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The separation between youth and adults did not always exist. In the 17 century everyone was considered the same status; until the 19th century when the generation gap began to widen. Over the years many youth were seen as delinquents and not adequate to adult status. In the documentary

The Invention of the Adolescent by Patricia Watson, she depicts the transition of early modernity to late modernity of youth and how youth became the adult counterparts as many in society see them as today. In chapter 1 White et. al overlap the same youth transition of social change particularly in the family, work force and consumer market.

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This short documentary studies the fate reserved to young people through the ages. Drawing from paintings, archival footage and various other documents, the film demonstrates that during the ...

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Chapter 14: Defining Well-Being and Health

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Chapter 14: Defining Well-Being and Health

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In this chapter White et. al (2011) discuss’ how the different types of health issues affect youth and the importance of physical, mental and social activity. This particular focus is on a movie based on a group of kids growing up in the 1990's in New York City. The movie Kids tells the audience about a boy named Telly who aims to have sex with as many girls as he can; But Telly doesn’t just want sex, he also wants the virginity of the girls. However, Telly doesn’t plan to tell these girls that he is HIV positive. The movie depicts youth drug use, sexual intercourse and violence. According to tbl 14.3 in White et. al (2011) the numbers of youth who have been sexually active have declined from 1996 to 2005 by 4% (12% - 8%). However, youth who are at risk are youth living in poverty, rural areas and Aboriginal youth. Although the numbers of declined, the risks and diagnosis of sexual health problems are still present. The only solution to this issue is to stop pretending it doesn’t exist and to spread as much knowledge as possible. Don’t be afraid to say “Let’s talk about sex”!

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What creates a young offender? According to White et. al (2011) “a person who has been officially designated as such by the criminal-justice system” (p. 197). White (2011) also describes youth who commit crime as those who have been labeled as such by the court system, even if they have committed the crime or not. Because of this notion, youth are over represented in the court system and often profiled as delinquents just because of their age. Well in the case of The West Memphis Three, three teenagers were profiled as murderers just because of their age and sub-culture. Vota (2013) “In 1994, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. were convicted of murdering three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas” (p.1004). Kaylee Vota writes a journal explaining how these three boys—after spending 18 years in prison—were let off of murder charges due to the Alford plea. Basically saying the accused did not do the crime but yet can be charged due to the amount of evidence obtained by the court. In this case, three innocent youth lost their lives to judicial profiling and will never be seen as innocent in their home town again.

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After they spent eighteen years in prison for the notorious 1993 murders of three young boys, the West Memphis Three were released on August 19, 2011, after they entered Alford pleas. Under an Alford plea, a defendant can voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly plead guilty while he simultaneously proclaims his innocence.

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Youth today are practically born with the knowledge of cell phones, computers, mini tablets, televisions, or even a watch that can do all of the components mentioned above. Technology has really come a far way in a short period of time. However, with great success comes great responsibility. Chapter 13 discusses the uses and misuses of technology. The use of computers for example, can be a really great way to learn, connect with others from around the world and become a part of communities with shared interests without leaving your home. The use of computers and the World Wide Web can also be used as a very dark place for such events as cyberbullying, child exploitation and even identity theft. The Toronto District School Board has implemented policies and procedures that will help to keep students safe. Rules such as: never giving out any type of personal information, or a zero tolerance policy on bullying and abuse. Rules like these are very important when it comes to youth and technology because there is no constant supervision between youth and technology. The importance to teach youth so that they may develop a sense of security and knowledge to protect them is crucial.

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The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) provides online systems and resources for use by employees and students. Online resources include all material that is accessed through a computer or telecommunications network.

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Chapter 12: Youth Identities and Culture

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Chapter 12: Youth Identities and Culture

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Youth Identity is a huge part of growing up. Our identity is the time in which we search for who we are, what we stand for and to which group we conform to. In the age of youth, subculture becomes our media driven safe-haven for the confusing time we need to feel connected. Many youth may flow between different subcultures and trends before settling into adulthood. This notion can be influenced by the environment (social settings, geographical area), chronological time period, or accessibility to resources. This website challenges not only the theory of what subcultures youth belong in order to avoid alienation, but how certain subcultures can be scrutinized as social deviance. Albert Cohen's theory collectivley shows how labels and characteristics can form or shape subcultures by how outsiders view youth subculture.

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Subcultural theory proposes that those living in an urban setting are able to find ways of creating a sense of community despite the prevailing alienation and anonymity.

The beginnings of subculture theory involved various theorists associated with what became known as the Chicago School. Subcultural theory emerged from the work of the Chicago School on gangs and developed through the symbolic interactionism school into a set of theories arguing that certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes that are conducive to crime and violence. The work associated with Birmingham University's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) was most responsible for the association of subculture with groupings based around spectacular styles (teds, mods, punks, skins, motorbike boys and so on).

