Youth Cultures: Values, Representations and Social Conditions
SAHWA Background Paper, nº. 3
The paper provides the conceptual and analytical background for the thematic Working Package number 4 “Youth cultures: values, representations and social conditions”. It shows the relevance of the cultural dimension in the study of youth condition, in order to understand young people’s actions and to recognise youth agency. Nowadays, the transition to adulthood takes place in the context of growing uncertainty and deep social, cultural and political transformations also in contemporary Arab Mediterranean societies.
The first part of the paper defines the conceptual framework for the study of youth agency and cultures. After reconstructing the development of the reflexion on youth and youth cultures by sociology and social science from the 1920s to the 2000s, it focuses on the main topics, trends and gaps of contemporary studies on youth cultures in Western contexts and in Arab Mediterranean countries. The second part of the paper outlines the research questions and analytical dimension that will guide the research in WP4. The main questions can be summarised as follows:
How the cultural construction of youth is changing in Arab Mediterranean countries? To what extent does youth appear as a condition marked by specific cultural expressions and subjectivities, rather than a mere transitional stage of life? How do the changes in the transition to adulthood impact on the emergence of new cultural trends among Arab youths? Which are the strategies that young men and women deploy for constructing their identity, shaping their biographical projects and giving meaning to their social world, in the changing contexts of Arab Mediterranean countries?