Politics, culture & society in the New Europe
1 total work
Since the emergence of an autonomous youth identity in the 1950s, youth culture has been a constant feature of political and social debate in France. This book provides an understanding of the relationship between youth and society at the crux of such debates by analyzing the relationship from both sides.Chris Warne looks first at the social construction of youth: the attitude of the state, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the debate raged as to how this new group should be "socialized"; the political and civil engagement of young people, especially with regard to the events of May 1968; and the relationship of youth to family, employment and education. The second major theme is the evolution of the cultural practice of young people. Warne explores the represenation of young people by mass media and commercial interests point out that this has usually concentrated on the more threatening aspects of youth: the figure of the potentially violent, usually male delinquent outsider. From the French version of the teddy boy ("blouson noir") of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the young politico of the 1968 demonstrations (the hippy or "enrage"), the nihilistic, street-wis