Contemporary Youth Research Articles

Reviewers for the Special Issue on Contemporary Youth Sport: Critical Issues and Future Directions

Reviewers for the Special Issue on Contemporary Youth Sport: Critical Issues and Future Directions

Introduction to the Special Issue on Contemporary Youth Sport: Critical Issues and Future Directions

Introduction to the Special Issue on Contemporary Youth Sport: Critical Issues and Future Directions

Responding to Hong Kong’s political crisis: moralist activism amongst youth

ABSTRACTDiscourses of morality are prevalent in contemporary Hong Kong youth activism. This paper suggests that this moralist disposition is the product of youth frustrations towards Hong Kong’s political crisis, whereby the power gap between civil society and the government renders the former incapable of exerting substantial influence over the governance of the city. Rather than ascribe the cause of this power imbalance solely to government policies, this paper reveals that civil society also contributed towards the making of this political crisis. By reviewing the citizen-led pro-democracy movement throughout the decades, it is shown that civil society has been ineffective in implementing political reforms because its actors and organisations harbour a political subjectivity that prioritises economic considerations over democratic aspirations, and are thus inclined to compromise with the government to preserve economic stability than to demand for political reforms. As a result, contemporary youth activists describe Hong Kong civil society as “uncaring” and lacking in moral commitment towards realising democratic reforms that will facilitate the development of a just society. Seeking to reconfigure such political attitudes that currently prevail in civil society, youth activists refashion themselves into political actors embodying a form of moral personhood that embraces notions of responsibility and of wanting to do good for the city, to show that another way of being politically engaged in Hong Kong is possible.

Youth Literature on the Polish Publishing Market in 2008-2018 (Trends, Currents, Phenomena)

In 2008-2018, the Polish market of young readers’ books was subject to various fluctuations related to economic determinants, demogra-phy and changing cultural trends or fashions. The dynamics of sales was determined by best-selling fantasy series coming mainly from the Anglo-Saxon literature. Although Harry Potter was not followed by an equally successful novel cycle, the main elements of its marketing strategy have been duplicated and continued. An important reinforce-ment of the message was the screening of a particular plot, and thus its multiplication in various media channels. Fantasy themes often re-ferring to the elements of horror, Gothic novels, and even dystopian thrillers dominated. Generic syncretism and even various formal ex-periments in the spirit of deconstruction have become characteristic of the contemporary youth book market. In contrast, the list of awards of the Polish section of the IBBY stands in opposition to this trend, which promoted, in the overwhelming majority, novels of morals na-ture, addressing difficult and controversial problems of adolescence, interpersonal relationships, otherness, etc. In this context, we can ob-serve a change in the values promoted and a transition from an edu-cative normative system to glorifying freedom and tolerance towards a wide range of behaviors and attitudes.

PREPARING FUTURE LEADERS OF THEIR RACES -THE POLITICAL FUNCTION OF CHILDREN’S CHARACTERS IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN AMERICAN PICTURE-BOOKS

Aim. The aim of the article is to analyse the ways African American children’s characters are constructed in selected picture-books and to determine whether they have any impact on the conduct of contemporary black youth facing discrimination in their own lives. It also argues that picture-books are one of the most influential media in the representation of racial problems.Methods. The subjects of the study are picture-books. The analysis pertains to the visual and the verbal narrative of the books, with a special emphasis being placed on the interplay between text and image as well as on the ways the meaning of the books is created. The texts are analysed using a number of existing research methods used for examining the picture-book format. Results. The article shows that the actions of selected children’s characters, whether real or imaginary, may serve as an incentive for contemporary youth to struggle for equal rights and contribute to the process of racial integration on a daily basis.Conclusions. The results can be considered in the process of establishing educational curricula for students from minority groups who need special literature that would empower them to take action and join in the efforts of adult members of their communities.

