This text critically evaluates what it means to be a young person at the beginning of the 21st century, and the problems, opportunities and dilemmas that emerge from the experience. The work is concerned with putting key conceptual debates to do with youth in a comparative cutting-edge empirical context. In particular, it endeavours to transcend what its contributors feel is one of the most damaging trends of modern work on the question of youth, namely the division between young people's transitions and youth culture. Building upon the notion of lifestyle as a means of bridging this gap, the work offers a way of linking young people's broader structural concerns with the cultural and community contexts within which they conduct their everyday lives. The data discussed in the volume emanates from a comparative European Union project conducted in Great Britain, Germany and Portugal.
The three training programmes examined are based on the performing arts, but the authors argue that the skills young people glean from these courses are more to do with generic skills - such as the ability to work effectively in groups, mutual responsibility, discipline and above all, confidence - than the technical proficiencies of performance. These courses become an important part of the young people's lives and as such, provide a space within which they "become themselves". In this sense, the text highlights the fact that, far from being passive recipients of public policy, young people actively engage with the power structures that combine to shape their lives.
- ISBN10 0754619761
- ISBN13 9780754619765
- Publish Date 18 September 2002
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 28 November 2014
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Imprint Ashgate Publishing Limited
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 152
- Language English