Idea Of Youth Research Articles

Breaking down ‘healthism’: barriers to health and fitness as identified by immigrant youth in St. John's, NL, Canada

In this article, we challenge dominant health and fitness discourses which stress individual responsibility in the attainment of these statuses. We examine the results of an empirical study exploring how a group of 15 Canadian immigrant youth, aged 12–17, discursively construct notions of health and fitness. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups and journaling and analyses were formed using feminist post-structuralist perspectives to examine how the youth's ideas of health and fitness are influenced by cultural and institutional discourses. Through our analysis of their ideas regarding barriers to health and fitness, we argue that while current dominant discourses emphasize individual responsibility for health and fitness; these concepts are linked to a variety of political, social and economic influences.

Whitehead's London: Pop and the Ascendant Celebrity

Whitehead's London:Pop and the Ascendant Celebrity Kevin M. Flanagan (bio) London offers the best and the worst in the world. Michelangelo Antonioni Swinging London: the psychedelic gibbet. A colour-supplement commission dressed up as a movie. Photographers shooting photographers. Iain Sinclair The most influential written document in the export of London circa 1966 is Piri Halasz's controversial article "You Can Walk across It in the Grass," the April 15 cover story of Time magazine. A tribute to the movers and shakers perceived to be responsible for bringing Britain to the forefront of contemporary popular culture, it dwelled heavily on the icons, lingo, and attitudes that have since become recognizable cliché. In the words of Shawn Levy, the article "was part social analysis, part cultural exposé, part travelogue."1 The tone is carefree throughout, with substantial sections written as imagined sequences for an unmade Richard Lester film. Halasz's praise of new fashions, glamorous coteries and personal happiness through consumption spoke directly to the young, but this vision of London had its detractors. Historian Dominic Sandbrook suggests that Time's largely conservative, generally middle-aged readership hated the article, with one respondent claiming that the "turned-on young men and women will burn out as quickly as a light bulb of British manufacture."2 Halasz's view of the city and its vibrant young residents was so glowing that it could scarcely be outdone by an official tourist bureau. "In this century, every decade has had its city," she begins, [End Page 278] Click for larger view View full resolution Figures 1-7. London Moods (Ken Russell, UK, 1961) [End Page 279] Click for larger view View full resolution Figures 8-11. Nice Time (Claude Goretta and Alain Tanner, UK, 1957) "and in a decade dominated by youth, London has burst into bloom. It swings; it is the scene."3 She continues: This spring, as never before in modern times, London is switched on. Ancient elegance and new opulence are all tangled up in a dazzling blur of op and pop. The city is alive with birds (girls) and beatles [sic], buzzing with minicars and tellystars, pulsing with half a dozen separate veins of excitement. The guards now change at Buckingham Palace to a Lennon and McCartney tune, and Prince Charles is firmly in the longhair set. . . . In a once sedate world of faded splendor, everything new, uninhibited and kinky is blooming at the top of London life.4 The language itself is indicative of the degree to which youth outside of the United Kingdom, including Halasz, had already assimilated the habitus of London's creative elite. Halasz, who would later write a guidebook called A Swinger's Guide to London (1967), had pitched her article directly to American tourists—Time's sixteen million readers, despite their generational misgivings, potentially had the affluence, spending power, and curiosity to make the city a favored destination.5 Though the London of the immediate postwar era had thrived on cultural imports—American music, movies, and [End Page 280] books—the terms were reported to have been reversed. London was importing tourists and expatriate transplants, while simultaneously "exporting its plays, its films, its fads, its styles, its people."6 Peter Whitehead's film Tonite Let's All Make Love in London (UK, 1967) contains a shot of the cover of this fabled issue of Time. Whitehead's film was in production in the immediate aftermath of this article and features some of the same key personnel.7 In the documentary In the Beginning Was the Image: Conversations with Peter Whitehead (Paul Cronin, UK, 2006), Whitehead explains his creative standpoint as having been borne out of an attempt to come to terms with the great shibboleths of 1960s American cultural imperialism. His early films, even Tonite Let's All Make Love in London, are about a transnational flow of ideas—youthful ideas relating to truth, personal freedom, artistic integrity—in which the United States is a key participant. Unlike Halasz and other apologists for London's sudden "swinging" label, Whitehead does not seek American approval. Even though Halasz's article and Whitehead's film both interrogate the cultural fabric of the city, Whitehead...

A Young Voice, a Statue, and Marvell's 'The Nymph Complaining'

The allegorical flexibility of Marvell's 'The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn' is consonant both with shifting ideas of youth in early modern England and with Marvell's complicated fascination with the young. A companion poem by Marvell's contemporary, Thomas Philipott, also describes how a young nymph in a garden turns into a weeping statue: the differences between these two poems underscore how Marvell's young narrator, rather than satisfying familiar interpretive practices, prompts investigation into the cultural implications of these practices. Ultimately, the poem reconsiders the nature of pastoral and the consequences of circumscribing the voices of the young.