Determinants of Socio-political Activity of Contemporary Youth

Introduction. This paper presents a hierarchical model of socio-political activity of contemporary youth based on the system-diachronic approach. The author developed and tested a new diagnostic tool for measuring the degree of activity, intentionality, and destructiveness in subjects of social, public, and political life – a questionnaire on young people’s socio-political activity.
 Methods. The study employed qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, standardized questionnaires, and inventories. The data collected were processed using content analysis and secondary mathematical and statistical analysis.
 Results. Age, income, education level, professional activity, patriotic consciousness, absence of political infantilism, absence of achievement and power motivations, satisfaction with living conditions, dissatisfaction with leisure sphere and partner relationships, and focusing on emotions together determine the transition from socio-political passivity to socio-political activity. The transition from a destructive form of socio-political activity to a constructive one is determined by dominance of values ​​of individualism and individualistic orientation, consumption in leisure, low confidence in authorities, high power motivation, absence of affiliation motivation, high satisfaction with education and professional activity, emotional stress caused by living conditions and social climate, and certain behavioral strategies, including repression, suppression, and use of sedatives. The transition from an unintentional socio-political activity to an intentional one is associated with reflection, socio-political competence, political socialization, high achievement and power motivations, dissatisfaction with leisure sphere and professional activity in the absence of emotional stress caused by living conditions, and a high propensity to plan.
 Discussion. Various combinations of determinants form the types of subjects of socio-political activity who are characterized by different correlations among the degree of activity, intentionality, and of the constructiveness of its manifestations. This thesis enabled the author to describe characteristics of different types of young people’s socio-political activity.

Girl Power Gone Right in Exodus 1–2: Miriam as Model for Contemporary Youth

Biblical scholars and Christian ministers have long viewed Miriam as an exemplar of female leadership. Few, however, recognise Miriam as a role model for female youth or explore the Biblical text for hints regarding the formation of courageous and competent young women. This paper contributes to research on youth leadership formation by providing exegetical commentary on Exodus 1–2, with a view to how the text might provide Christian communities clues about what female leaders look like and how to help girls become them.

Book Review: Girls Like This, Boys Like That: The Reproduction of Gender in Contemporary Youth Cultures by Victoria Cann

Book Review: <i>Girls Like This, Boys Like That: The Reproduction of Gender in Contemporary Youth Cultures</i> by Victoria Cann

青年“佛系”行为形成的社会原因与心理过程：基于结构方程模型的中介机制研究 (The Social Causes and Psychological Processes of the 'Buddhist-Style' Behavior of Youth: A Mediation Study Based on Structural Equation Modelling)

Chinese Abstract: 本研究认为，青年的“佛系”行为实质上是当代青年应对当前社会问题的一种防御性心理策略。目前对青年“佛系”行为的研究多是从理论阐述出发，缺乏该行为形成的社会原因与心理过程的量化分析。对1097名被试的调查结果表明，本研究所开发的青年“佛系”行为测量量表具有良好的信度和效度，是对该行为进行量化研究的可靠工具。调查结果显示，所处社会阶层较低、社会不公平感较高和生活压力较大是青年“佛系”行为形成的主要社会原因，而基本心理需要和习得性无助等心理因素则在其中起了显著的中介作用。在当前社会环境难以在短时间内改变的现实情境下，本研究提出对青年“佛系”行为的治理应该从其心理过程入手，通过全社会对青年群体的关心、指导、鼓励和包容，让其基本心理需要得到满足，习得性无助状态得到缓解，从而使得青年群体恢复在工作和生活中应有的积极状态。 English Abstract: This study proposed that the youth's “Buddhist-style” behavior is a defensive psychological strategy for contemporary youth to cope with current social problems. At present, most of the researches on the “Buddhist-style” behavior of youth are based on theoretical explanations, and there is a lack of quantitative analysis of the social causes and psychological processes of that behavior. The survey results of 1097 participants showed that the measurement scale for “Buddhist-style” behavior of youth which developed by this study has good reliability and validity, shown this is a reliable tool for quantitative research on that behavior. The survey results also demonstrated that the low social class, high perceived social injustice and high life stress are the main social causes for the formation of the “Buddhist-style” behavior of youth, while the psychological factors such as basic psychological needs and learned helplessness are played as significant mediators in it. Under the realistic situation that the current social environment is difficult to change in a short period of time, this study proposes that the governance of the “Buddhist-style” behavior of youth should start from its psychological processes. Through the whole society's care, guidance, encouragement and tolerance for the youth group, their basic psychological needs should be met, and the learned helplessness state should be alleviated, so that to help the youth group to resume the positive state that they should be in work and life.

