Youth cultures, social change and transitions to adulthood in Britain

Abstract

Three sociological theories of modern youth cultures are distinguished. One argues that youth cultures achieve continuous socialisation, another emphasises the structural divisions among young people at leisure, while the third insists that working class youth cultures are sites of resistance. The authors argue that each of these theories had some validity at the time of their origins, during the «30 glorious years» between the Second World War and the mid-1970s. Since then changes in the process of entering the labour market have created a new social condition for young people, defined by high unemployment, prolonged transitions to adult jobs, new contradictions and divisions, and the absence of clear routes to adult statuses. Evidence from the early stages of the Economic and Social Research Council's 16-19 Initiative suggests that, for substantial numbers of young people, leisure has ceased to be a process of continuous socialisation serving to reproduce existing social patterns. Rather, leisure has become a sphere in which young people adapt to their new social condition by creating novel life-styles that many are likely to carry into adulthood.