Sociology of ‘Youth
Development’Critical Practice
Mini Lecture
Dr Fiona Beals
Sociology of Youth
DevelopmentCritical Practice
Mini Lecture
Dr Fiona Beals
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
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
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 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…