The legacy of Resistance Through Rituals

Negotiating the Architectural Power of Connective Media. Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding Model and the Critical Study of Digitally Afforded Social Environments.

Reviewed by: The Age of Youth in Argentina: Culture, Politics, and Sexuality from Perón to Videla by Valeria Manzano Carolina Zumaglini The Age of Youth in Argentina: Culture, Politics, and Sexuality from Perón to Videla. By Valeria Manzano. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014. 354 pp. Paper $34.95, e-book $29.99. In The Age of Youth in Argentina, Valeria Manzano studies how youth as a category of historical analysis and young people as actors became crucial elements in the developing of Argentina’s cultural and political scene from 1955 to the 1970s. Under the premise that politics, culture, and sexuality all influenced one another, Manzano analyzes these intersections through a multilayered history of how young people thought about themselves and how they were viewed by adults. While Manzano ascertains that young men and women did not share a unified experience, she proposes that the urban youth from the middle class or upper strata of the working classes shared fundamental traits. She argues that young men and women enjoyed a constant yearning for newness and change. According to Manzano, it was during the 1960s and 1970s that youths, particularly young women, became the carriers of sociocultural modernization as “they created new spaces and styles of sociability; reshaped consumption practices; and challenged deep-seated ways of social and familiar interaction” (3). In each of the eight chapters that form this book, Manzano reveals the different ways in which youth itself shaped the dynamics of sociocultural modernization in the 1960s and most of the 1970s. This process, bookending with the beginning of the military regime in 1976, was marked by three critical junctures characterized by rapid political, social, and cultural change. It was particularly during these moments that youth emerged as a visible category framing debates that touched upon democracy, authoritarianism, and modernization. Youth not only participated in politics through their engagement with student, political, and guerrilla groups, but they also advanced a political culture of contestation. Manzano further adds a nuanced approach to the study of cultural productions and youth. Looking at youth-led music, leisure practices, and consumption, Manzano reconstructs the emergence of a juvenilized mass culture crucial to the making of “modern Argentina.” The author points to the arrival of rock music as the triggering mechanism for such phenomena. Contrary to the traditional historiography that discusses youth consumption practices in Europe [End Page 331] and the Americas, the author points toward the distinctions that mass culture generated among the young, thus debunking the idea of a possible homogenous youth. She further points to the unusual case of Argentina in comparison to other Latin American countries. Only in Argentina did rock cut across classes and gender. Regarding sexuality, the third of the book’s main contributions to the literature of youth in Argentina, Manzano focuses on how young women and men’s sexual lives were debated and shaped by themselves and how they cut across adults’ debates. For instance, Manzano analyzes debates over premarital sex to shed light on the dynamics of sociocultural modernization that Argentines experienced during this period. It was particularly young women who more fully embodied and shaped sociocultural modernization as the contested ideas of domesticity and challenged patriarchal authority through various mechanisms. The author also looks at the emergence of rock culture to analyze the ideals and debates it sparked over masculinity as rockers questioned already established models. Manzano further analyzes the making of the “youth body” during this period as a political and cultural category. Finally, Manzano places her work within a transnational dimension assuming that, as any other category or concept, it occupied different identities and modalities in different parts of the world. As a transnational phenomenon, Argentine young people participated within a larger network of ideas, images, and sound that defined them across the world. Yet, the Argentine case adds a new perspective to youth studies as, contrary to most studies based on the United States or Europe, it presents a case of young people growing during a time of economic instability and political authoritarianism. The Age of Youth in Argentina enters into conversations with studies of youth and youth culture in different settings and times, especially...

This paper reports research that investigated how digital technologies were used to develop and maintain home–school connections and develop positive relationships when children transition to nursery schools and schools. School case studies, comprising four purposively selected schools with nursery provision in Northern Ireland and four primary schools in New Zealand, provided the context and evidence to enable a small-scale comparative study of how digital technologies enabled the development of relationships between homes and schools over time. In this paper, the findings were analysed using a conceptual model and framework derived from earlier studies in this field. However, given the contemporary social and technological context, it was found that the framework could be reviewed and elaborated, enabling the creation of a new conceptual framework that is offered here. Our findings reveal methods of employing digital technologies to positively support parental engagement when children transition to nurseries and schools. From the analysis of our findings using the framework developed, points to consider for future practice, policy, and research are highlighted, with an emphasis on understanding and integrating parents’ aspirations into the transition process. Opportunities that use existing and emerging methods for home–school–community connections need to be made known to teachers and schools. While the digital technologies used must be capable of maintaining appropriate regular communication, additionally, supporting ways for involving parental voice in reviews of existing practices and exploring new opportunities should be shared with teachers and schools. Future research should explore how the use of digital technologies in developing wider and deeper engagement and participation of parents and carers with nurseries and schools might lead to a longer-term and positive engagement in later years beyond nursery schools and initial transition to school.