Young people and the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of ‘enterprise’: stories from a ‘Rust Belt’ city

ABSTRACTIn the ‘Rust Belt’ city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, discourses of young people’s enterprise and innovation provide a counter-narrative to the prevailing material and symbolic consequences of industrial decline, job losses, and the growing insecurity of employment and income. GT Magazine is a weekly, large circulation magazine in Geelong with a significant focus on the activities and aspirations of enterprising young people. In this paper, we examine, by utilising techniques of content analysis and discourse analysis, the particular ways in which young people’s innovation and enterprise are framed and enacted in GT Magazine. Our analysis reveals that ‘youth’ and ‘enterprise’ are, in GT Magazine, given an embodied form that is powerfully marked by aestheticised, normalised enactments of gender, class and race. In doing this work, we make productive contributions to three key themes in contemporary youth studies: new work orders and the youthful self as enterprise; the gendered and aesthetic dimensions of affective labour in these new work orders; and the emerging spatial turn to examine young people's embodied, place-based experiences of employment and enterprise. We seek to make problematic the sense that solutions to multiple disruptions and crises in capitalism and the environment are to be found in young people’s enterprise. Particularly when that enterprise is given form in ways that are aestheticised, gendered, classed, individualised and responsibilised.

Epistemology of epidemiology: the case of Ungdata

One of the most significant epidemiological tools for the perceived truth about contemporary Norwegian youth is in Ungdata, Youth Data. This is a continuous online-based survey grounded upon several and varying investigations of youth in Norwegian high schools, now extending to primary schools as well. The knowledge bases, epidemiological practices, technicalities, economic premises for the work and also data publishing is handled by social scientists at Norwegian Social Research, NOVA, located at Oslo Metropolitan University. State bureaucracies, e.g. ministries and directorates, municipalities etc. can ask for investigations and overviews. NOVA has an annual income for running the Youth Data through the Norwegian Directorate of Health of 3,3 mill. NOK (2018). The Youth Data registry has become a leading force in opinions, policies, polities and resource allocations for youth at municipal and state levels for several intended purposes. Based upon NOVA reports, media comments and interviews this article reflects upon some theoretical and methodological approaches to this unique epidemiological tool concerning youth, health and welfare. Questions arise such as: Is epidemiology a taken for granted neutral and objective kind of knowledge? Should there be ethical concerns for youth and their researchers as creators of knowledge, theory and policy – other than the normal ethical rules of scientific conduct?

E-studies and mastering of educational material for people with visual perception and visual–motor integration problems - topical issues and perspectives

Today educational and study environment is no longer viewed separately from different electronic technologies – the educational system must comply with the tendencies of today electronic era, which also comply with modern people “electronic” daily routine. Educational and study processes must be assessed from the perspectives of use and the development tendencies of various electronic technologies in order to interest contemporary youth in the learning process. The modern educational process and the introduction of information technologies in the remote learning process cannot be viewed separately from the basic processes of the human body and visual perception. Modern technologies motivate to ease not only the learning process but also to analyze learning results in order to develop individual correction plan for every person. This article discusses the causes and possible solutions for ensuring the availability of e-studies and acquiring learning materials for people with visual-motor and visual perception integration issues.

Интернет-механизмы вовлечения в экстремистские сообщества как угроза социализации современной молодежи

Introduction. This study investigates how the Internet environment, which provides ample opportunities for content distribution, influences the socialization of contemporary youth. Involving young people in extremist communities and their radicalization through a virtual environment represent a particular threat in this context. This study analyses the effects of the Internet environment that determine the specific character of socialization processes in young people and describe specific indirect and direct threats to the physical and mental well-being of the younger generation.&#x0D; Methods. To examine potential threats from the virtual space and to identify the mechanisms of young people’s involvement in extremist communities, the authors analyzed 2.500 creolized text units created by nationalist or religious-political extremist groups. The creolized texts were extracted from the websites containing extremist materials and from the relevant groups in Vkontakte.&#x0D; Results. The authors (a) systematized the most typical threats from the virtual space for the normative socialization of junior schoolchildren, adolescents, and young adults. The mechanisms of young people’s involvement in extremist communities using various manipulative techniques are described in detail. In particular, the authors analyze the techniques of meaning distortions of text information, visual images, and creolized texts.&#x0D; Discussion. The described mechanisms and techniques of their implementation are not the only ones. The improvement of the Internet environment leads to the development of techniques of influence on young people. The authors suggest that besides the administrative methods of controlling Internet content, it is necessary to form young people’s resistance to the influence of the Internet extremist communities.

