: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/5560/index.html

Week 4: 4th February 2004

'Global' youth culture?: Imitation, authenticity

and the localization of hip hop

Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

The increasingly global scope of popular and consumer culture has led to a common sense notion of the existence of a 'global youth culture'. This session uses concrete examples of apparently 'global' contemporary youth cultures (rave and hip hop) to explore the interaction of the global and the local in contemporary youth cultural practice. We will explore the 'local' roots of hip hop in American social (class, race, gender) relations, its commodification and 'globalization' and subsequently chart some of its reworkings in non-American localities. The session will raise questions about how young people outside the global 'core' rework global youth cultural texts in their own cultural practice and thereby construct multiple narratives of the local.

Questions

1. Do youth cultural forms lose their 'authenticity' when they go global?
2. What meanings does hip hop have for white youth?

Key reading

Bennett, A. (1999) 'Hip hop am Main: The localisation of rap music and hip hop culture' Media. Culture and Society, 21, 1: 77-91.

Stuart, Andrea (1992), "Lost in the mix," New Statesman and Society, 7 February, pp.31 -32. Swedenburg, Ted (1992), "Homies in the 'hood: Rap's Commodification of insubordination," New Formations, 18(Winter): 53-66.

Background reading

A. Bennett (2000) Popular Music and Youth Culture, Macmillan, especially chapters 3 ‘The significance of locality’, and chapter 6 'Hip hop am Main, rappin' on the Tyne')

Condry, I. (2000) ‘The social production of diference: Imitation and authenticity in Japanese rap music' in H. Fehrenbach and U. Poiger (eds) Transactions. Transgressions,

Transformations. American Culture in Western Europe and Japan, New York and Oxford:

Berghahn Books, pp. 166-86.

K.Harris, "Roots'?: The Relationship Between the Global and the Local Within the

Global Extreme Metal Scene' Popular Music 19/1 (2000), pp. 13-20.

Huq, R. (1999) 'Living in France: the parallel universe of Hexagonal Pop' in A. Blake (ed.)

Living Through Pop, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 131-45.

D. Massey ‘The spatial construction of youth cultures’ in Skelton, T. and Valentine, G. (eds)

Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures, Routledge, 1998, pp. 121-29.

Mitchell, T. (1996) Popular Music and Local Identity: Rock, Pop and Rap in Europe and Oceania, Leicester University Press, London.

Rose, T. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Wesleyan University Press, 1994. [ISBN 0819562750]

Stapelton, K. (1998)'From the margins to mainstream: the political power of hip-hop', Media, Culture and Society, 20: 219-34

The Hip Hop Years, Channel Four Video (3 parts), September-October 1999

Week 5: 11^th February 2004

'Global' youth culture?: 'Peripheral' youth

Lecturer: Hilary Pilkington

The classic twentieth-century studies of youth culture were rooted in North American and British experience. In the 1990s, however, impressed by the tangible and visible presences of the 'global market' in local, non-western contexts, and by the general debate about globalization and culture, researchers began to focus on 'peripheral' youth as they sought to understand how youth cultural practice was mediated by global flows of texts, signs and cultural products. In this session, we will use examples of a number of studies of cultural practices among 'peripheral' youth to suggest the need for significant qualification of key themes in social theorising of youth (e.g. individual life styles, the dominance of global consumption patterns, social disembedding, and crowd-like behaviour ('neo-tribes') among young people) including the recognition of the importance of group strategies, of specific histories of national identities, and of markers of identity formed around local/global relations of race/ethnicity, sexuality, class, gender and generation.

Questions

1. What do we mean by 'peripheral' youth?

2. How do young people outside the 'global core' engage with 'global' youth cultural trends? Does contemporary theorising of youth culture adequately understand these engagements?

Key Reading

H.Pilkington and R. Johnson (2003) Peripheral youth: Relations of identity and power in global/local context, European Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 6, no.3, pp.259-283.

Background reading

Liechty, M. (1995) 'Modernization, Media and Markets: Youth Identities and the Experience of Modernity in Kathmandu, Nepal', in V. Amit-Talai and H. Wulff, (eds) Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, London: Routledge, pp. 166-201.

Kjeldgaard, D. (2003)'Youth identities in the global cultural economy: central and peripheral consumer culture in Denmark and Greenland,' European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 6, no.3, pp.285-304.

Nayak, A. (2003) 'Ivory lives: economic restructuring and the making of whiteness in a post-industrial youth community', European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 6, no.3, pp.285-304.

E. Salo (2003) 'Negotiating gender and personhood in the new South Africa: adolescent women and gangsters in Manenberg township on the Cape Flats', European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 6, no.3, pp.345-65.

