Youth In Society: The Construction and Deconstruction of Youth in East and West Europe

by Claire Wallace, Sijka Kovatcheva

This book seeks to explore how the lives of young people were shaped by the dramatic changes taking place in Europe over the last hundred years. They are not looked at as simply the passive products of change, since they have at all times had an active part in constructing these changes. The authors look at processes of modernization (industrialization, development of welfare states and education systems, urbanization) and the different ways in which this took place in the context of Communism and welfare capitalism and how this "constructed" youth. They go on to consider the processes of post-modernization, including the fragmentation and privatization of the state, the reconstruction of labor market and education systems, de-industrialization, the importance of popular youth culture and how this "deconstructed" youth.

243 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 1998

About the author

Professor Claire Wallace is the Vice-Principal of the School of Social Science at the University of Aberdeen.