In this article, the city and the urban space shall be understood as a political platform, where identities and powers are bargained, and as a screen on which they are projected. In this context, I will reflect on the strategies of identity management ‘from below’ employed by Tatar young people in Kazan and on their attempt to build a ‘Tatar urban youth culture’. These identity strategies are mainly oriented against the ‘Russian other’, a decadent consumerist West and an (...) ignorant rural Tatar culture and their main issue is the ‘repossessing’ of Kazan and the Tatarisation of the city. Such strategies namely include the use of the Tatar language in predominantly Russophone public spheres, the introduction of Tatar folkloristic elements in music and fashion as well as the appeal to a (lost) Tatar urban culture associated with an enlightened approach to Islam and to the pre-revolutionary Tatar intelligentsia. Tatar youth scenes thus use ethnicity as a resource in the linguistic, religious, historic and cultural (re)appropriation of the urban space, which in turn has to be understood as a symbolic political act in a specific historical as well as ‘glocal’ context. Thus, this article can be seen as a contribution to a critical approach towards cosmopolitanism introducing alternative concepts to reflect relationships, norms and values in urban life. (shrink)

In this article, the city and the urban space shall be understood as a political platform, where identities and powers are bargained, and as a screen on which they are projected. In this context, I...

The motif of ancient beliefs about afterlife and contemporary idea of them appears increasingly in contemporary works directed to young audience. The combination of mythology and history known from ancient sources and popular culture works is essential for reception studies. The paper presents three cases of transformation of characters connected with ancient beliefs about afterlife as protagonists or villains in works directed to youth; Hades as a villain known from Disney’s works, especially Hercules; Persephone and Hades’s love story (...) in three web comics: Underworld Love Story and Hades & Persephone Shorts by Gau Meo and Hades’ Holiday by Elvishness; and the way the Cleopatra VII Philopator’s image in Scooby Doo! in Where’s My Mummy? is different than others representations of the queen. (shrink)

Neste texto analisamos blogs da Internet como espaços educativos nos quais se produzem/constroem as identidades juvenis de indivíduos que buscam se inserir no grupo cultural conhecido como nerd/geek. Inseridos nos Estudos Culturais, na sua vertente pós-moderna e pós-estruturalista, valemo-nos da noção de Representação Cultural para analisar como as identidades são constituídas com a escrita/leitura de blogs disponibilizados na web. Destacamos que a forma como se dá o agrupamento dos jovens que escrevem/leem os blogs é efêmera e espontânea, baseada no prazer (...) de estar junto, no consumo de alguns itens e no estabelecimento de alguns laços afetivos momentâneos. Tal compartilhamento tem semelhança com outras “tribos” urbanas deste início de século XXI. Destacamos, também, que não estamos associando a juventude a uma faixa etária particular, mas, isto sim, a um estilo de vida fortemente ligado ao lazer e ao consumo. Os blogs analisados, ao colocarem em circulação representações de identidades nerd/geek, contribuem para a produção discursiva dessas mesmas identidades em função dos modos como os/as integrantes desse grupo partilham formas de apropriar-se de saberes diversos, de utilizar equipamentos tecnológicos, de consumir produtos comerciais e textos midiáticos. (shrink)

This article analyzes instances of independent mobility of Jewish youngsters in Nazi Germany through the lens of photography. Photographs, taken by teenagers of their trips and sometimes assembled in albums or collages demonstrate that the category of mobility helps to uncover and define a particular kind of agency exclusive to Jewish youth, shaped by the simultaneous attachment to and disconnect from the environments they crossed. Travel is observed as a space in which freedom and restrictions were negotiated, preparing youngsters (...) for a near future of sometimes radically independent choices. Moreover, it is investigated in its capacity of offering instances of contact – planned or spontaneous – with other youth, with Jewish adults or with Germans, which additionally shaped the youngers’ identities on the move. Photography not only helped youngsters to produce records and memories. It also incited new trips and encounters. The camera, then, served as a means of translation which helped Jewish teenagers make sense of their surroundings in a moment of utmost crisis. Ultimately, the photographs attest to an alternative German topography created by independent youngsters who found a home in a cosmopolitan way of life tested on provincial roads. (shrink)

