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Drawing on a five-year qualitative study on the impacts of the Olympic Games on homeless and marginally housed youth in two host cities (Vancouver 2010 and London 2012), this paper explores the instances of ‘symbolic violence’ perpetuated by the institutional infrastructure associated with the Olympics. Following Pierre Bourdieu’s use of the term, symbolic violence refers to the manner in which the young people turned dominant notions of what the desirable Olympic city looks and feels like into a sense of their own non-belonging and/or inadequacy, experienced bodily and emotionally. Feeling pressured to vie for elusive Olympic jobs and volunteer positions, and to be less visible to the thousands of tourist-spectators for the Games, youth in both cities reported a defiant mix of frustrated indignation and resigned acceptance that they did not ‘fit’ the image of the global Olympic city that organizers were trying to convey. The paper argues that this social harm, difficult to measure yet real nonetheless, is an important though unintended legacy of the Olympic Games for homeless and marginally housed youth living in its shadows. The paper also calls for a more sustained engagement with Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence in youth studies as a discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency is a conceptual problem for youth studies. While the term is used in many analyses of young people's lives, this paper argues that the nature and conceptual meaning of agency remain ambiguous: agency is a ‘black box’ which while fundamental to youth sociology remains unpacked. Ontological and epistemological confusion about the concept means that appeals to agency in contemporary youth sociology beg the very questions they claim to answer. Nevertheless, the concept has become central to the conceptual and political basis of youth research, coming to stand for practices that are ‘bounded’ by structures and resist existing states of affairs. This limits the explanatory power of theoretical frameworks in youth studies, and does not serve the ethical commitments of a politically engaged discipline. Identifying conceptual and normative problems raised by the way agency is deployed, this paper argues that a conceptually powerful and politically engaged youth sociology must move beyond the problem of agency as it stands, and incorporates theoretical perspectives on youth subjectivities and social action that indicate possibilities for how this might take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on recent debates about the work of Ulrich Beck to explore the conceptual promise of concepts such as individualisation and reflexivity for understanding contemporary youth inequalities. The aim of the paper was to suggest a theory of reflexivity that views reflexive practices as one of the ways that inequalities operate in modernity. The argument is made in three stages. In the first, debates about the meaning of reflexivity for understanding young people's identities are reviewed, foregrounding suggestions for dialogue and synthesis between the individualisation thesis and the work of Bourdieu. Taking this as a starting point, the paper then reviews changing themes in the literature on young people's identities and the structuring of their biographies amidst conditions of social change, arguing that reflexivity is an important feature of young people's identities, and that reflexive practices articulate classed inequalities under conditions of ‘structured fragmentation’. The paper then argues that reflexivity is a means by which the dispositions of the habitus are realised and reworked in practice. The paper concludes by emphasising that reflexive practices are oriented towards local structural conditions, and are one of the ways in which economies of cultural capital operate in late modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2009 Woodman has recently challenged youth sociologists concerned with inequality to evolve from what he describes as a middling orthodoxy that misrepresents the work of Ulrich Beck in an effort to emphasise the continuing relevance of class. In 2010 Roberts forcefully responds to Woodman, arguing that Beck's own words and empirical evidence contradict his argument. Woodman responds to Roberts, reasserting his position and asks for the debate to move beyond mere 'quote wars'. This paper engages with this debate, taking Woodman's challenge seriously while maintaining that Beck's jettison of class is problematic, and that the concept of class itself is still vital. The paper concludes with suggestions as to what youth sociologists concerned with socio-economic inequality might want to focus upon in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cotê has called for a focus on a political economy analysis, where young people should be thought of as ‘youth-as-class’. Cotê positions youth as having false consciousness, arguing that youth studies is too focussed on subjectivities and a potential apologist for neo-liberalism. While we acknowledge the central importance of economic considerations, this paper critically engages Cotê’s claims while developing an approach to political economy that recognises the importance of inequalities between young people. We engage with a number of Cotê’s claims arguing that his position underestimates the diversity of work in this area and the importance subjectivities to any analysis of political economy. We also identify a number of conceptual problems with ‘youth-as-class’ and the ‘false consciousness’ heuristic. We develop an alternative approach outlining a more integrative understanding of the relationship between the political and the economy highlighting the importance of subjectivity. We draw on ideas of political ecology; reflexivity and consciousness; and concepts from Bourdieu. Our approach recognises that young people's lives can be shaped by economic forces and by classed symbolic and moral forces. Young people are not passive dupes, but are in a constant reflexive struggle to respond to circumstances not always of their own making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a time of rapid and unprecedented social change, the concepts we use to make sense of the ways in which young people understand and interact with the world are very much under the microscope. Some researchers argue that we need to reinvigorate our conceptual repertoire, while others argue that our theoretical tool box still has the capacity to consider continuities as well as change. Building on an earlier paper, this article provides a rejoinder to recent contributions to this debate written by Woodman and Threadgold. Attending to some misunderstandings, misinterpretations and oversights, the article aims to clarify and re-emphasise some important points I have made previously. In particular, the article argues for a coherent and comprehensive critical review of Beck's corpus before we uncritically and readily incorporate his perspectives into our ways of theorising the contemporary social world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against a backdrop of lively discussion about the best ways to do youth studies, or sociology of youth, this article asks: Can Pierre Bourdieu's work be translated into youth studies in ways that benefit the field? We begin by considering Bourdieu's thoughts on the category of 'youth' using a new translation of this text, and then turn to an important discussion by Furlong, Woodman, and Wyn about certain long standing tensions in youth studies. These tensions are between writers engaging in