Supporting the emotional and psychological well being of sexual minority youth: Youth ideas for action

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) populations are susceptible to stress-related mental health disorders because of daily imposed stigma and prejudice. Yet minimal information exists from the perspective of sexual minority youth about how to support them in managing a challenging social environment during critical stages of development. Through the lens of youth from two geographic communities this study examined what is needed to support GLBT adolescent mental health. The study employed inductive secondary analysis of qualitative and quantitative data gathered through Concept Mapping needs assessments. Findings include 61 unduplicated ideas for support across the two groups of youth; 14 primary themes emerged with 22 stated needs common among both groups. Areas of need in multiple service systems are identified. The importance of the supports for meeting youths' emotional needs varied between the two communities. Ideas generated represent youth ideas for improving conditions which contribute to disparate community supports needed to develop positive emotional and psychological well being. The findings are conceptualized with regard to psychological and physical safety; community impact on emotional well being; schools and psychosocial supports; and access to relevant mental health and health care. Discussion includes implications for practice and policy.

Cosmetic Surgery and the Practice of Medicine

In this post-modern world, there is a recognisable bent in the media to promote the idea of youth (read as synonymous with beauty and power) to the fullest. The result is that public perceptions of the normal bodily processes of aging are viewed as detrimental or unattractive. Since we are “social creatures”, as Aristotle put it, the mediasation, for example, in magazines, TV, film, fashion, music, etc. of youth as ideal is bound to impact upon our individual ideas of ‘what-is-good-for-me’. Since youth is viewed by society as a good, it is possible to understand an individual’s desire to take advantage, when it is possible, of the cosmetic procedures that fortify this ideal. Moreover, since medical practitioners are part of the public, and no more or less swayed by such ideologies, it is also reasonable to assume that some will advantage themselves and take up the gauntlet of promoting youth, although perhaps in the more medical guise of ‘remedying the ills of aging’ in other words, enter the practice of cosmetic surgery.

Sobre a experiência sexual dos jovens

The rise in teenage pregnancy and young people's vulnerability to HIV have been a serious problem. This paper is intended to confront this statement based on its structural concepts (adolescence, youth, teenage pregnancy, and vulnerability) and by a non-exhaustive review of the relevant literature. The current paper discusses the ideas of youth and adolescence to approach the sexuality of young people and adolescents from the perspective of inequalities between different social groups and their access to health and resources for the prevention of diseases like HIV/AIDS as well as contraception. There are multiple paths leading young people to having unprotected sexual relations, and the numbers that surface on pregnancy, STDs, and HIV infection are doubtless lower than the real figures. The data presented herein indicate that the safe-sex approach is still necessary among youth, requiring efforts to produce creative strategies that make sense in different socio-cultural contexts in which young people experience sex.

Violons en basse as Musical Allegory

ABSTRACT An unusual type of orchestration sometimes called violons en basse is encountered in arias by French Baroque composers, including Couperin, Campra, and Rameau. In such pieces, the basse continue line is played by violins or violas notated in a high clef; the solo voice and any additional obbligato instruments remain in the treble register as well. This phenomenon has gone practically unnoticed by modern scholars and was seemingly unremarked upon by writers of the time, despite the striking color and lightness that it entails. A study of the texts of the arias in which violons are used en basse suggests that there are identifiable allegorical associations implicit in such pieces, and that they were clear to listeners of the time. Perhaps the most important and most frequent reference is to the pastoral, which is invoked by the texts and musical settings of a number of the airs. The pastoral can also be linked to the themes of peace and quiet delights present in other texts. Another important association shared with the pastoral is innocence, which is often conjoined with the idea of youth; youth is directly referred to in some texts, and also through several personages who sing them, such as Cupid (a boy), Diana (depicted in mythology as eternally young), and Hebe (the personification of youth). By identifying the allegorical use of violons en basse, we are able to add another texture and sonority to the common musical language of topics that was central to 18th-century musical rhetoric.

Children's Garden Consultants: A New Model of Engaging Youth to Inform Garden Design and Programming

This paper discusses a unique garden and youth-focused event in which a group of 4-H youth engaged in a “children's garden consultants” program. Over a 3-day period, seven teenaged youth were given the opportunity to actively research children's garden design and educational programming, and then present recommendations to an adult audience of children's garden experts and youth development specialists. Surveys, observations, and discussions with youth, adults in attendance, and program organizers indicated the event was highly valuable and worth repeating. It provided a new learning opportunity for youth, and it also gave adults new perspectives on gardens. The youth's ideas for improving children's gardens and suggestions for future programming are presented as well.

