Sociology of ‘Youth

Development’Critical Practice

Mini Lecture

Dr Fiona Beals

Sociology of Youth

DevelopmentCritical Practice

Mini Lecture

Dr Fiona Beals

Starting with an Issue

0 It’s all about YOUth0 Issues are looked at in terms of

0 Risk/Protective Factors0 Developmental

Assets/Competencies0 Vulnerabilities0 Biological and environmental

influences on development and wellbeing

Youth Development

But are issues like suicide that

easy to explain … could there

be other explanations?

0 Actually … it’s not about you … th

0 It’s about the organisation of our society (our community)

0 It’s about words and groups0 The winners and the losers0 How deviance is defined0 Youth!!!

The Sociology of Youth

Confused?

0 The Western Depression0 Rise in Deviance0 Rise in suicidality

0 G.S. Hall = Storm and Stress0 E. Durkheim = Anomie and

Social Strain

1800s: G.S. Hall and E. Durkheim

So …

0 Development theories have a strong whakapapa in western psychological theories0 This, in turn, is problematic0 Problems tend to be

centred in the individual 0 Some groups are always

seen as ‘deviant’

So …

0 Sociological theories are critical analyses of society and inequality0 They ask about power

dynamics0 They look at class, gender,

cultural and religious factors 0 They explore hegemony0 They ask – why do some

groups get labelled and others not

But what about youth work

0 Our history tells us a lot!!0 We are connected to the

whakapapa of the definition of youth

0 We are connected to socialisation ‘agents’0 The school0 The church0 The scouts

0 Technology and Global Development also play a role

YMCA - Wales

Late 1800s/Early 1900s

0 The west went through economic upheaval

0 ‘Hooligans’0 GS Hall and the invention

of adolescence0 The development of

strain theories0 Compulsory education0 The Scouts are born

1950s/1960s

0 Post-war0 The birth of the suburb0 The baby-boom

0 Technology and consumerism born

0 The invention of the ‘teenager’0 The Mazengarb report0 Erikson and Elkind0 The Chicago/Birmingham

schools0 The leaving age and youth clubs

1970s/1980s

0 The climax and fall of the ‘modern’ world

0 Oil Crisis0 Welfare reform0 The invention of the ‘youth-at-risk’0 Longitudinal research0 Countercultural movements0 Alternative Education0 Detached Youth Work0 Critical literacy0 Academic writing of indigenous

health theories

1990s0 Neoliberalism and the myth of global

youth culture0 Tomorrow’s Schools0 Alt Education redefined0 Informal and formal education0 Youth work moves from focusing on

risk to focusing on ‘civic’ participation

0 YDSA 0 Professionalisation of youth work0 PYD theories are developed0 Cross-sectional research 0 Cultural theories0 Critical theories0 Exploring the power of the post …

0 The development of any theory is in response to a societal question

0 The whakapapa of psychology is problematic

0 There is a need to think beyond PYD theories alone

0 The space that youth development work occupies can allow for so much more than mere socialisation

Basically…