Pilkington, H. (2003) 'Youth and popular culture: The common denominator? In R. Bova (ed.) Russia and Western Civilization: Cultural and Historical Encounters, New York: M.E. Sharpe, pp.319-50. Or Pilkington, H. (2003) 'Youth strategies for glocal living: Space, power and communication in everyday cultural practice', forthcoming in A. Bennett and K.Harris (eds) After Subculture, Palgrave, 2003 [forthcoming, on order].

Yoon, K. (2003) 'Retraditionalizing the mobile: young people's sociality and mobile phone use in Seoul, South Korea', European Journal of Cultural Studies Vol 6, no.3, pp.327-44.

Week 6: 18th February 2004

Class: Reflections on youth cultural practice

Lecturers: Hilary Pilkington and Andrew Bengry-Howell

The course will be divided into smaller groups for discussion of issues raised in the seminars in Bloc 3. As preparation, key readings for all the seminars should be read.

Questions for discussion

1. Are club cultures 'subcultures'?
2. Can youth cultural 'borrowing' facilitate an anti-racist youth cultural practice?
3. Is there a 'global' youth culture?

Week7: 25^th February 2004

Library week

Bloc 4 Youth in the Community

Week 8: 3rd March 2004

Youth, Participation and Active Citizenship

Lecturer: Andrew Bengry-Howell

This session will consider youth participation in the context of growing concern at national and local level about 'non-participation' of young people in politics. It will explore the concepts of citizenship, participation and involvement and how they are being used within the context of an adult-led agenda to engage young people in structured political involvement.

The session will take the example of the creation of youth councils in the UK and consider how effective these forums have been in facilitating young people in making their voices heard at local level.

Questions

1. How does an individual's conceptualisation of politics affect their political participation?
2. Do 'youth councils' provide an effective mechanism for young people to participate in local politics?

Key Reading

Matthews, H. (2001) 'Citizenship, Youth Councils and Young People's Participation', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol.4, no.3, pp.299-318.

Background reading

Miller, D. (2000) 'Citizenship: what does it mean and why is it important?' in Pearce, N., Hallgarten, J. (Eds.) Tomorrow's Citizens: Critical Debates in

Citizenship and Education, London: Institute for Public Policy Research.Pp.26-35

France, A. (1998) ‘Why Should We Care?’: Young People, Citizenship and

Questions of Social Responsibility', Journal of Youth Studies, Vol. 1, No.l, Abingdon: Carfax. Pp. 97-111.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2000) Young People's politics: Political Interest and Engagement amongst 14-24-year-olds, Summary available in pdf format at: http://www.irf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/520.asp

Cutler, D., Frost, D. (2001) Taking the Initiative: Promoting young people's involvement in public decision making in the UK, The Carnegie Young People Initiative Available in pdf format at: http://carnegie.peasy.coin/index.php?page=31

Kirby, P., Bryson, S. (2002) Measuring the Magic? Evaluating and Researching young people's participation in public decision making, London: Carnegie Young People Initiative Available in pdf format at: http://carnegie.peasy.com/index.php?page=31

Week 9: 10^th March 2004

Youth perceptions of global security Lecturers: Dr Steve Webber (CREES) and Dr Kerry Longhurst (IGS)

In this session we will explore the ways in which young people in Europe perceive and respond to issues of 'global' security in the contemporary world, relating this both to the study of security per se, and to what young people's attitudes and actions tell us about the linkage between security and citizenship. Drawing on the work of Waever, Giddens, Beck and others, and on the findings of our recent comparative research project on this subject, we will encourage you to reflect on the following:

• What is 'security' in the post-Cold War and post 9/11 era? To what extent do young people's viewpoints coincide with those of the policy-makers on this question? How far have notions of individual and societal security come to dislodge 'national' security as the focal point of concerns?
• How important are security issues in the everyday lives and concerns of young people?
• Where do young people think the responsibility lies for addressing security problems? What are they prepared to do themselves to seek to resolve security problems?
• What do young people think about the role of the armed forces in particular? How have changing attitudes in society at large (on equal opportunities, towards notions of patriotism, duty, the individual-state relationship, etc) impacted on societal views towards the traditional guarantor of national security?

Key reading

K. Longhurst (2001) 'Youth perceptions of security: young people researching 'high policy', in Clark, J., Dyson, A., Meagher, N., Robson, E. and Wootten, M. (eds) Young People as Researchers: Possibilities, Problems and Politics, Leicester: National Youth Agency, pp.518.

K. Longhurst 'Bringing youth in': Assessing the post-Cold War Generation and Attitudes towards Security, Unpublished working paper, University of Birmingham 2003.