Newman’s Mediterranean “Verses”: Poetry at the Service of Doctrinal Teaching and Religious Renewal

After examining Newman’s youthful ideas about poetry, this article shows how some of the poems Newman wrote during his Mediterranean voyage (1832–1833) provide an interesting window into his feelings and beliefs at the beginning of the Oxford Movement. In so doing, the article attempts to kindle interest in Newman’s largely undervalued talent as a poet.

Young Buganda and Old Boys: Youth, Generational Transition, and Ideas of Leadership in Buganda, 1920-1949

From the 1920s through the 1940s, Britons and Baganda saw youth and generational transition as both disruptive to public order, and essential for Buganda's future. This article explores how—across the political and social spectrum—Britons and Baganda mobilized around ideas of youth. Britons, as government officials and missionaries, feared youthful conspiracies and adolescent politics. But they nurtured youth leadership and generational transition as essential in maintaining a governing alliance between British and Ganda elites. Baganda framed critiques of the kingdom and protectorate as statements of youth and the future, condemning the older generation's hierarchical and undemocratic political styles. Youth, rather than religion, ethnicity, nation, ideology, or class, provided a subversive, inclusive, flexible, and markedly democratic basis for imagining a new Buganda.

Funkeiros, timbaleiros e pagodeiros: notas sobre juventude e música negra na cidade de Salvador

Neste artigo, pretendo discutir como, num contexto racializado da associação entre juventude negra e música, surgem experiências que se desenvolvem como marcas identitárias, crítica social e ratificação de hierarquias raciais, de classe e gênero. Para tanto, trabalho com as idéias de juventude e geração como dado biológico, tanto quanto social e histórico, e com a idéia de música como sentido compartilhado. Além disso, rediscuto minhas notas etnográficas e de outros autores que refletiram sobre a relação entre música e juventude negra, cujos jovens observados, em contextos diversificados, são basicamente suburbanos, pobres e "negro-mestiços" com baixo grau de escolaridade, alguns com baixa capacidade de consumo, outros consumidores ansiosos. Concluo apontando para a importância da música como instrumento configurador de uma experiência juvenil e negra afro-diaspórica, mas também como instrumento repositor de antigas dessemelhanças que não estão nos genes.

Youth Cultures under Authoritarian Regimes

This article looks at the role of a popular youth subculture as a form of resistance to dominant constructions of youth under National Socialism in Germany. At the time when youth were strongly pressured to participate in the dominant youth organization and to conform to a particular model of “youthfulness” associated with fascist modernity, there were few opportunities to construct alternative ideas of youth. However, participation in the “Hamburg Swings” subculture through going to dances, listening to music, and using certain styles of speech, walking, and dressing offered an opportunity to construct alternative ideas of youth, ones heralding a more postmodern orientation. Swing came from America and emphasized a sensuous, fun-loving, hedonistic style. It was condemned as “degenerate music.” Many members of this subculture were punished; some were even sent to concentration camps. This article draws parallels between this role of youth subcultures as a form of latent opposition to authoritarian regimes and dominant official constructions of youth under both National Socialism and the former Soviet Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.

Youth perceptions of comprehensive adolescent health services through the Boston HAPPENS program

Introduction: The Boston HAPPENS (HIV Adolescent Provider and Peer Education Network for Services) program is a collaborative network of care made up of 8 organizations that serve youth and provide coordinated care for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive, homeless, and at-risk youth aged 12 to 24 years. Learning youth perceptions about the program is essential to determine if the program is meeting their needs. Methods: In this qualitative evaluation, 18 youth served by the network met in 4 focus groups to provide their view of the program. Services within 5 categories were assessed: (a) medical care, (b) mental health and substance abuse care, (c) HIV prevention and care, (d) case management, and (e) allocation of finances. Results: Boston HAPPENS has achieved name recognition and provides many needed services for youth from a wide variety of backgrounds. The youth were comfortable receiving care and were appreciative of the comprehensive services available. They provided suggestions for how mental health services could be offered as one-on-one counseling as part of “wellness care.” Young participants also requested more recreational and support opportunities for young people living with HIV. Discussion: Qualitative evaluations such as this give a voice to youth to advocate for services they need. By including youth ideas and perspectives during program development and implementation, services can be more attractive to groups of at-risk youth who historically have been less likely to seek care. J Pediatr Health Care. (2000). 14, 60–67.