In a interview concerning the Internet and cyberculture, communications professor Nobert Bolz was asked how he prepares his children for a world in which the authority of experts is in competition with emerging lay communities of knowledge production, such as Wikipedia. Bolz replied: “I try to constantly hammer in that they should read books. I just always say, read books, otherwise you'll belong to the losers. This is the only objective for educating my own children that I've given myself—with only (...) modest success.” With regard to his students, however, Bolz added: “On the other hand, when I see my own…. (shrink)

In Corrupting Youth, Peter Euben explores the affinities between Socratic philosophy and Athenian democratic culture as a way to think about issues of politics and education, both ancient and modern. The book moves skillfully between antiquity and the present, from ancient to contemporary political theory, and from Athenian to American democracy. It draws together important recent work by political theorists with the views of classical scholars in ways that shine new light on significant theoretical debates such as those (...) over discourse ethics, rational choice, and political realism, and on political issues such as school vouchers and education reform. Euben not only argues for the generative capacity of classical texts and Athenian political thought, he demonstrates it by thinking with them to provide a framework for reflecting more deeply about socially divisive issues such as the war over the canon and the "politicization" of the university.Drawing on Aristophanes' Clouds, Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannos, and Plato's Apology of Socrates, Gorgias, and Protagoras, Euben develops a view of democratic political education. Arguing that Athenian democratic practices constituted a tradition of accountability and self-critique that Socrates expanded into a way of doing philosophy, Euben suggests a necessary reciprocity between political philosophy and radical democracy. By asking whether we can or should take "Socrates" out of the academy and put him back in front of a wider audience, Euben argues for anchoring contemporary higher education in appreciative yet skeptical encounter with the dramatic figure in Plato's dialogues. (shrink)

ArgumentThe imitation of adults was the dominant educational early modern model, as it had been from the classical era. Yet, from 1500 onward, this traditional model clashed with new pedagogical ideals that explored if and how the youthful mind differed from the adult. To investigate this clash, I examine individual and aggregate cases – taken from the Dutch (illustrated) textual culture – representing conceptualizations of what has been labelled “the curiosity family” (concepts such as curiosity, inquisitiveness, invention). As previously (...) established, during the seventeenth century, curiosity turned from a vice to a virtue among adults. Textual evidence suggests that for the early modern Dutch youth, docility, long valued, remained the guiding ideal. Shortly after 1700, however, two changes can be detected: for youth, travel literature and travel as a metaphor became a means to explore the world without adults; and for adults, the experimental learning style of the young became a new learning model. (shrink)

Linked by the connection of feminism, sociology, and cultural studies, Changing Cultures assesses feminist theory, its transformations, and its ability to highlight issues and practices. This controversial yet stimulating volume explores the complex relationship between these three subjects, conceptual approaches, their political implications and their historical context. Nava analyzes utopianism of feminist thought on the family; sexuality and sexual differences in youth service provision; and the symbolic resonance of the urban and domestic education of girls. She also investigates the (...) relationship of child sexual abuse to problems of interpretation and the politics of media representation, and different theories of consumerism and advertising and their implications for our understanding of youth and identity. Controversial yet accessible, Changing Cultures will attract a wide range of readers, from women's studies to interpersonal violence, youth/adolescent studies to cultural studies. "This is a lively and stimulating collection, a series of essays which spans the recent history of feminism and cultural studies and which draws together the pleasures and the pain of these encounters with clarity and theoretical fluency." --Angela McRobbie, Thames Valley University "This is a collection of previously published articles which were well worth gathering together, and which I'm pleased to have on my bookshelf." --Chartist "The essays are interesting, provocative, and theoretical in nature. . . . Excellent references are given throughout. If seeking a political, historical, and theoretical evaluation of the topics discussed, one can find a brief summary and excellent references. . . . [The book] provides food for thought and intellectual stimulation." --Journal of Consumer Affairs. (shrink)