In this paper we look at the history of youth research and cultural studies in Britain, and consider the relationship between these two very different intellectual trajectories and traditions. We argue that the youth question is potentially at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary enquiry in the human sciences, that it has an important role to play in reconstituting the problematics of identity and modernity and that it serves to focus policy debates around a strategic nexus of social contradiction in post-colonial Britain. But we also suggest that until we transcend the narrow empiricism of most youth transition studies, and the theoreticism that continues to characterize the study of cultural texts, the youth question will continue to remain a side-show. The article concludes by outlining one possible approach that may help build bridges between youth studies and cultural studies in order to advance research beyond these limitations.

Youth Cultures offers a comprehensive outline of youth cultural studies in the twenty-first century, with reference to a range of new research case studies. Featuring both well known and emerging scholars from the UK, the US and mainland Europe, the book addresses core theoretical and methodological developments before going on to examine key substantive themes in the study of young people's identities and lifestyles. These include questions of commerce, power and politics, issues of gender and ethnicity, uses of place and space and impacts of new media and communications. Simultaneously offering an accessible introduction and a range of new contributions to the subject area, Youth Cultures will appeal to both students and academics within a range of disciplines, including sociology, media and cultural studies, youth studies and popular music studies.

PurposeThis commentary puts forth a conceptual framework, referred to as the consumer, organization, government framework of unintended digital technology service failures, that specifies consumer, organizational and governmental shortcomings that result in digital technologies failing in terms of negatively affecting consumer, communal, national and/or global welfare.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conceptualize an original framework by engaging in a literature review regarding marketplace failures associated with digital service technologies.FindingsThe framework shows that three drivers explain why commercial digital technologies often fail. The first driver highlights misuse or criminal intent from individuals. The second involves organizations failing to prevent or to address technology failures. The third pertains to failures that stem from governmental institutions.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors encourage researchers to build on their framework by putting forth research questions. To prevent or lessen opportunities for digital technologies to result in service failures, the authors also offer practitioners a “digital technology service failure audit.” This audit shows how digital technology creators and managers can anticipate and address consumer, organizational and governmental factors that often cause digital service technologies failures.Social implicationsDespite the absence of industry-specific regulations and the existence of some regulatory immunities, digital technology providers have an ethical duty, and may be obligated under applicable tort law principles, to take steps to prevent unintended harm to consumers before launching their service technologies.Originality/valueThis work reveals that digital technologies represent new and different threats to vulnerable consumers, who often rely on, but do not fully understand, these technologies in their everyday living. The framework helps consumers, organizations and government agencies to identify and remedy current and potential instances of harmful digital technologies.

‘Learning Bodies’ addresses the gap in attention to the body in youth studies. Whilst a significant range of work in youth studies has explored gender, class, race and ethnicity and sexualities—all of which have bodily dimensions—the body is generally studied indirectly, rather than being the central focus. This edited collection draws together a scholarly range of international, interdisciplinary work on youth, with a specific focus on the body. The authors engage with conceptual, empirical and pedagogical possibilities which interrupt perspectives which view young people’s bodies primarily as ‘problems’ to be managed, or as sites of risk or deviance. They demonstrate that a focus on the body enables exploration of additional dimensions in understanding the experiences of young people. They variously situate their discussion across a range of sites in Australia, North America, Britain, Canada, Asia and Africa; drawing from a range of disciplines including sociology, education and cultural studies. This collection aims to show—theoretically, empirically and pedagogically—the implications that emerge from a reframed approach to understanding children and youth through a focus on the body and embodiment.

