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The progressive commercialisation of motherhood, babyhood and childhood means that consumption is becoming an increasingly important terrain through which maternal identity, style and parenting practices are displayed and 'caring projects' are enacted. Whilst all mothers may seek to act meaningfully by consuming for their children, this paper argues that aspects of material culture hold particular value for teenage mothers who are positioned outside the boundaries of normative mothering and are often managing on limited financial resources. Consumption emerges as an important site for oppositional strategies through which the young women who took part in this study seek to re-image themselves as respectable carers and deflect negative associations of poverty away from their children. The young mothers' investment in consumer goods, however, is often subject to public scrutiny, criticism and ridicule, and their spending is a site for policy intervention. This paper argues that these young mothers' consumption practices should not be seen as problematic, trivial or pathological, but rather they can be understood as an expression of resilience in the face of a sensation of public visibility, judgement and condemnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the work on youth cultures and subcultures that emerged from Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (hereafter CCCS) during the 1970s. I engage with a number of recent critiques of the 'youth sub/cultures project', including Thornton's influential work on rave and club cultures and its troubled engagement with class. I argue that the focus of the youth sub/cultures project on mediated cultural practices through which young people constitute themselves and their (gendered, classed and racialised) positions remains of value, especially the emphasis on a 'symptomatic reading' that locates these processes in a 'conjunctural analysis'. I end by exploring the legacy of this project for understanding youth, class and culture in contemporary late modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The apparent sexualization and exploitation of young girls by the consumer media is a much debated topic in the advanced liberal democracies. This paper will develop the argument that the 'consumer-media culture' has established itself as one of the most powerful influences in processes of self-formation for young people, and that a tweenie self can be understood as an artefact of consumption. We will identify and analyse the resources that the consumer media provides to tweenies - girls aged between 9 and 14 - as they seek to fashion a sense of self. The paper presents an analysis of the resources presented to this population of young girls/women by an Australian 'appearance' magazine, Dolly. We will argue that these identity resources are limited in scope, are dominated by images of young, slim and attractive females, and position the tweenie self as an artefact of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, Canadian legalized gambling has undergone a massive growth, resulting in numerous social problems such as crime, political corruption, and, most importantly, pathological gambling. When it comes to theorizing gambling in Canada, pathological gambling has been the centre of the attention for two related reasons: (1) the increasing concern with individual and social harms resulting from it; and (2) priority given by grant-giving institutions to 'useful' scholarly efforts related to it. A major drawback, however, has been that these explanations often overlook the impact of broader social conditions on gambling behaviour and, instead, provide politically and ideologically conservative, microlevel analyses that point to the individual gamblers as the source of the problem. These theories, therefore, present partial accounts of an enduring and growing, socially produced problem. The argument of this paper is that Canadians' gambling behaviour, and its consequences, must be understood primarily as a social problem and within the nexus of (a) the Canadian state's pro-gambling policies (prompted by the need to generate revenues); (b) the gap between commonly shared Canadian cultural values - monetary success - and legitimate means of achieving them; and (c) capitalist processes of profit-making and commodification. Only then can we have a better understanding of a persistent and growing problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007, according to newspaper reports, Melbourne streets had become 'booze battlegrounds'. In the year that followed, binge drinking by young Australians was a major news focus and a subject for heightened public anxiety. Young drinkers were perceived to be out of control. In this paper, I draw on two qualitative research projects with young Australians to explore the contradictory social forces shaping their contemporary drinking landscape. Paradoxically, self-control is a major theme in the way participants discuss the management of their alcohol consumption. The concept of 'staging intoxication' is developed to explain how contemporary youth seek to enhance the pleasure and manage the risks of drinking. Ultimately, individual self-control is a weak moderating force on alcohol consumption in the face of market exploitation, incongruous state control and heavy drinking cultural expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet cafe (wangba) continues to enjoy high popularity among urban Chinese youth, mostly members of China's only-child generation, despite the derogatory connotations the wangba carries, official control and widely diffused access at home. Based on observation at wangbas and in-depth interviews with urban youth, I explore from the Internet cafe goers' perspective what wangba going is all about. The study shows that the wangba serves as a heterotopian third place for the goers. They are there, often against the will of various authorities, for a sense of freedom, relaxation, community, and equality as well as fun, which can hardly be found elsewhere in their lives. The meanings they assign to the wangba are closely related to their social-biographical situations as urban only children typically under great parental expectations in a society characterised by sharp social stratification, fierce competition, lack of security, consumerism, corruption and unfairness in the distribution of resources. In this sense, the wangba is seen as a necessary space for existential reasons, in sharp contrast to the negative portrayal of the wangba as a mere den of iniquity in both official and popular discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, using a three wave qualitative longitudinal data set, we explored patterns of change in gambling behavior among a sample of young Danes. A total of 48 informants participated in all three sweeps of interviews. The overall aim was to explore the complexities and social contexts, as well as the subjective meanings that underlie gambling behavior changes. We identified four different types of gambling pathways, each illustrating different types of movement over time: intensification; reduction; stability, and those that were non-linear. Our overall finding was that transitions or oscillations in behavior are more common than a progressive linear gambling pattern, and that these changes are affected by a number of contextual factors. The implications for further research and policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we examine the gender differences in disposable incomes of teenagers during a 30-year period 1983–2013, using large nationally representative survey data. Since the gender pay gap in working life has been rather persistent in Finland and the EU, it was necessary to see whether the gap persists in teenagers’ incomes as well. Although teenagers do not receive much income from work, they adapt to the structures of society during their teenage years and learn gender roles in consumption, education, and working life. Our results reveal that the gender pay gap has been rather persistent in Finland, particularly among 14- and 16-year-old teenagers. It is only among 18-year-olds that the gender difference in income has narrowed. There were interactions between gender and socio-economic indicators such as the father's education and family's place of residence. The persistent gender pay gap cannot be explained solely by wage differences in any age group, because full-time work of teenagers is nowadays very rare, and in Finland they do not work very much even part-time. Although it is rather obvious that boys get higher incomes than girls from external work, the allocation of money by parents seems to be unequal, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have sought to test whether changes in value orientation proposed by social theories can empirically be found. This study aims to rigorously test the extent to which there is similarity in values, in two large samples representative of 15-year-olds. We hypothesised that youth from Helsinki are more likely to hold more late-modern values and Glaswegian youth more modern values with more traditional elements. The material was drawn from two comparable school-based surveys conducted respectively, in Glasgow in 1999 (n=2196) and Helsinki in 1998 (n=2420). Using structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques we were able to identify similar constructs representing values towards sex roles, work ethic, citizenship, authority, environment and equity. Glasgow youth showed more consensus typical of modern societies, whereas Helsinki youth were more varied in their patterns of attitudes. There were many signs of Helsinki youth being more late modern in their values. Yet, four out of 10 subordinate hypotheses derived from our main hypothesis were not supported by the findings. This study is compatible with the view that young people from Helsinki appear more late modern in their value orientation, but there are clearly local adaptations to the general value shift thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Understanding the meanings, associations and ideas of appropriateness that shape young adults’ decision-making around alcohol will assist in developing strategies to promote healthy consumption and anticipate rates of future harm. Increases in per capita consumption as well as the affordability and availability of alcohol suggest the cultural environment in which young adults become consumers of alcohol has changed in recent years. This qualitative study investigated the role of alcohol within the transitions to adulthood of 18–25 year olds living in Glasgow, United Kingdom. The findings support previous research that has identified excessive consumption of alcohol as a component of a normative understanding of life-course that positions young adulthood as liminal and offering a safe space for boundary pushing and identity exploration. However, exploring differences in the opportunity to enact taken-for-granted alcohol and life-course related norms highlights the limits of universal understandings of young adulthood across different socio-economic experiences of this age group in the United Kingdom. Inequalities in alcohol and life-course related risk are identified that should be of interest to policy-makers and educators in the field of alcohol. The broad implications for policy direction are discussed. The project was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the importance of material goods consumption to young people and the perception that to be 'cool' is fundamental to identity construction, this study investigates consumption in relation to social, economic and cultural inequalities. Qualitative individual interviews took place in November 2005, in Rio de Janeiro, with 14 high school students, age range 16-18, from public and private schools, and diverse backgrounds. In the context of global changes, Brazil is pushed towards a more advanced economic development, though basic needs of most of its population are not met. Serious contrasts continually reinforce and reproduce social and economic inequalities, through prejudice and segregation based on race, gender, residence and origin. Poor youngsters face the challenges of living in a globalised but unequal society, such as inadequate education, transition from school to labour markets, unemployment and less social participation. The data suggested that consumption is important to provide the feeling of being 'cool', 'fitting in' and experiencing inclusion though inequalities are an obstacle to consumption. In divided societies, to consume or dream of consuming create illusions of belonging to different classes, and escaping from poverty; however, respondents argued that education is the most important factor for improving social and economic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to find patterns among young people's music preferences in relation to their attitudes towards saving or spending money. Previous research found that certain music genres (e.g. rap and dance) are associated with impulsive behaviour and a pleasure-seeking lifestyle. Other music genres (e.g. classical and oldies) are associated with more adult-approved lifestyles, such as doing well in school. Our hypotheses predicted that those who regularly listened to 'adult-approved' music would be likely to save money. In contrast, youths who listened to 'anti-authority' music were expected to be more likely to spend their money impulsively. Using data collected from 178 individuals aged 14-24 through self-report surveys, principal component analysis was used to group music genres that measure the same underlying preference. Then regression analysis was applied to examine the relationship between music preferences and attitudes towards saving or spending money. Results revealed that participants who listened to hip-hop, rap, rhythm and blues, dance, house, electronic, industrial, techno and trance (many are anti-authority types of music) reported a tendency to spend money. Those who favoured classical, opera, musicals, big band, world music, oldies, contemporary rock and alternative music (many are adult-approved types of music) were more likely to save money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]