Youth materialism excites adolescents’ unethical consumer beliefs (UCB-dishonesty). We develop a second-stage moderated mediation model, investigate the relationships between materialism and Generation Z teenagers’ consumer ethics (UCB-dishonesty), and treat two self-concept mechanisms (power and self-esteem) as dual mediators and culture as a moderator (China vs. France). We theorize that materialism enhances power (public self) and reduces self-esteem (private self). French adolescents’ sense of power increases UCB more than their Chinese counterparts. Chinese teenagers’ self-esteem reduces UCB more than their (...) French counterparts. We challenge the assumption that the interaction effects between consumers’ self-concepts and UCB are the same across cultures. We offer the following discoveries based on 1,005 (409 Chinese and 596 French) adolescents. First, the measurement model of consumer ethics with four subconstructs is superior to the model with one overall construct. Second, a sense of power and self-esteem mediate the relationships between youth materialism and consumer ethics, creating two positive and negative paths for power and self-esteem, respectively. Third, French adolescents display a higher magnitude and positive intensity between adolescents’ power (public self) and UCB-dishonesty than their Chinese counterparts across all four subconstructs. Chinese teenagers illustrate a lower magnitude but a higher negative intensity between self-esteem and UCB than their French counterparts across three subconstructs, with one exception: Adolescents’ self-esteem has no impact on “no harm, no foul” across cultures. Neither buyers nor sellers experience substantial financial gains or losses. Finally, cultures moderate the second-stage mediation effects. Scholars must enhance adolescents’ self-esteem and curb their power to promote honesty. We offer implications for materialism, consumer ethics, self-concepts, and culture for consumers and retailers. (shrink)

In an information age of youth social movements, Youth Media Matters examines how young people are using new media technologies to tell stories about themselves and their social worlds. They do so through joint efforts in a range of educational settings and media environments, including high school classrooms, youth media organizations, and social media sites. Korina M. Jocson draws on various theories to show how educators can harness the power of youth media to provide new opportunities (...) for meaningful learning and "do-it-together production." Describing the impact that youth media can have on the broader culture, Jocson demonstrates how it supports expansive literacy practices and promotes civic engagement, particularly among historically marginalized youth. In Youth Media Matters, Jocson offers a connective analysis of content area classrooms, career and technical education, literary and media arts organizations, community television stations, and colleges and universities. She provides examples of youth media work--including videos, television broadcasts, websites, and blogs--produced in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and St. Louis. At a time when educators are increasingly attentive to participatory cultures yet constrained by top-down pedagogical requirements, Jocson highlights the knowledge production and transformative potential of youth media with import both in and out of the classroom. (shrink)

This study assesses how variations in heteronormative culture in high schools affect the well-being of same-sex-attracted youth. The authors focus on the stigmatization of same-sex attraction to better understand how heteronormativity may marginalize a wide range of youth. Specifically, the authors use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine how variation across schools in football participation, religious attendance, and urban locale affects same-sex-attracted adolescents' depressive symptoms, self-esteem, fighting, and academic failure. The results suggest (...) that though same-sex-attracted youth are at greater risk for decreased well-being, these youth are at higher risk in nonurban schools and in schools where football and religion have a larger presence. Results vary for boys and girls: The urban locale of a school has a larger impact for boys, while school religiosity has a greater impact for girls. (shrink)

This paper investigates how young people give meaning to gender, sexuality, relationships, and desire in the popular social networking site Netlog. In arguing how SNSs are important spaces for intimate politics, the extent to which Netlog is a space that allows contestations of intimate stories and a voicing of difference is questioned. These intimate stories should be understood as self-representational media practices; young people make sense of their intimate stories in SNSs through media cultures. Media cultures reflect how audiences and (...) SNS institutions make sense of intimacy. This paper concludes that intimate stories as media practices in the SNS Netlog are structured around creativity, anonymity, authenticity, performativity, bricolage and intertextuality. The intimate storytelling practices focusing on creativity, anonymity, bricolage and intertextuality are particularly significant for a diversity of intimacies to proliferate. (shrink)

With rising numbers of Facebook, Twitter and MXit users, Africa is increasingly gaining prominence in the sphere of social networking. Social media is increasingly becoming main stream; serving as important tools for facilitating interpersonal communication, business and educational activities. Qualitative analyses of relevant secondary data show that children and youths aged between 13 and 30 constitute Africa’s heaviest users of social media. Media reports have revealed cases of abuse on social media by youths. Social networks have severally been used as (...) tools for perpetuating crimes such as; cyberbullying and violence against girls and women. This study proposes a ‘Culture-centered Approach’ to the use of social media in a bid to minimize these cybercrimes and encourage the responsible use of social media amongst African youths. The Culture-centered Approach, which incorporates the tenets of Information Ethics, stresses the need for the respect of the dignity and rights of other online users as well the application of good cultural values and ethical behavior while on social media platforms. (shrink)

