Understanding Youth in Late Modernity

"Understanding Youth in Late Modernity is a highly readable book which lends itself bothas a solid introduction and a reference point to the historical developments and theoreticaldebates taking place within the discipline of youth studies. This book provides a highly accessible text for anybody interested in the subject of youth and its changing role in late modernity. I thoroughly recommend it." Journal of Contemporary European StudiesThis illuminating new book embeds our understanding of the youth question within a historical context. It shows how the ideas of past political action, in conjunction with the diverse paradigms of social science disciplines, have shaped modern conceptions of the youth question. This relationship between the political and the academic is then explored through a detailed examination of contemporary debates about youth, in areas such as; transitions, education, crime policy and criminology, consumption and youth culture. From this analysis the book is able to show how the youth question in late modernity is being shaped. This important text includes: A historical overview of the making of modern youth, identifying major changes that took place over three centuriesExamples of how political and academic responses construct youth as a social problemAn evaluation of the impact of social change in late modernity on our understanding of the youth question and the everyday lives of the young. The book concludes by suggesting that in contemporary understandings of the youth question significant differences exist between the political and the academic. Major challenges exist if this gap is to be addressed and a new public social science needs to emerge that reconstitutes debates about youth within a form of communicative democracy. Understanding Youth in Late Modernity is key reading for students and academics interested in the historical conception of the youth problem, its evolution throughout modernity and endeavours to find a solution.

Table of Contents:
Introduction The making of modern youth Science and the age of reason: The ‘discovery of adolescence’ Social science and the politicaliztion of the youth question Youth transitions in the age of uncertainty Youth, education and the politics of inclusion Threatening youth and risky futures The marketization and commodification of youth Youth culture and the growth of the ‘risk taking generation’ The changing nature of youth in late modernity?

About the Author :
Alan France is Professor of Social Policy Research at Loughborough University and is the Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP). He has published on areas related to youth and citizenship, youth crime and risk, and youth policy.