Student Activists and Authors: Contemporary Youth Voices as Classroom Texts

The rash of school shootings across the United States instigated a spate of student activism and led the authors to consider how to showcase the voices of the activists as examples of persuasive writing.

Engaging Youth as Influencers in Leadership Event Planning

Contemporary youth development requires a new approach to involving youth in more active, engaging, and influential leadership roles. Teens and youth program professionals recognize the need young leaders have for more mentorship and accountability from adults to grow into their leadership potential. This paper specifically addresses how youth development professionals can engage student leadership teams in co-designing experiences for teens through the role of influencers. In this role, young leaders radiate their influence both laterally among their peers and vertically among adult leaders, developing stronger networks and gaining valuable experience. This paper draws observations from two state-level programs, the Missouri FFA Leadership Camp and the Missouri 4-H Youth Civic Leaders Summit, as examples of effective and productive practice. The authors provide recommendations on how adult practitioners can gain buy-in from other adult coordinators, incorporate youth as influencers in leadership event planning, and foster positive youth development in the process.

‘It is hard for me to live in the city’: local identities and place attachment among young rural Russians

The contemporary youth studies are mostly metrocentric. As a result, rural youth often find themselves outside the focus of researchers' attention being marginalized in comparison with urban youth whose experience and lifestyle are perceived as a normative model. In these conditions, rural space is labeled as illegitimate and structurally depriving for youth. This approach is criticized by researchers who work in the tradition of the cultural geographies of childhood and youth and take into account complex, often contradictory but still unique and autonomous experiences of today's young people living in rural areas. The article is based on 59 biographical interviews and describes how Russian rural youth comprehend belonging to places in three rural localities. The authors single out three types of prerequisites defining the place attachment and local identities among young people: rational choice, biographical rootedness, and community rootedness.&#x0D; Acknowledgments. The study was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2015-2016.&#x0D; We thank our colleagues from the Centre for Youth Studies at NRU HSE in St. Petersburg who participated in interviewing the respondents and whose excellent and professional work was indispensable for writing this article.&#x0D;

The production of delinquency and its objectification by psychology

In this investigative article we draw upon the production of delinquency and its objectification by psychological knowledge during the twentieth century in Brazil. The analytical scope for this research comes from the archeogenealogical strategy put forward by Michel Foucault, whereby we investigated articles from the journal ‘Arquivos Brasileiros de Psicologia’ between 1949 and 1990. We selected 17 articles as analytical field in which the elements “youth”, “crime” and/or “delinquency” are present and through which four epistemological axes that legitimize delinquency as an object of study of psychology were delineated: 1. the demoralization of poverty (family inheritance); 2. sovereignty of internalization (biopsychological determinism); 3. symptomatology of contemporaneity; and 4. essentialization of youth. Through this analysis, we highlight how psychology constitutes the young subject as the representation of delinquency, but rather as the science that privatizes a domain over this object. Psychology, thus, become the necessary science to explain contemporary youth criminality.

A shameful affair? A figurational study of the change room and showering culture connected to physical education in Danish upper secondary schools

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to explore the clothes changing and showering situation related to PE in upper secondary schools in Denmark. We strive to understand why many young Danish people choose not to shower in relation to PE. Traditionally, Denmark has had a quite liberal attitude towards the naked body, which has affected the clothes changing and showering culture related to sport and leisure. However, young people in the Danish schools today are very reluctant about changing clothes and showering in the same room as their fellow students, and many choose to skip the shower all together. This paper draws on a research study of young Danish upper secondary school students’ (1st year, age 15–17) experiences of the clothes changing and showering situation related to PE. The data material comprises a six-month observation study of gender integrated PE lessons in two different schools in the Copenhagen area (high and low socio-economic areas) and 8 focus group interviews (N = 64) with male and female students from these schools. Theoretically, the research draws on figurational sociology as introduced by Norbert Elias We argue that the critical attitude towards the youth generation’s body cultural practices is perhaps misplaced. This is a development in accordance with the civilizing processes of the Western world. An approach to this issue should perhaps be a change in the structure around PE in schools, finding solutions that meet contemporary youth culture.