Subculture theory: Chicago School of Sociology

The beginnings of subcultural theory involved various theorists associated with what became known as the Chicago School. Though the emphasis of the theorists varies, the school is most famous for a conception of subcultures as deviant groups, whose emergence had to do with 'the interaction of people's perceptions of themselves with others' view of them' . This is, perhaps, best summarized in Albert Cohen's theoretical introduction to a study of 'Delinquent Boys' (1955). For Cohen, subcultures consisted of individuals collectively resolving societal status problems by developing new values which rendered status-worthy the characteristics they shared.
Acquisition of status within the subculture entailed being labelled and, hence, excluded from the rest of society, something the group would respond to through its own hostility to outsiders, to the extent that non-conformity with dominant norms often became virtuous. As the subculture became more substantive, distinctive and independent, members would become increasingly dependent on each other for social contact and validation of their beliefs and way of life.

The themes of labelling and subcultural dislike of 'normal' society are also emphasized in Howard Becker's work which, among other things, is notable for its emphasis on the boundaries drawn by jazz musicians between themselves and their values as 'hip' and their audience as 'squares' . The notion of increasing polarization between subculture and the rest of society, as a result of outside labelling, is developed further in relation to drug-takers in Britain by Jock Young (1971) and in relation to media moral panics surrounding mods and rockers by Stan Cohen. For Cohen, the generalized negative images of subcultures in the mass media both reinforced dominant values and constructed the future form of such groupings.

Frederic M. Thrasher - (1892-1962) was a sociologist at the University of Chicago.
Studied gangs in a systematic way, analyzing gang activity and behavior. He defined gangs by the process they go through to form a group.

E. Franklin Frazier - (1894 - 1962), was an American sociologist, first African-American chair at University of Chicago.
In the earliest stages of the Chicago School and their investigation of human ecology, one of the key tropes was the concept of disorganization which contributed to the emergence of an underclass.

Albert K. Cohen (1918 - ) is a prominent American criminologist.
He is known for his Subcultural Theory of delinquent urban gangs, including his influential book Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang. Cohen did not look at the economically oriented career criminal, but looked at the delinquency subculture, focusing on gang delinquency among working class youth in slum areas which developed a distinctive culture as a response to their perceived lack of economic and social opportunity within U.S. society.

Richard Cloward - (1926 - 2001) was an American sociologist and an activist.
Lloyd Ohlin - (1918 - 2008) was an American sociologist and criminologist who taught at Harvard Law School, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago.
Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin made reference to R. K. Merton's Strain Theory, while taking a further step in how the Subculture was 'Parallel' in their opportunities: the Criminal subculture had the same rules and level. It was, henceforth, a 'Illegitimate Opportunity Structure', which is parallel, yet still a polarization of the legitimate.

Walter Miller, David Matza, Phil Cohen.
Subculture theory: Birmingham University's Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS)
Rather than individual problems of status, The Birmingham School, from a neo-Marxist perspective, regarded subcultures as a reflection of the position of mainly working-class young people in relation to the particular societal conditions of 1960s and 1970s Britain. Spectacular youth subcultures, it is argued, functioned to resolve the contradictory societal position of working-class young people between the traditional values of a working-class 'parent culture' and a modern hegemonic culture of mass consumption dominated by media and commerce.

Critics of the Chicago School and the Birmingham School of subculture theory

There are numerous well-recounted criticisms of the Chicago School and the Birmingham School approaches to subculture theory. First, through their theoretical emphasis on the solving of status problems in one case, and on symbolic structural resistance in the other, both traditions present an overly simplistic opposition between subculture and dominant culture. There is a relative neglect of features such as internal diversity, external overlaps, individual movement between subcultures, the instability of the groups themselves and the large numbers of relatively uncommitted 'hangers-on' . While Albert Cohen assumes that subcultures solved the same status problems for all members, Birmingham theorists presuppose the existence of singular, subversive meanings of subcultural styles which, ultimately, reflected the shared class position of participants.
Furthermore, there is a tendency to imply, without detail or evidence, that subcultures somehow originated through large numbers of disparate individuals all simultaneously and spontaneously reacting in the same way to ascribed social conditions. Albert Cohen indicates vaguely that a process of 'mutual gravitation' of disaffected individuals and their 'effective interaction with one another' led to the creation of subcultures.

Media and commerce relationship to subculture and subcultural theory

The tendency to locate both media and commerce in an oppositional relationship to subcultures is a particularly problematic element of most subculture theory. The notion of incorporation suggests that media and commerce only become self-consciously involved in the marketing of subcultural styles after they have been established for a time. Their role is restricted, in Jock Young and Stan Cohen's accounts, to the inadvertent labeling and strengthening of existing subcultures. Meanwhile, for Hebdige, everyday consumables merely provide raw materials for creative subcultural subversion. The notion of incorporation suggests that media and commerce only become self-consciously involved in the marketing of subcultural styles after they have been established for a time, and Hebdige emphasizes that this involvement effectively spells the demise of subcultures. In contrast, Thornton suggests that subcultures are liable to involve a variety of both positive and negative forms of direct media involvement right from their beginnings.