Youthful Ideas about Old Age: An Analysis of Children's Drawings

Youthful ideas about old age are investigated by means of an analysis of children's drawings of young and old people. The age of the artists ranged between ten and a half years and eleven and a half years of age, and each artist drew four pictures (a young woman, an old woman, a young man, and an old man). Analyses consisted of a content analysis of drawings; the calculation of standard scores by means of the Harris-Goodenough Draw-A-Person (DAP) test scoring procedure (in order to effect comparisons of scores within each child's corpus of drawings); and measurement of the height of each drawing. The content analysis suggested a greater degree of stereotyping in boys' pictures of young women and in girls' pictures of old men than in other drawings. Pictures of old people overall were no more stereotyped than were those of young people, though they were more negative in content. Results of the DAP standard score calculation comparisons found consistent differences between children's drawings of old and young people, with pictures of old people attaining lower standard scores than those of young people. Size measurements revealed pictures of old people to be significantly smaller than those of young people. Explanations for these differences are discussed and further investigations recommended involving a wider population of artists and focusing particularly on the size of drawings.

Music Computation Conference: A Report and Commentary

A group of more than twenty people convened at Michigan State University (East Lansing) on December 2nd and 3rd, 1974, for the purpose of exchanging ideas and information arising from the influence of digital technology on the lot of the contemporary composer. At least two-thirds of those present delivered papers or reports, the orientation of which can be grouped into three broad areas: 1) compositional algorithms and synthesis programs, 2) sound analysis/synthesis and psycho-acoustics, and 3) hybrid and digital systems and special-purpose hardware. The object of the present account is to disseminate some of that information, as well as to reflect on some of the critical issues that inevitably surface at such a confluence of youthful ideas.

“Looking Out for Each Other”: Street-Involved Youth's Perspectives on Friendship

In public discourses, friendships among street-involved youth are often regarded as sources of delinquent or risky behaviour. Through interviews with street-involved youth in Victoria, BC, we explore youth's ideas about their friendships. Our analysis suggests that the youth we interviewed have created a “relational refuge,” that is, a social space and metaphorical home constituted through trust, proximity, and sharing of emotions and resources. Our research highlights how friendships can mediate some of the harmful aspects of street life for youth by enabling collective forms and practices of generalised reciprocity, acceptance and collaboration.

Kepler's Harmonics and his Concept of Inertia

Kepler's Harmonics of the Universe, the mature work in which he first enunciated his third law of planetary motion, was a consummation of some of his youthful ideas. He introduced the term inertia into physics and astronomy, extended its purview to the heavens, and contributed essential components to the fully developed concept of inertia.

James's Idea of Structure

James's youthful ideas about the form of fiction are the germs of the principles expressed in the late prefaces. But his earliest dicta, in comparison to the late, are arid and formalist—dogmatically proclaimed, not experimentally discovered. They hint of an American Gallophile, infatuated with the rigid lines and harsh economy of the well-made play and the well-made novel. In 1874 James announced: “We confess to a conservative taste in literary matters—to a relish for brevity, for conciseness, for elegance, for perfection of form” (LRE, p. 139). He never renounced such a taste; “brevity” and “perfection of form”—more frequently “economy” and “composition”—are as prominent, indeed as hieratic, in the prefaces as in the earliest reviews. But if James seems to have acquired his literary standards artificially and to have begun his career with a set of a priori principles to guide him, it was not long before he was to make these ideas his own by fully understanding their relevance to the craft of fiction. The early assumptions are not repudiated, but tested, clarified, and deepened. There is a remarkable balance in James's mature criticism between the general principle and the pragmatically discovered insight. Though the insistence on economy and order is never relaxed, the concepts become increasingly more flexible; with ease they accommodate notions of fiction that seem contradictory. James repeatedly exults in the freedom of the novelist: “the Novel remains still, under the right persuasion, the most independent, most elastic, most prodigious of literary forms” (AN, p. 326). Indeed to James it is plastic enough and prodigious enough to allow for the reconciliation of the art of Scribe with that of Balzac, and of the principles of Coleridge with those of Flaubert.

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch, born in 1863, the son of a doctor in the small Norwegian town of Loiten, came to Oslo at an early age, and there he first studied painting at the Art School. He afterwards worked for some time under the instruction of Christian Krogh, who soon recognized the very broad talent of the youth. Indeed, Munch was only twenty-three years old when he became admired as an unusual artist in Germany. Here he continued his studies, having already created a sensation in the world of art. Nevertheless his first attempt to exhibit his work at the Artists' Circle in Berlin, in 1882, caused a scandal. The unrestrained violence of his youthful ideas dismayed the jury, for the Norwegian revealed himself to be a dangerous artistic revolutionary, who, in his excessive desire to know the truth and to grasp the impossible, sacrificed traditional concepts; beauty and harmony were only relatively important to him for he frankly preferred ugliness, an ugliness bursting with life, stirring the soul and evoking a world of unfamiliar sensations. It is thus that Munch appears to us at the outset of his artistic career.