Figuring Families: Generation, Situation and Narrative in Contemporary Mothering

This paper contributes to the theme of the special issue by identifying concepts that both embody relationality and have the capacity to address and articulate temporal processes. Based on an empirical study of first time motherhood, we offer a sensitising conceptual framework which privileges the temporal, scaffolding the macro socio-historical with the micro personal and subjective. The study combines longitudinal and intergenerational approaches to develop an understanding of maternal experience as it unfolds, while forging connections between individual biography, generational investments and intergenerational dynamics. Drawing on a conceptual tool kit from life history, cultural studies, social psychology and sociology, we profile two biographical case studies as an illustration of our approach. Our analysis of their contrasting experiences as 'young' and 'old' mothers demonstrates the salience of key conceptual terms including 'generation', 'situation' and 'narrative' and how this conceptual framework can both map and animate accounts of contemporary mothering.Motherhood; Generation; Situation, Narrative

Taking centre stage? Girlhood and the contradictions of femininity across three generations

New femininities suggest that young women are moving from the margins to the centre. No longer content with subordinate status in the bedroom or on the periphery of youth cultures, young women appear to have found their voice as the ‘can do’ girls of neo-liberalism. This paper charts the social change that has had a dramatic impact upon gender relations in the West and particularly the emergence of new femininities that mark growing up girl as a distinctly different experience for young women in the contemporary period. Familiar tropes of new femininities position young women as agentic, goal-oriented, pleasure seeking individuals adept at reading the new world order and finding their place within it. Has femininity finally found a skin that fits or are there cracks in this unparalleled success story? The paper examines this question intergenerationally by looking at young women’s experience across time. Specifically, the paper will trace the condition of girlhood as documented by feminist scholarship from the 1960s to the present and contrast this with the experience of being a girl as articulated by three generations of women. Based on interviews with an intergenerational chain of women in the same family – grandmother, mother, daughter - the paper will examine the divergent accounts of girlhood experience from women who came of age in the 1950s, the 1970s and the present 2000 – 2005. Analysis of these accounts provide an insightful commentary on social change and feminine subjectivity, highlighting continuity and change while pointing to the ever present contradictions of femininity that may be reshaped and reconfigured over generations

Rethinking youth cultures in the age of global media: a perspective from British youth studies

"This article provides a critical overview of the contribution of British Cultural Studies to research on contemporary youth cultures, and some indications of how it should develop in the future. While the early work in this tradition has sometimes been unfairly attacked by subsequent researchers, the approach is in need of some careful reappraisal in the light of recent cultural change. The article argues that the category of 'youth' itself has become increasingly fluid and flexible; that the relations between the global and the local dimensions of youth culture have become more complex and dynamic; and that media - not least digital media - have become increasingly central to youth cultural practices. The article refers to examples of research that address these three areas, and concludes by calling for a more reflexive approach to research methods in the field." (author's abstract)"Der Artikel analysiert in einem kritischen Überblick den Beitrag der englischen Cultural Studies für die aktuelle Jugendkulturforschung und zeigt Perspektiven für ihre Weiterentwicklung auf. Während die frühen Arbeiten in dieser Forschungstradition teilweise zu Unrecht kritisiert wurden, muss der Ansatz heute angesichts des jüngsten kulturellen Wandels einer sorgfältigen Überprüfung und Neujustierung unterzogen werden. Der Beitrag stellt dar, dass der Begriff 'Jugend' heute zunehmend unscharf geworden ist, während gleichzeitig die Beziehungen zwischen globalen und lokalen Dimensionen von Jugendkultur komplexer und dynamischer geworden sind und insbesondere die digitalen Medien für jugendkulturelle Praktiken eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Diese Entwicklungen werden anhand ausgewählter Studien dargestellt, wobei der Beitrag abschließend einen stärker reflexiven Umgang mit Forschungsmethoden in der Jugendkulturforschung anmahnt." (Autorenreferat

Childhood in Sociology and Society: The US Perspective

The field of childhood studies in the US is comprised of cross-disciplinary researchers who theorize and conduct research on both children and youth. US sociologists who study childhood largely draw on the childhood literature published in English. This article focuses on American sociological contributions, but notes relevant contributions from non-American scholars published in English that have shaped and fueled American research. This article also profiles the institutional support of childhood research in the US, specifically outlining the activities of the ‘Children and Youth’ Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and assesses the contributions of this area of study for sociology as well as the implications for an interdisciplinary field.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Playing

About the book: Understanding Youth: Perspectives, Identities and Practices engages with these changing experiences. By drawing on recent research and the insights of young people the book provides a clear and comprehensive overview of youth in late modernit

Education

About the book: Youth in Context: Frameworks, Settings and Encounters offers a critical and up-to-date overview of the theoretical and practical issues involved in work with young people. It helps readers situate current practice issues within the context of a rapidly changing field, and demonstrates how critical reflection can be used as a tool to transform individual and collective practice

Sexing the Subject: teachers, pedagogies and sex education

This article analyses the relationship between sexual biography and pedagogic practice. It is based on life history interviews with sex education practitioners (teachers and a school nurse) that aimed to explore elements of these individuals' sexual biographies, their experiences of learning about sex and their pedagogic practice. The article considers why the sexuality of sex educators may be important, how this manifests itself in school and, finally, some of the implications for policy and practice