This series of presentations are an accompaniment to terrific textbook 'Sociology, 7th edition' by Giddens and Sutton (2013). There is a very strong focus on visuals, with many additional short activities designed to foster interaction between teachers and students. The text from Giddens and Sutton is usually paraphrased and reworded to aid the comprehension of students, particularity those of lower language ability than Giddens and Sutton had in mind. The sociology of the age and the life course is the perfect embodiment of contemporary sociology as a whole, and a branch of the discipline with direct relevance to every individual in late-modern capitalist industrial societies. Sociology is the study of how the structure of any particular society largely dictates how individuals must live; the analysis of the plight of the modern individual in a rapidly changing world. By using this frame of reference, we often reveal social phenomena previously regarded as "natural" and eternal as -in actual fact- "social constructions" that are completely dependent on the socio-historical era for their own existence. The sociology of the life course looks at how the meanings attached to something as fundamental as a "stage of life" (e.g. childhood) change across time and space; in other words, in different historical eras and -still today- in different places around this complex and diverse planet, the expectations attached to -say- being pre-teen, a teenager, or someone over the age of 50 are products of capitalist, industrial modernity and therefore very, very recent developments in our 800,000 year human history. This series begins with an introduction to the different aspects of ageing, with an emphasis on the development of social self (looking-glass self), which is something all humans do regardless of time and space; it is part of the psychological process of growing up in all societies. We then establish what social ageing is; the fundamentals of the sociology of ageing. Later chapters of the series analyze the different stages of life, in turn, in socio-historical perspective; beginning with what we would today call "childhood" (pre-teen), before looking at "youth", "young adulthood", "mature adulthood" and finally "later life".

1. The Sociology of
the Life Course
3 – The sociology of youth and adolescence
Accompaniment
to the superb
Giddens and
Sutton (2013)
(left) Chapter 9,
with an
assortment of
additional
accompanying
resources and
activities

2. Contents
3 The sociology of youth and adolescence
Also in the series…
1 Introduction to the sociology of age and the life course
2 The sociology of childhood
4 The sociology of young adulthood
5 The sociology of mature adulthood
6 The sociology of later life

3. 2 The life stages in socio-historical perspective:
2- Youth and adolescence
see G&S 2013:350

4. A teenageris anyone aged 13-19…
…the period in which most of our
biological
developmentfrom “child”
to “adult” takes place
Puberty : when a person becomes
capable of “adult” sexual activity and
reproduction
Activity:
Why might
one’s teenage
years be a
more difficult
life stage that
childhood or
young
adulthood?

5. These biological
changes are universal across time
and space- puberty, and being
literally a “teenager” are not specifically
modern phenomena!
Activity:
If the biological aspect is
universal, what aspects of
being a “youth” may be
socially constructed?

6. However, many of the
social meanings
associated with being a teenager in
industrial societies are
culturally specific
“…in manycultures
(puberty) does not produce the degree of
turmoil and uncertainty often found
among young people in modern
societies.”
Giddens & Sutton 2013:350

7. In many cultures
across time and space, there seems to
be much less of a concept of
“youth” as transition
between child- and adulthood

8. In some cultures, a distinct
ceremonial event signals
one’s relatively brief transition to
adulthood: there is little or no
awkward, halfway
stage
And in these pre-modern
environments “the process of
psychosexual
development is far easier to
negotiate”
Giddens & Sutton 2013:350
Activity:
Discuss the Giddens
quote (left). What is
‘pyschosocial
development’? Why
might it difficult to
negotiate in modernity,
but easier in more
traditional settings?

9. Many are now realizing that in pre-modern
settings, there is very little
concept of “youth” at all.
In cultures where children are already
working alongside adults, there is
very little social
relevance
of the “youth” stage apart from its biological
aspect.

10. Procreative
sexual activity
(ie conceiving babies) generally takes
place earlier in pre-modern
settings, also.
In many pre-modern settings, one
becomes “adult” when one
becomes a parent!
Activity:
Find statistics on the age
of first childbirth in
modern industrial societies
over the last 100 years.
Why such a long wait
between puberty and first
childbirth?

11. This is certainly notthe case in
modern industrial societies
Pregnancy is
biologically
possible
after puberty; yet in modern
industrialized societies, teenage
pregnancy is highly
stigmatized
and discouraged

12. The concept of “youth”,
and
“youth
culture” is a modern
one, specific to
industrial
societies and not fully
flourishing until the post-World
War II “ baby
boom” cohort
Activities:
(i) We’ve already seen
how childhood was to
an extent a socially
constructed , early-modern
phenomenon.
Review the factors that
contributed to this.
(ii) Can you guess which
factors might be
relevant to the social
construction of “youth
culture”?
Pre-modern youth in the UK
The industrialized West experienced a
“baby boom” after WWII

13. The
Hippy
youth
movement

14. Post-war affluence, rapid
mass-media
expansion, and the rapid onset of
consumerism,
created and fostered a growing concept of
youth culture
Activity:
How does
increased
opportunity for
consumerism
contribute to the
creation of youth
culture and various
subcultures?

15. Youth was constructed as a
time of
individual
identity-formation…
Activities:
(i) What is ‘identity’ and why is
it such a crucial concept in
sociology?
(ii) How is the late-modern
concept of identity different
today than in pre-modern
times?

16. new-found autonomous consumer
freedom; “teenager” as old enough to be free of
the constraints of parental
controls and yet young enough to be
without the
responsibilitiesof real
adult life …
Activity:
For how many years might a
late-modern youth expect to
live in such a transitory state?

17. …and often, the participation in various
subcultural trends
and groups such as hippies,
mods, rockers,
skinheads, emos,
ravers etc.
Activity:
Can you identify
the subcultural
trends depicted
here?