The article presents the situation of youth in contemporary society. Neoliberal economy, ageing society, rapid globalisation, technological changes, increase of social risk have prompted specific, historically unfamiliar, and fairly difficult to forecast social change. Social adaptation and construction of own identity are becoming challenging to youth as a specific social group in this period of great uncertainty, risk, and opportunities. Youth studies are referred to as one of the means to help understand the youth phenomenon and form the respective policy. Aim of the article is to reveal the role of youth studies as a specific interdisciplinary genre of the empirical-analytic paradigm in social sciences. Research objectives: (1) To identify the traditions of youth studies and differences between them; (2). To reveal the specific character of youth studies as an empirical paradigm in the contemporary context. Analysis of scientific sources and document analysis are used for achievement of the goal and objectives. Since the 20th century, youth studies have been developing as an independent research discipline and tradition. Perception of the notion of a young person has been changing along with development of the paradigmatic and methodological research traditions. Modernity has doubtlessly contributed to a young person finding his/her place in other age groups and putting an emphasis on the importance of youth as a specific social group. Recently, youth has been viewed as both the risk and the opportunity group. Although qualitative research, in particular, where youth emancipation is aspired, prevails in the contemporary research tradition, the empirical-analytic paradigm has not lost its relevance. The research has demonstrated that empirical-analytic paradigm is a specific genre of the youth studies characterised by quantitative approach and strong link to politics and practical situation of the phenomenon.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to establish a conceptual framework for studying the intercultural aspect of dyadic business relationship interaction from an individual perspective.Design/methodology/approach– The paper is conceptual in nature. Perspectives on culture and cultural concepts are discussed and critically reviewed for the question of applicability in the study of business relationship interaction from an individual perspective.Findings– By focusing on the application of culture in individual sensemaking of interaction events in a business relationship context, a suitable perspective on culture is chosen. A conceptual framework consisting of the concepts related to the chosen perspective is developed. Moreover, propositions concerning the study of culture in individual sensemaking of interaction events are suggested.Research limitations/implications– The paper suggests several opportunities for further research, particularly concerning the application of the reviewed concepts to the empirical study of culture in sensemaking of business relationship interaction.Originality/value– The paper advocates for a more interpretive and constructive perspective on culture in business relationship interaction studies. Second, it improves understanding of the cultural concepts application in the research on individual sensemaking within a business relationship context. Third, it particularly contributes to the current conceptual underpinning of the International Marketing and Purchasing group studies by reintroducing the concept of culture from an individual perspective.

Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific: Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney

Youth Cultures offers a comprehensive outline of youth cultural studies in the twenty-first century, with reference to a range of new research case studies. Featuring both well known and emerging scholars from the UK, the US and mainland Europe, the book addresses core theoretical and methodological developments before going on to examine key substantive themes in the study of young people's identities and lifestyles. These include questions of commerce, power and politics, issues of gender and ethnicity, uses of place and space and impacts of new media and communications. Simultaneously offering an accessible introduction and a range of new contributions to the subject area, Youth Cultures will appeal to both students and academics within a range of disciplines, including sociology, media and cultural studies, youth studies and popular music studies.

ABSTRACTTraditionally, the study of youth culture has been dominated by contemporary, sociological accounts of young people's leisure pursuits and identity-laden social practices. However, in recent years, it has become evident that there is an emergent scholarly interest in examining youth culture history. While many historians and sociologists situate the birth of youth culture as a post-WWII phenomenon, this essay contends that scholars from varying disciplines are expanding upon this popularly accepted timeline. Moreover, it is argued that there is now a historic turn in youth studies both in content and methodology. By providing an overview of what current youth history scholarship exists, and what methodologies enable such texts, this article advocates for further socio-historical work that foregrounds the longstanding, indelible influence and importance of young people's experiences within the tapestry of everyday cultural life.

What is youth studies for? One answer to this question points to the valuable, possibly unique, position youth research has as a window on processes of social change and of social continuity. Based on the author’s long-term engagement in youth research, from the early 1980s to now, this article reflects on how youth transitions to the labour market – and the way that they are thought about in youth studies and youth policy – have changed and stayed the same over the past 30 years. While the main empirical focus is on the UK, the article notes the wider relevance of many of the trends that are discussed. As well as looking backward, the article considers possibilities and challenges for the future; for youth, for youth research and for youth policy. In terms of young adults’ lives, the spreading shadow of unemployment, economic marginality and precariousness is described. In terms of research, it argues that, in order to achieve greater theoretical significance and impact for youth studies – and to better understand processes of social change and continuity – further strides need to be taken to overcome the enduring divide between youth cultural and youth transitions studies. Finally, on the basis of these reflections from youth studies, the article raises important questions for current and coming social and economic policy. Here the local – and global – significance of underemployment and the ‘myth of the skills economy’ are discussed.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Popular Music Cultures, Media and Youth Consumption: Towards an Integration of Structure, Culture and Agency

ABSTRACTIn youth studies, a clear distinction is made between theories on youth in transition and theories of youth culture. Whereas theories and research on youth transitions often use quantitative data – (and therefore need to operationalize their ‘variables’) – cultural studies uses various qualitative methods, alongside a more elastic definition of, and conceptual approach to, young people’s socio-material living conditions. The argument made in the present article is that we need a theoretical renewal in youth studies that will enable us to thoroughly explore class, gender and ethnicity in light of the intersections between social and cultural positions. At the same time, we also need to elaborate our conceptual tools to capture contemporary transformations of social identity among youth and in society and culture. The aim is to reintroduce three central concepts in the renewal of youth studies, that of identity, subculture and resistance. Furthermore, it is imperative that connect and create links between these concepts and theories of youth in transition.