Youth Culture Identity in a Postmodern World [Paperback]

This innovative collection of newly commissioned essays from leading experts in sociology and cultural studies looks at youth culture through subcultural identity. Youth Culture is the first text to bridge sociology and cultural studies in order to understand youth identity replacing the outmoded theories based on deviance. This volume examines the social worlds of young people in their natural environments ; suburban bedrooms, shopping malls, rock concerts, and school. In addition, it explores the impact of the media and music on youth, using Beavis and Butthead, grunge , and heavy metal bands as examples of youth subcultural identity.

Epstein's collection of prominent writers and researchers will give you a better understanding of why youths, in particular, are prone to collective identity, and how they achieve their sense of self through fashion, music, sports and entertainment.

List of Contributors vii

Acknowledgments x

1 Introduction: Generation X, Youth Culture, and Identity 1
Jonathon S. Epstein

2 Teenage Sexuality, Body Politics, and the Pedagogy of Display 24
Henry A. Giroux

3 Teens and Schools: Who is Falling through the Cracks and Why 56
Sarah Nixon-Ponder

4 Beavis and Butt-Head: No Future for Postmodern Youth 74
Steven Best and Douglas Kellner

5 The Industrial Identity Crisis: the Failure of a Newly Forming subculture to Identity Itself 100
David A. Locher

6 Identity and Status Stratification in Deadhead Subculture 118
Robert Sardiello

7 “Don’t Need you:” Rethinking Identity Politics and Separatism from a Grrrl Perspective 148
Mary Celestl•