ssy2034 sociology of youth chap 1

8/10/2019 SSY2034 Sociology of Youth Chap 1

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Lecture 1:

Whos them Youth?

Yuen Kok Leong

Dept of Anthropology & Sociology

Faculty of Social Sciences, UNIMAS


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Youth Defined Who is youth?

Definition of youth:the period between childhood and adult age

the qualities of vigour, freshness, or immaturity as

associated with being young (Oxford Dictionary)

Oxfords Word Trend: YOUTH: Youthwas once the ultimate state, envied and romanticized by those who had left

it behind, with youthsthemselves celebrated as the possessors of beauty and

potential. But that time has passed, with the Oxford English Corpus telling a sorry

tale of the state of todaysyouth: unemployed,disaffected, nuisance,

and drunkenare some of the most common modifiers, while almost all of the

verbs associated with youthsare violent or threatening,

with attack, smash, vandalize, intimidate, and assaultall scoring highly.

And youthscannot simply meetthey congregate, gather, and

evenplague: intimidating gangs of baseball-capped youths congregating around

the newsagentsa shopping parade plagued by nuisance youths. Teenagersfare

equally badly, commonly being the object of verbs such as kill, stab, arrest,

and molestand described as troubled, rebellious, spotty, orpregnant.


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Youth as an adjective

What is the adjectives that pops in your mind when you think

of the word youth/youthfulness?

Youthfulness (Jones, 2009):+ve: strength, beauty, idealism and energy

-ve: lack of wisdom, hotheaded, experimentation,

naivety, lack of maturity and sense


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Youth vs Adolescent

Youth as an identifying group from social work/counselling (vs

adolescent)

Youth through industrialization and specific division of labour

Education as right and child/adolescent/juvenile laws through

the legal means.

Youth as sociological while adolescent as developmental


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Various definition of youth:

cultural (rites of passage)

legal (Juvenile Courts Act 1947)

political (MCA Youth, Pemuda UMNO)

biological (puberty & bodily functions)

psychological (adolescent)

institutional: United Nations UN

religion

Moving target definition: as the age of marriage gets later,does youth group expanded? What is the clear defining

characteristics that could differentiate or show actual

differences? Consider also the role of increase of years in

education, which now include tertiary level.

Youth Defined


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Many faces of youth

The varying definition of youth shows how the word is a

concept in constant debate rather than a fixed indicator:

Cultural: youth defined as a cultural stage of life: e.g.

Lumbawang/Kelabit and Bidayuh. Other societies:Rumspringa, rites of passage etc. Expectation of contribution

to family? Taking care of the elderly?

Legal: youth defined under a certain acts, in Malaysia:Juveniles Act 1947 that defines youth as Other protection

such as under 18 censorship and entrance to a certain

premises such as casino or clubs. Also: Child Act 2001


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Many faces of youth (cont)

Political: refers to the Youth wing of a political party, usually

the most vocal and expresses the extreme views of the

party. No agreed age, but according to

BN/UMNO/MCA/DAPsy, Pemuda Pas/Angkatan Muda

Keadilan

Biological: most primarily the development of sexual organs

during puberty: getting wet dreams or beginning of

menstruation.


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Psychological: youth as a distinctive phase, for e.g. Freuds

psychosexual stages and how in adulthood, the peronality is

much set according to what happened during adolescence.

Institutional: UN- United Nations Convention on the Rights ofthe Child- ratification binds the country by international law

(Malaysia: 1995) & UNICEF

Religion: custody, rights to choose own religion (a debatableconcepts, compare Malaysia with other countries),

inheritance, guardianship etc. How does the Syariah law

defines youth?

Many faces of youth (cont)


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Youth in the making (1800/1900s)

Granville Stanley Hall (1844-1924)- pavedthe way defining youth (adolescence).

Believed that pre-adolescent as savages

seeing individual development in a linear

fashion.

Youth to be an age of Storm and Stress

(Strum und Drang), characterised by:

Conflict with parents (rebellious/resist

authority)

Mood disruptions (emotionally volatile)

Risky behaviour (reckless disruptions)

Influence of work faded though regained some current interest.-But how much does current mass media still uses this framework on youth?


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Halls work defines the thoughts on youth in 1800s/early 1900

(compare with Durkheims Anomie/Social Strain)

It denotes the time in history: Western Depression era, rise

in suicide. Anomie as social pathology due to change from

mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity -economic changes too fast for moral regulation with increasing

differentiation and specialization.

People are less locked into their society- sense of

meaninglessness and disorder

Transition from a agricultural division of labour to thedemarcation of job during industrial revolution.


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1950s/1960s

Subsequent researches and academic work strengthening

the concept of youth: Chicago Schools Street Corner Gangs,

Cohens Moral Panic and Folk Devils and CCCS (Birmingham

School) Subcultural Studiesfeaturing Mods, Teddyboys and

Rastas (next slide). Social movements post WWII, domestic protest instead of

nationalism take over, critical towards own government which

solidifies YOUTH as a concept.

Postwar Baby Boom and the Suburb

Technology and consumerism: youth as a market

Invention of teenager


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1970s/1980s

Oil crisis: shaping triumph of conservative

Thatcherite/Reaganite policies

Welfare reform: nanny state in Western world

Invention of youth at risk: problematisation of youth:

against:

Countercultural Movements:births of various

subcultures/countercultures rejecting parental culture.

Alternative education: shift of trends towards different

education approach for children: home schooling, religiousschools, private schools

-MALAYSIA?


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1990s

Neoliberalism and the myth of global youth culture

MTVs, local culture vs global youth culture

Professionalism of youth work

Further development of youth rehabilitation policies/facilities

Critical theories

Development of Marxist, Feministand Conflicttheories on Youth,

towards a more emphatic framework on youth, centering on

the question of POWER.

-MALAYSIA?


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Youth in the world

UNITED NATIONS- Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989

-below the age of 18 years old

Malaysians reservation:

Article 2 on non-discrimination

Article 7 on name and nationality

Article 14 on freedom of thought, conscience and religion

Article 28(1)(a) on free and compulsory education at primary

level

Article 37 on torture and deprivation of liberty


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Youth in Malaysia


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Youth in Malaysia

Youth under :

i. Juvenile Act 1947

ii. Women and Young Girls Protection Act 1973

iii. Child Protection Act 1991iv. Child Act 2001 (consolidation of the i, ii & iii above)

v. Youth Societies and Youth Development Act 2007

Youth under Ministry of Youth and Sports


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Sociological theories:

are critical analyses of society and inequality:

Asks about power dynamics

Look at class, gender, cultural and religious factors

Explore hegemony- usage of mass media indoctrination

And ask: why some groups get labelled and others not

So what does that makes of Sociology of Youth?


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References:

Roches, J., Tucker, S., Thomson, R. & Flynn, R. (eds.) (2004). Youth

in Society, 2ndEdition. London: Sage Publications.

Jones, G. (2009). Youth. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Website: Ministry of Youth and Sports

http://www.kbs.gov.my/

Website: United Nations Childrens Rights and Emergency Relief

Organization

http://www.unicef.org/
http://www.kbs.gov.my/http://www.unicef.org/http://www.unicef.org/http://www.kbs.gov.my/

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