This essay will look into the social construction of youth, arguing whether sociology can help us understand the nature of adolescents. This will be done by first finding the definitions of adolescents and sociology, secondly it will discuss the different sociological perspectives (Marxist, Functionalist and Post-modernist) on what their perspective on youth and youth subcultures are and how they can help people to understand the nature of adolescents. Leading on to the analysation of social construction; what it is all about and how society has socially constructed youth. Lastly I will be putting across a suggestion that youth can be seen as a Morden invention by some sociologists.
According to the dictionary adolescents is described as …show more content…
They believe for something to exist it must have a purpose, so youth culture exists with the purpose as a transitory phase for adolescents to move from childhood to adulthood. Functionalist are more interested in how youth culture fits into society as it sees youth as a time of transition and change. Parsons says that subcultures are away of young people trying to detach themselves from their parents to achieve their own independence, he believes that this is a rite of passage that all young people go through; He calls it the bridge between childhood and adulthood. ‘There is reason to believe that the youth culture has important sensitive functions in easing the transition from the security of childhood in the family of orientation to that of full adult status’ (Parsons, 1972, p. 145). Eisenstadt (1956) builds on Parsons statement by saying that young people need to distinguish themselves from their parents, which could be stressful. He the implies that youth culture provides a way of dealing with the stress by having a peer group of like-minded individuals around the same age that acquire the same style and attitudes, growing and developing new norms and values to what may have been learnt in childhood.
Criticisms of functionalism is that it sees youth culture as homogenous despite …show more content…
It is the knowledge that society groups individuals into groups and assign different privileges for one group other than the other. These different groups include race, gender and class. Youth can be seen as a social construction as it has changed other the years. Jones (2009) suggests that youth is a social construction with social meanings, which is down to the sociology of youth to find out/ understand how and why theses subcultures have developed. The category of youth was first surfaced after the Great Britain war, which became one of the most visible demonstrations of social changes, this was because of the resistance to mainstream culture. Youth became the focus of attention of the media, legislation and public interventions; it was preserved as a “social problem” by the guardians of morals and played an important role as milestone in the elaboration of knowledge, interpretations and explanations about the period (Hall and Jefferson,
According to the dictionary adolescents is described as …show more content…
They believe for something to exist it must have a purpose, so youth culture exists with the purpose as a transitory phase for adolescents to move from childhood to adulthood. Functionalist are more interested in how youth culture fits into society as it sees youth as a time of transition and change. Parsons says that subcultures are away of young people trying to detach themselves from their parents to achieve their own independence, he believes that this is a rite of passage that all young people go through; He calls it the bridge between childhood and adulthood. ‘There is reason to believe that the youth culture has important sensitive functions in easing the transition from the security of childhood in the family of orientation to that of full adult status’ (Parsons, 1972, p. 145). Eisenstadt (1956) builds on Parsons statement by saying that young people need to distinguish themselves from their parents, which could be stressful. He the implies that youth culture provides a way of dealing with the stress by having a peer group of like-minded individuals around the same age that acquire the same style and attitudes, growing and developing new norms and values to what may have been learnt in childhood.
Criticisms of functionalism is that it sees youth culture as homogenous despite …show more content…
It is the knowledge that society groups individuals into groups and assign different privileges for one group other than the other. These different groups include race, gender and class. Youth can be seen as a social construction as it has changed other the years. Jones (2009) suggests that youth is a social construction with social meanings, which is down to the sociology of youth to find out/ understand how and why theses subcultures have developed. The category of youth was first surfaced after the Great Britain war, which became one of the most visible demonstrations of social changes, this was because of the resistance to mainstream culture. Youth became the focus of attention of the media, legislation and public interventions; it was preserved as a “social problem” by the guardians of morals and played an important role as milestone in the elaboration of knowledge, interpretations and explanations about the period (Hall and Jefferson,