the 'structure versus agency' debate that is mapped onto the 'culture versus transitions' binary. We consider the case for adopting a 'middle-ground' represented by Bourdieu's writings. We argue that many in youth studies work from an unacknowledged substantialist tradition, which is contra to Bourdieu's relational perspective. The result includes misunderstandings of Bourdieu's thinking and expectations of his work, for example, that it can pass certain empirical tests. We argue that if Bourdieu's relational perspective is to be translated into youth studies, we will need a more determined effort to understand that perspective first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the theoretical development of subcultural theory. It first provides a brief history of subcultural theory. It then attempts to outline the central requirements which should be fulfilled by a neo-Birminghamian conception of subculture that takes valid critiques of the CCCS into account, while maintaining the theoretical richness and analytical qualities of the concept. This includes putting social structures, including class in intersection with gender and ethnicity, back into subcultural theory, in a way that allows for grasping complexity. The article moves on to argue that the development of such a conception of subculture could potentially be realized by entering a theoretical dialogue with Bourdieu’s sociology and feminist accounts of intersectionality. Furthermore, it suggests that such a theoretical conception may be highly relevant to current research areas such as gangs/street culture and Jihadism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using ethnographic and interview data, this article explores hopes for the future of young Indonesian musicians. The young people are seen to consider their future trajectories in multiple, hierarchical music fields. The article also takes into account the ontological insecurity of jobs as a professional musician, arguing that there is continuous reproduction of adoxa, namely ‘survival of the fittest’ in Indonesia. Yet despite abundant risks to livelihoods, young Indonesian musicians expressed optimistic views about the future. The analysis of data below bridges the gap between the traditionally separate youth studies fields of youth transitions and youth cultures. Our interpretation critically contextualises the dialogue between these two fields based on the experiences of young Indonesian musicians as a part of the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a previous issue of this journal, France and Threadgold [2015. “Youth and Political Economy: Towards a Bourdieusian Approach.”Journal of Youth Studiesdoi:10.1080/13676261.2015.1098779] claim that they ‘strongly believe that a political economy perspective remains vital for understanding macro-structural power’ (8), yet they reject key aspects of the version I recommended in an earlier issue of this journal [Côté. J. E. 2014a.“Towards a New Political Economy of Youth.”Journal of Youth Studies17 (4): 527–543]. They also present a Bourdieusian framework, asserting that it provides a better understanding of the effects of political and the economic forces on the lives of young people. In this article, I show how their rejection of the political-economy-of-youth perspective is based on their misunderstandings of some of the fundamental concepts of that perspective, as well as their misrepresentations of what I recommend to the youth studies community concerning that perspective. Consequently, although their Bourdieusian framework may be useful in illuminating certain aspects of the problem, their attempt to promote their framework as a better approach to the political economy of youth is based on unfounded claims. I use their errors to illustrate several metatheoretical principles that can help researchers to be less imperialistic in their claims, and I offer an analysis of how this dispute reflects the current fragmented nature of the field of youth studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research introduces the concept of a habitus of insecurity to account for the lives of homeless young people. It outlines how conditions of existence are internalised and how homeless young people come to expect and in turn recreate instability in their lives. This research addresses the internalisation and naturalisation of experiences of instability, insecurity and marginalisation and how people can come to subjectively aspire to what they are socialised to see as objectively probable or ‘for the likes of them'. The research draws on ethnographic research and participant observation to examine the complex lives of homeless young people and how they are shaped by instability and insecurity inculcated before, during and after experiences of homelessness. This research highlights that people should not be defined merely by their experiences of homelessness of housing status, but by the complex array of conditions that shape their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with uncertainty, how do young people navigate the transition from school to work? Applying Bourdieu's concept of habitus to the ‘fields’ of education and employment, I argue that past experience, family background and unequal access to economic, social and symbolic forms of capital differentiate their transitions. Drawing on the tenth wave of the Australian longitudinal Life Chances Study, we found that all of the twenty-five 21-year-olds interviewed expressed uncertainty when discussing their futures. However, those from high-income backgrounds with access to strong social, economic and cultural resources were better able to manage the risks arising from uncertainty than their counterparts from low-income backgrounds. The following article seeks to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of young people's experiences at age 21 through the application of Bourdieu's conceptual framework. The interviewees’ habitus and cultivation of varying forms of capital tend towards social reproduction, yet also reveal opportunities for those considered ‘disadvantaged’ to mobilise their cultural resources. Bourdieu's model of the field, and its component conceptual tools, provide an explanatory frame to make sense of the seemingly incoherent paths that young people trace between education and employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current youth policy in England and Wales utilises ‘transition’ as the major framework for understanding young people's movement from ‘youth’ to ‘adulthood’. Underpinning this are developmental assumptions about who young people are and who they ‘should’ become, especially with regard to sexuality. ‘Childhood’ and ‘youth’ are conceptualised as asexual or pre-sexual categories and those young people who are deemed to have sexual knowledge are problematised. Transitions to adulthood are inescapably heteronormative: the movement to adulthood is not simply about becoming an adult, but about becoming a man or a woman conforming to compulsory heterosexuality. Current youth policy says little about young people's sexuality and when it does it frequently conflates sexual behaviour with sexual health. Drawing on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and, in particular, his concepts of field, habitus and symbolic violence, it will be argued that despite the rhetoric of participation, engagement and inclusion in current youth policy it continues to perpetuate and naturalise the symbolic order between ‘adults’ and young people and continues to position youth sexuality as potentially dangerous. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]