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This article addresses the sustainability of extensive paternal involvement in caregiving by applying a temporal approach to understandings of the journeys of primary‐ and equal‐carer fathers and their families. Drawing on a second phase of interviews with UK fathers first spoken to 5 years earlier, we explore continuities and changes in their roles, identities and outlooks as their caregiving journeys progressed and their children became older. Specifically, we explore how fathers and their families negotiated significant moments of change that had the potential to prompt reflection or reorientation, moments that we term caregiving crossroads. Through doing so, we highlight how, in spite of shifts in their arrangements and understandings, the embeddedness of fathers' caregiving routines, bonds and identities had apparently enabled their commitment to counter‐normative roles to endure through such crossroads. We also outline, however, how gendered limitations to some aspects of the scope of their caregiving seemed also to persist as their journeys as fathers progressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental involvement in education has taken on a new importance in contemporary society as a result of the rise of ideas associated with 'parental determinism', the desire of neoliberal states to shift responsibility for educational outcomes onto families, and the increasing salience of educational qualifications in processes of social -reproduction. Nevertheless, extant research has indicated that such responsibilities typically fall on mothers rather than fathers. Drawing on a two-wave study, this article explores the experiences of UK families in which fathers had taken on at least equal responsibility for the care of their young children, focussing specifically on whether the 'labour' associated with education was also distributed more equally. It shows that education was a notable area in which inequalities continued to be played out – because of assumptions about maternal responsibility, but also the active role performed by schools and parent groups in reinforcing traditional gender roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the context of enduring gender inequalities in early years parental care, this article examines the experiences of UK fathers who had taken on primary or equal care responsibility for children aged three or under. Informed by qualitative interviews with 24 such fathers, the article explores a discourse of parental interchangeability that pervaded their accounts before outlining the ways that, in practice, most caregiving tasks did tend to be allocated to them or their partners primarily on the basis of factors other than gender. The men's comfort in presenting themselves and their partners as interchangeable equivalents, along with the range of caregiving approaches they were taking on, suggests that they had begun to move beyond clearly differentiated motherly or fatherly roles. The study goes on, however, to show that certain emotional, organisational and social aspects of parenting sometimes continued to be centred on mothers. In explaining the endurance of these areas of maternal responsibility within otherwise interchangeable partnerships, mutually reinforcing sets of maternal pressures and paternal barriers are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the idea of 'affective coding' as a form of affectively loaded, digital social steganography – a form of hiding messages – as it presents findings from interviews with new fathers struggling to cope with and disclose mental illnesses, against the context of cultures of silencing. While previous expositions of online social steganography have considered its role in privacy management or its employment in concealing identities, we conceptualise affective coding as an agentic and discursive-material digital practice of attempted revelation, occupying a liminal space between silence and more explicit attempts to reach out, disclose and seek support. Our findings show men undertaking a range of seemingly minor online acts, each demonstrating subtle strategies of managing self-disclosure and social media architecture, and each encoded with a substantial amount of affective investment. We discuss motivations, strategies and outcomes of affective coding, before discussing its significance for self-disclosure in platform societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers young people's identities and privacy on social network sites through reflection on the analogy of the teenage bedroom as a means to understand such spaces. The notion therein of intimate personal space may jar with the scope and complexity of social media and, particularly, with recent emphasis on the challenges to privacy posed by such environments. I suggest, however, that, through increased use of access controls and a range of informal strategies, young people's everyday digital communication may not be as out of control as is sometimes inferred. Recent adaptations of the bedroom analogy indicate that social network sites retain intimacy and that their individual-centred format continues to facilitate the exhibition and mapping of identities. Although an awkward fit, I suggest the bedroom may still help us think through how social network sites can function as vital personal home territories in the midst of multi-spatial patterns of sociability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the significance of experiences and understandings of targeted harassment to the identities of youth subcultural participants, through case study research on goths. It does so against a context of considerable recent public discussion about the victimization of alternative subcultures and a surprising scarcity of academic research on the subject. The analysis presented indicates that, although individual direct experiences are diverse, the spectre of harassment can form an ever-present accompaniment to subcultural life, even for those who have never been seriously targeted. As such, it forms part of what it is to be a subcultural participant and comprises significant common ground with other members. Drawing upon classic and more recent understandings of how subcultural groups respond to broader forms of outside hostility, we show how the shared experience of feeling targeted for harassment tied in with a broader subcultural discourse of being stigmatized by a perceived 'normal' society. The role of harassment as part of this, we argue, contributed to the strength with which subcultural identities were felt and to a positive embrace of otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debate on the conceptualisation of youth cultures has been characterised as an irreconcilable stalemate between materialist defenders of a version of subcultural theory derived from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) and post-subcultural theorists who favour more individualised understandings. This article suggests that, beneath this facade lies a more complex and reconcilable debate and that it may be time to move beyond the polarising presence of the CCCS as primary reference point for the discussion. Turning to substance, I go on to examine how enduring areas of disagreement within the debate can be resolved, establishing ways forward with respect to the interplay between spectacular groupings and individual pathways and the contextualisation of youth cultures, including with respect to material and structural factors. I advocate greater emphasis on the study of collective youth cultures as part of broader biographies as a way forward that can draw together these substantive strands and bring together insight from across the subcultures/post-subcultures debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater Manchester Police’s categorization of targeted attacks on ‘alternative subculture’ members as hate crimes prompted extensive debate about whether such incidents are comparable to those of recognized hate crime groups. Hate crime experts have contributed to this debate, but there is a lack of detailed empirical research on the subject. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 21 respondents mostly affiliated to the goth scene, this article uncovers extensive experience of verbal harassment and, for some respondents, repeated incidents of targeted violence. The nature and impact of such experiences, we argue, bear comparison with key facets of hate crime. Such evidence informs and underlines the importance of conceptual arguments about whether hate crime can or should be extended beyond recognized minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

‘Youth’ music and style cultures, such as the punk, goth, metal and club scenes, are often regarded as opposed to the institution of the family and the values it symbolises. Yet significant numbers of the participants of such groups are now remaining actively involved into their thirties and beyond alongside the taking on of permanent cohabitation, marriage and parenthood. This article explores the increasing importance of family life for ageing members of ‘youth’ cultures in relation to the case study of the goth scene, a dark-themed grouping whose average age is rising. I emphasise the collective nature of the embrace of family among older goths and the implications of this for the values and environment of the group itself and the trajectories of individual members. Amongst other things, I explore whether the drift towards family and parenthood amongst goths might be understood as a collective assimilation into dominant adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how much we can learn about youth music and style groupings from the detail of the spectacular content and practices which most obviously distinguish such groups. First, I consider an apparent revival in theoretically driven interpretations of subcultural style, music and content in recent work on the goth scene, arguing that, for all their sophistication, such studies seem liable to reproduce some of the difficulties of earlier studies of spectacular symbolic meanings unless their findings are connected with other kinds of evidence. The paper then examines recent calls for greater focus on the minutiae of participants' sensory experience of distinct subcultural practices. I discuss case studies of promising work in the area, while emphasising the need to avoid reducing subcultures to the specificities of selected spectacular experience. Drawing the two parts together, 1 suggest many elements of subcultures are neither imprinted in spectacular sounds and texts nor discernable from the immediate sensations spectacular practices give rise to. In order to enhance our overall understanding it is important, therefore, that our examination of the distinct and extra-ordinary features of subcultures is contextualised in relation to broader understandings of a range of other properties and patterns which may be less distinct, unique or extra-ordinary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the continuing involvement in youth music and style cultures of older participants through examination of the case study of the goth scene. It does so in the context of a widespread neglect, until recently, of what happens to participants of 'youth cultures' as they move beyond adolescence and also of a growing consensus about the broadening of youth itself as a life course period. Drawing on recent work on older participants in other music and style related groupings, the article uses original qualitative research to examine the developing lives and identities of goths as they become older. Rather than regarding continuing participation as a simple extension of youth, the focus is on the ways participation accompanied and was reconciled with material, domestic and physical elements of developing adult lives. Through reference to the case study, I emphasize the ways the experience of ageing for long-term music and style culture participants can constitute a collective experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one on the youth focused approach, in which disengagement from formal politics is held to be largely a result of young people's age and their social background, and the publication of the report, Power to the People, of the independent inquiry funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Suggestions that the internet has facilitated existing trends towards the increasing disconnection of individuals from substantive communities have been balanced by a variety of empirical case studies demonstrating significant communal features on some online discussion forums. While recognizing the role of discussion forums in facilitating community, this article seeks to shift the focus of debate towards the rapidly increasing use of online journal style web logs (‘blogs’) as a form of social interaction. Ostensibly centred upon the individual rather than the group, yet increasingly interactive and socially oriented, interactive online journals appear particularly consistent with the notion of individualistic rather than group-centred patterns of sociability. The article explores this possibility in relation to case study research focused on the recent take-up of online journals by a group of individuals who previously participated in discussion forums associated with a music and fashion subculture known as the ‘goth’ scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic research on youth cultures, particularly at doctoral level, is often conducted by investigators with some degree of initial cultural proximity to the individuals or cultures under the microscope. Yet elaboration of the practical and epistemological implications of ‘insider research’ among such scholars has been somewhat limited. This article contributes to the development of such discussion through drawing together a range of previous writings and by drawing upon elements of the author's own experience of researching a contemporary youth subculture as a long-term participant of the grouping. In the face of theories emphasising the complexities of identity and the multiplicity of insider views, the paper argues for the continued use of the notion of insider research in a non-absolute sense. Subsequently, it is argued that researching youth cultures from such a position may offer significant potential advantages—in respect both of the research process and the types of understanding that might be generated. It is also suggested, however, that the realisation of such possible benefits and the avoidance of significant difficulties, requires a cautious and reflexive approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various articles published within the issue on such topics as youth culture in late modernity, the transition from girlhood to sexual womanhood, and the goal of youth studies in general.

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss topics of this special issue on Post-War youth, youth culture, and popular music in Great Britain.