Youth Movements, History of

Abstract

Young people have always been involved in social movements, often demonstrating pronounced commitment. Yet youth movements in the modern sense can only be said to have evolved since the end of the eighteenth century. Rapid industrialization and urbanization within only a few decades, the emergence of new socioeconomic classes (notably the middle and the working class), changes in the education system and the expansion of mass media have repeatedly caused significant tension between the generations, primarily in the industrialized states. Independent youth movements, often harboring their own codes of behavior and style, developed as outlets for these tensions. Their members called for political and/or social reforms, going as far as to demand radical social change. These movements were usually limited to a region, a social class, or a country. In the twentieth century, however, the movements increasingly tended to transcend boundaries to become international, this trend begin reinforced particularly by the mass media.