A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov by Peter J. Bowler

607 BOOKS IN REVIEW Shakespeare weighs states and statesmen on the scale not of what is best, but of what is “better.” The strengths and weaknesses of his book are on full display in the chapter on utopian elements in popular music. What could have been the most intriguing section of the book is marred by a lack of analytical momentum. It is not surprising to find that the wish for a better world is a common theme in rock as well as in rap, but there is no overarching point about the significance of utopian motifs in music. Some of the songs he cites are interesting for the ironic gaze they cast on the wish, while more recent tunes express a brutal view of what constitutes personal happiness. Blaim takes a classificatory approach that, while making scattered references to historical events, fails to achieve a grounding in historical consciousness. Thus, the chapter, which might have yielded an intriguing reflection on contemporary youth culture, ends on an anodyne reference to John Lennon’s “Imagine” (1971). A doc-trinaire attachment to the theme of better worlds in its most literal guise results in the neglect of the worldtransforming impact of rock music, which has spurred the emergence of youth culture around the globe while also making the transgression of the most ancient moral codes into something quotidian and innocuous. The final four chapters of the book are devoted to topics relating to literary theory in communist Poland and the Soviet Union. The section dealing with the function accorded to literary criticism in the Soviet Union presents little that is new, but the chapter on semiotics, which focuses on the work of Yuri Lotman, yields a concept that might have given Blaim’s book the unifying principle it so sorely lacks. Lotman regards both dialogue and conflict as fundamental to the health of both the individual and society. Does this make Lotman’s philosophy utopian or anti-utopian? It is a pity that Blaim, while conscious of this question, did not rearrange the texts in his study to pursue the questions that preoccupy Lotman, such as the value of self-correction and the possibility of cultural development, in the composition and the interpretation of utopian texts.—Peter Paik, Yonsei University Voices Prophesying Progress (or Crying Beware! Beware!). Peter J. Bowler. A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov. New York: Cambridge UP, 2017. x+287 pp. $74.99 hc, $24.99 pbk. Despite the apparent implications of its subtitle, A History of the Future is not primarily a study of futuristic sf or even of future fiction generally. There are numerous references to Wells, Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, and significant (but fewer) references to other sf writers (e.g., Robert A. Heinlein and Olaf Stapledon), as well as well-known “mainstream” futuristic writers (Aldous Huxley and George Orwell), but no extended readings of their works. Instead, the subject of this book is futurology in all its forms, with brief mentions of literary futures introduced as needed. Even more than literary texts, Peter Bowler relies on popular science writing, both in books and in magazines. The books include two that are likely to be familiar to anyone interested in early British sf, J.B.S. Haldane’s Daedalus: Or Science and the Future (1924) and J.D. Bernal’s The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929), as well as a range of others less well 608 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 46 (2019) known. Examples of the latter class are The World in 2030 (1930) by the Earl of Birkenhead (less grandly named F.E. Smith), The Birth of the Future (1934) by Peter Ritchie Calder, and several books by “Professor” A.M. Low, especially The Future (1925) and Our Wonderful World of Tomorrow (1934). The magazines most frequently cited include the long-defunct British periodicals Armchair Science, Conquest, Harmsworth Popular Science, Meccano Magazine, and Practical Mechanics, as well as the still viable American publication Popular Mechanics. Bowler’s other sources include newspaper articles, advertisements, government projects, corporate statements, world fairs—anything that would reflect trends in the attitudes toward progress, by which Bowler means...

Kortárs és ifjúsági

It is pivotal for contemporary youth literature to be made part of the curriculum, however, it is unnecessary for the education politics to canonise any of them. Contemporary novels give opportunity to discuss important psychological, social, ideological and artistic issues. Within the framework of problem-centred education they prioritise the processed issue besides the aesthetic quality and linguistic accessibility. Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time provides excellent opportunity to discuss the problems of people with autism and it is also suitable to improve empathy towards them, their families and parents. The study includes a detailed plan for discussion, the questions and exercises are ordered to follow the process of constructive pedagogy: tuning up – creation of meaning – reflection.