Four indicators of subcultural substance

Four indicative criteria of subculture: identity, commitment, consistent distinctiveness and autonomy.

Subculture theory: Consistent Distinctiveness
It would be an over-generalization to seek the absolute removal of notions of symbolic resistance, homology and the collective resolving of structural contradictions from the analysis of popular culture. However, none of these features should be regarded as an essential defining characteristic of the term subculture. For the most part, the functions, meanings and symbols of subcultural involvement are liable to vary between participants and to reflect complex processes of cultural choice and coincidence rather than an automatic shared reaction to circumstances. However, this does not mean that there is no distinctiveness or consistency to the styles and values of contemporary groupings, or that, where present, such features are not socially significant. While accepting the inevitability of a degree of internal difference and change over time, then, the first indicator of subcultural substance comprises the existence of a set of shared tastes and values which is distinctive from those of other groups and reasonably consistent, from one participant to the next, one place to the next and one year to the next.

Identity
The second indicator of subcultural substance seeks to redress this problem by focusing on the extent to which participants hold a perception that they are involved in a distinct cultural grouping and share feelings of identity with one another. Leaving aside the importance of evaluating consistent distinctiveness from a distance, a clear and sustained subjective sense of group identity, in itself, begins to establish a grouping as substantive rather than ephemeral.

Commitment
It is also proposed that subcultures are liable to influence extensively the everyday lives of participants in practice, and that, more often than not, this concentrated involvement will last years rather than months. Depending upon the nature of the group in question, subcultures are liable to account for a considerable proportion of free time, friendship patterns, shopping routes, collections of commodities, going-out habits and even internet use.

Autonomy
The final indicator of subculture is that the grouping concerned, while inevitably connected to the society and politico-economic system of which it is a part, retains a relatively high level of autonomy. Most notably, a good proportion of the productive or organizational activities which underpin it are liable to be undertaken by and for enthusiasts. Furthermore, in some cases, profit-making operations will run alongside extensive semi-commercial and voluntary activities, indicating particularly high levels of grass-roots insider participation in cultural production.

University of Birmingham
Chicago School of Sociology

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Subcultural theory proposes that those living in an urban setting are able to find ways of creating a sense of community despite the prevailing alienation and anonymity. The beginnings of subculture theory involved various theorists associated with what became known as the Chicago School.

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Chapter 3: Gender, Sexualities and Social Difference

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Chapter 3: Gender, Sexualities and Social Difference

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In contemporary society there are so many ways in which youth identify with gender and sexuality. Some do gender while others search for which gender they belong; or fight for their right to be the gender in which they are born. But what if there was no such thing as gender? No such words as "boy" or "girl"? What if we were just born as people and gender was not of social importance? Well in the article "X- A Fabulous Child's Story" by Lois Gould, the reality is just that. The baby's name is X and nobody but the doctor and the parents know the biological sex of the child. Wearing gender neutral clothing, X plays with toys for the child's age (not gender) and is nurtured as a loving human being. The outrage that is casted by the other parents at school is phenomenal. All the parents feel it is a horrible, twisted experiment however; the adults are the only ones who mind. The other children in school are wondering "Maybe X is having twice as much fun as we are" Gould (1978). This website features many different resources for the gender diverse community.

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Chapter 5: Indigenous Youth and Social Identity.

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Chapter 5: Indigenous Youth and Social Identity.

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The attention of this chapter is geared towards the experiences of Aboriginal youth and how colonialism and inter-generational trauma vary across dimensions of society. How many youth are still affected by the ideologies of some institutions such as government. The story depicted in the movie "Once we were Warriors" shows the multi-faceted inter-generational struggles of the sibling group of a Maori family. Much like the Maori people of New Zealand, Domestic abuse, child-sexual abuse and the search for cultural identity are all social problems Aboriginal youth will face here in Canada. In a longitudinal study in British Columbia in 1993-2002, nearly half the Aboriginal youth who took part did not identify as Aboriginal. This is due to stereotypes within society.

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Maori Family - The Motion Picture Part 1 of 6 (Once Were Warriors Re-Imagined)

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Join Maori Family on their internet screen debut [which has been created purely for educational purposes] in Maori Family: The Motion Picture. READ MORE BELOW: This is not Once Were Warriors ! Forget your pre-conceptions about Once Were Warriors. This is a re-interpretation of the footage which creates a new narrative where Beth is a sex-addicted pedophile.