A study of American Indian youths illustrates competing pressures between research and ethics. A stakeholder-researcher team developed three plans to protect participants. The first allowed participants to skip potentially upsetting interview sections. The second called for participants flagged for abuse or suicidality to receive referrals, emergency 24-hr clinical backup, or both. The third, based on the community's desire to promote service access, included giving participants a list of service resources. Interviewers gave referrals to participants flagged as having mild problems, and (...) reported participants with serious problems to supervisors for clinical backup. Participants seldom chose to skip sections, so data integrity was not compromised. However, participants did have more problems than expected (e.g., 1 in 3 had thought about suicide, 1 in 5 had attempted suicide, and 1 in 4 reported abuse), so service agencies were not equipped to respond. Researchers must accept the competing pressures and find ethically appropriate compromises that will not undermine research integrity. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have identified how race and gender discourses influence the creation and implementation of school-based sexual health education and the provision of health care, yet there are few studies that examine how race and gender work in sexual health promotion as it occurs through community-based public health efforts. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research in a low-income Puerto Rican community, this article demonstrates how a gendered racial project of essentializing Latinx culture surrounding young women’s sexuality and reproduction (...) works to both obscure and reinforce race and racism in sexual health promotion. Professional stakeholders mobilize culture as an explanation for high birth rates among young Latinas in the city and reproduce a “Latino culture narrative” in which Latina gender and sexuality is understood as deterministic and homogenous. Simultaneously, an ideology of colorblindness enables the uncritical promotion of long-acting reversible contraception and obscures the history of reproductive oppression experienced by women of color. I consider how colorblindness and culture narratives allow stakeholders to abdicate responsibility for gendered racial inequality and conclude by advocating for the incorporation of racial and reproductive justice frameworks in sexual health promotion. (shrink)

Most professionally-qualifying youth work programmes in the UK are secular programmes in mainstream universities. Current UK National Occupational Standards require youth workers to ‘Explore the concept of values and beliefs with young people’. Faith organisations form the largest sector of the UK youth work field and all youth workers need to be equipped to work inclusively with diverse communities. This research explored, through a semi-structured survey sent to programme leaders, the coverage of religion, faith and spirituality (...) in youth work training courses in England. We found tensions in how religion, faith and spirituality are incorporated into programmes and how programme leaders think youth workers should engage with it in their practice. Where explicit content on religion, faith and spirituality is incorporated into training programmes, it tends to focus on controversial issues such as radicalisation. The survey revealed a lack of consensus across programme leaders as to how the NOS relating to values and beliefs should be interpreted and whether their graduates are being sufficiently equipped to work with diverse religious communities. The research exposes a need for more explicit recognition of the place of religion, faith and spirituality in youth work and in the curricula of secular training programmes. (shrink)

The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth by Derron Wallace is a brilliant and powerful book. It will no doubt achieve the status of a classic in the sociology of...

Since the nineteenth century the poetic and metaphysical vision of the fifteenth-century painter Piero della Francesca has been admired by intellectuals, studied by a host of art historians, and has inspired a long line of modern painters from Cezanne to de Chirico, Balthus, Hockney and many others. Despite this modern interest, Piero has remained enigmatic due to the paucity of documentation pertaining to him and his works. Banker’s book is a valuable contribution towards elucidating the social and cultural context into (...) which Piero was born and in which he received his earliest education and artistic training. In Banker’s words “this book has two focal points: the culture of the town and the youth of the painter.” The entire study challenges the traditional view that regards Piero’s sojourn in Florence in 1439 as the formative event in his artistic development. Indeed, Banker makes a strong case for Piero’s early formation in his native Borgo San Sepolcro, a town in the upper Tiber river valley on the frontiers between Tuscany, the Marches, and Umbria. (shrink)

This book investigates how young adults build their identities in modern society. Looking at narratives from Italian young adults living with their parents and from university students, along with sociological, psychological, and anthropological literature, Pierluca Birindelli explores “intergenerational collusion” that defines modern adulthood.