Thursday, 5 January 2023
UNIT 1
- Youth is a transitionary stage between childhood and adulthood.
- Socially constructed and di ers from culture to culture.
- DEFINITION: Youth is a socially constructed inter-mediatory phase that stands
between childhood and adulthood; it is not de ned chronologically as a stage tied
to speci c age-ranges, nor can its end point be linked to speci c activities such
as employment, or having sexual relations.
- Youth is constructed and modi ed as a social category according to social
expectations regarding age brackets for participation in education, work,
marriage, parenthood, consumption, and social welfare.
CHARACTERISTICS
- Youth is not a homogenous group; heterogenous. UN Youth Envoy 2018: All the
diversity in the world you nd re ected in youth.
- Youth is a socially constructed category.
- UNESCO: Youth is best understood as a period of transaction from a period of
dependence of childhood to adulthood’s independence and awareness and
interdependence as a member of the community. Youth is the most uid category
than a xed age range.
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT / THEORIES
1. Transactional Perspective
• Glen Elder’s His work talks about Di erent developmental stages of life and
called it life cycles. He believed that Life cycle is an individual’s journey through
life which is decontextualised, linear in nature and is normative. Youth
characteristics: that they are about to leave school, get employment and be
married.
2. Generational Perspective
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3. Psychological Perspective
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4. Policy Perspective
YOUTH IDENTITY
1. Freud’s psychosexual stages
2. Erickson (8 stages)
3. Post-modernism - uid in nature and unstable. This uidity is due to cultural
context
CATEGORIES OF YOUTH IDENTITY
1. GENDER AND SEXUAL IDENTITY
• Important studies: Foucault 1972, he believed that femininity and masculinity
are not innate but are learned identities and they are intensively organized
and managed by society.
• Buckingham and Bragg, 2004 has stated that sexual and gender identities are
produced by institutional and discursive arrangements. These institutions
also start forming and establishing your gender and sexual identity.
• The 3rd important role in forming this identity comes from schools. Davis
1989 has talked about research which shows that ‘errors’ in the ways
masculinity and femininity are expressed are very quickly ‘corrected’ in the
primary school context.
• Woodward 2003, he said school teachers actively discourage a ectionate
behaviour between boys but are less bothered by the relationship between
boys and girls (heteronormative).
• Role of Media. Cote and Allahar, 2006 have talked about that young people
are often presented with exaggerated gender identities during school and
within mass media, ideology of gender.
2. CLASS RELATED IDENTITY
• Related to level of employment, earning and spending.
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• With urbanisation, specialisation in di erent elds, class related identities have
almost disappeared.
• Closely related Indian system of ‘varna.’ With law enforcement and policies, it
is less visible in society.
3. RACIAL IDENTITY
• Othering - part of us that create the feeling of ‘we’ and ‘them’; most important
component of power
• Positive (creates a shared feelings among communities, helps acceptance of
self) and negative aspects
4. RELIGIOUS IDENTITY
• Religion is one supreme gure we are trying to preach, has rituals that should
happen as prescribed Eg. Rig veda; spirituality believes in higher
consciousness that has no form or shape or colour, no supreme power. Eg.
Buddhism
• Religion takes you towards spirituality
• Study this as it helps provide meaning/purpose of life, source of values which is
a centre of personhood.
• Religious characteristics of Gen Y - choose religion as per their convenience
and not as an obligation; tolerant and open to other religious values; believe
that they are on a religious journey and so not take religion as a set of beliefs;
they do not stick to one religion rather they can go with an eclectic approach;
Gen Y believes in making a di erence/changing in the world and hence they
believe that religion should address the issues of justice and equality (these
characteristics are given by Flory and Miller 2010)
ISSUES OF YOUTH PSYCHOLOGY
• Youth is not properly de ned due to lack of mutual consent regarding its
de nition.
• Inability to clearly di erentiate a gap between adolescence and youth.
• Plasticity. Human lifespan is not linear at any cost. This uidity of human nature
makes it di cult to form a universal theory for all youth.
• Multidimensional factors. The need to study not just social or psychological but
also biological aspects and more.
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• Evidence. Mostly qualitative. Very di cult to create evidence related to youth
theories.
• Interaction between factors.
RELEVANCE
• Youth psychology focuses on bio-psycho-social to spiritual identity of an
individual. It is a dynamic eld. A whole range of topics and variables to study
from an individual level to higher levels.
• Youth is vital in political application.
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