Today in Society and Lifestyles we looked at the relationship between youth, culture and society. Culture is the values, norms, and habits of a group of people which are reflected in their way of life. Society is the interactions and relations between all people. Youth is a particular stage of life, before adulthood, this stage refers to the physical, emotional and social aspects of people. We considered that some people may view youths as being dependent, ignorant and irresponsible, while adults are viewed as being independent, knowledgeable, and responsible. I believe this to be a perfect example of how youths can be misunderstood and how peoples perceptions of them can have a huge impact on the way they really are. I am a very strong believer that if we make our young people feel as though they are ignorant hooligans, many of them will live up to expectations and become just that. Youth can be viewed as a subculture. This means that youth is a way of life which has its own definitions of what is popular. Things such as clothes and music are generally accepted as ‘cool’ or not by people in their youth. In an article in the Guardian it has been said that youth culture is a relatively modern concept which until recently, did not have its own definition or traits.
Furthermore, we studied social theorists such as Piaget, Eric Erikson, Kohlberg, and Maslow. Piaget believed that the mental development of children is set in age groups. He argued that between the ages of 0-2 years old we go through the sensorimotor stage, in which we are beginning to learn how to learn, through our sensory experiences. Then between the ages of 2-7 years old we enter the preoperational stage, in which we are egocentric and centration occurs and we do no understand reversibility. It is at this stage which we are beginning to develop symbolic thought. Moving on to the concrete operational stage, between the ages of 7-11 years old, we begin to understand the concepts of conservation and hierarchical classification as well as transitivity as we are starting to appreciate our identity and our place in the world. Finally, from 11 onwards, Piaget believed that humans go through the formal operational stage in which we can think and solve problems abstractly and symbolically.
In addition, Erik Ericson believed that adolescence is a time when you are trying to figure out who you are. He argued that adolescents may take some time to do this and may explore different possibilities to find out who they are and what they want. He believed that this time is the final stage before adulthood in which people, between the ages of 12-18 years old begin to consider their future and how they want their life as an adult to be. This includes considering their career, relationships and family. At this stage, young people will develop the roles which they will occupy as adults, therefore their time as adolescents determines their future life as an adult, making the decisions which they may during this time very important. He identified the possibility of an identity crisis which people may go through due to having missed on of the stages of development named by Erikson. He also looked closely at our understanding of ‘fitting in’ and our want, or lack of, to do so.
As well as this, we looked at Kohlberg and his Individual Moral Development Stages (1976). These stages clearly state that we go from doing the right thing due to fear of punishment for doing the wrong thing, to beginning to recognise that there are different rules and different morals in different social places, to thinking about law and realising societies view of right and wrong. After this stage they begin to recognise that some values may be different but their are equally valuable and there are some values which do not suit the best interests of certain types of people. Finally, people embrace their chosen ethics and live by these religiously, whether these individual guidelines fit the law or not. He argued that not everyone reaches stages 5 and 6 because they have not got a full understanding of the way morals effect their micro and macro worlds. It is also important to note that these stages do not refer to every person, for example not everyone will appreciate the law and uphold it to avoid guilt – not everyone follows the rules of society or of their culture.
Another theorist we looked at today was Maslow. He believed that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. He concluded that we are all motivated by physiological needs, safety, social needs, esteem, and self actualisation. Our physiological needs refer to our need for food and water, our safety refers to our need for law, order and protection, our social needs refers to our need for relationships and family, our esteem refers to our motivation to have self respect and to be respectful of others, and finally self actualisation refers to our motivation for self fulfilment, meaning we are always working to achieve our potential. Not everyone succeeds in self actualisation as they have possibly missed one of the previous stages.
Furthermore, from looking at the social institutions which shape our youth culture, we explored the influence of family, school and the labour market. Youth and popular culture are closely related as if we consider who is famous currently, we can consider that there is a chance that they are famous because of the support from youths. Youth culture has its own market which many famous people and large companies will target. The music and TV that youths listen to and watch is also influential of the way they dress and act. By idolising celebrities, actors, musicians and TV characters, youths are often found to adapt their style of dress and actions to suit the profile of their preferred idol. This can be viewed as a way of expressing themselves as they may still be confused about who they are, so focus instead on being like the people they like.
Finally, we looked at case studies and I have chosen to focus further research on the Amish Community. I find this extremely interesting as in a world which is so heavily influence by media, these people live their lives with no technology at all and with the outside world as a different planet. The tradition of Amish youths being allowed to have between 1-8 years of freedom to experiment and decide whether or not they wish to return to the Amish world forever is a very interesting one as it shows how technology and modern ‘freedom’ can tempt even those who have been brought up in such a strict and family orientated community. I look forward to learning more about the Amish youth in my research.
The most important thing I feel I have taken from today is a new found understanding of the connection between culture, society, youth and time. Society, culture, and youth all influence each other while time continuously moves on.
