This document provides an overview of the sociological perspectives on youth development. It discusses how issues affecting youth have typically been viewed through individual lenses of risk/protective factors rather than considering broader societal influences. The document then discusses key sociological thinkers like Durkheim who analyzed how social structures and integration impact suicide rates. It argues youth issues are best understood by examining power dynamics, social changes, and how some groups become labeled as deviant. The history of youth work is also summarized, linking its origins to social and economic upheavals in the late 1800s and how perspectives on youth have continued evolving over time in response to broader social and cultural shifts.

1. Sociology of ‘Youth Development’

2. Sociology of ‘Youth Development’

3. Starting with an Issue

5. • It’s all about YOUth
• Issues are looked at in terms of
• Risk/Protective Factors
• Developmental Assets/Competencies
• Vulnerabilities
• Biological and environmental influences on
development and wellbeing
Youth Development

6. But are issues like suicide
that easy to explain …
could there be other
explanations?

7. • Actually … it’s not about you … th
• It’s about the organisation of our society (our
community)
• It’s about words and groups
• The winners and the losers
• How deviance is defined
• Scripts and the unmarked nature of ‘we’ verses them’
• Youth!!!
The Sociology of Youth

8. One NZ Treasury: Two Graphs
Source: World Health Organisation (2001)
The international picture in the 1990s

9. One NZ Treasury: Two Graphs
Source: World Health Organisation (2001)
What is happening here?

10. Confused?

11. • Massive social changes
• Rise in Deviance
• Rise in suicidality
• G.S. Hall
• Storm and Stress
• E. Durkheim
• Anomie and Social Strain
1800s: G.S. Hall and E. Durkheim

12. • First sociologist to look at the function of suicide
• Was interested in what keep societies strong and stable
especially in times when traditional institutions were no
longer ‘strong’
• Focused on structures – a society that pushes collective
conformity and greater integration verses a freer society
allowing flexible pathways and choices and less
connection(integration)
• The place of anomie
E. Durkheim

14. So, back to Developmental Theories …
• Development theories have a strong whakapapa
in western psychological theories
• This, in turn, is problematic
• Problems tend to be centred in the individual
• Some groups are always seen as ‘deviant’
• Our cultural theories are just ‘other’ theories that
put the individual in the centre
• All problems can be solved if you work with the
individual
• All practice is centred on the individual

15. But …
• Sociological theories are critical analyses of society,
functions and, at times, inequality
• Scripts and labels
• Structures
• Power dynamics
• Class, gender, cultural and religious factors
• Hegemony
• Why do some groups get labelled and others not?
• A sociological imagination (Mills)

17. But what about youth work
• Our history tells us a lot!!
• We are connected to the whakapapa of
the definition of youth
• We are connected to socialisation ‘agents’
• The school
• The church
• The scouts
• Technology and Global Development
also play a role YMCA - Wales

18. Late 1800s/Early 1900s
• The west went through economic/racial
upheaval – social evolution was king
• ‘Hooligans’
• GS Hall and the invention of adolescence
• The development of functionalist theories
• Compulsory education
• The YMCA, Scouts are born

19. 1950s/1960s
• Post-war
• The birth of the suburb
• The baby-boommers
• Technology and consumerism born
• The invention of the ‘teenager’
• The Mazengarb report
• Erikson and Elkind
• The Chicago/Birmingham schools
• The leaving age and youth clubs

20. 1970s/1980s
• The climax and fall of the ‘modern’ world
• Oil Crisis
• Welfare reform
• The invention of the ‘youth-at-risk’
• Longitudinal research
• Countercultural movements
• Alternative Education
• Detached Youth Work
• Critical literacy
• Academic writing of indigenous health theories

21. 1990s-2000s
• Neoliberalism and the myth of global youth culture
• Tomorrow’s Schools/Alt Education redefined
• Informal and formal education
• Youth work moves from focusing on risk to focusing on ‘civic’
participation
• YDSA
• Professionalisation of youth work
• PYD theories are developed
• Cross-sectional research
• Cultural theories/Critical theories/Fluid identities
• Exploring the power of the post …

22. "He (Obama) has done nothing for African-Americans. You
look at what's gone on with their income levels. You look at
what's gone on with their youth. I thought that he would be
a great cheerleader for this country. I thought he'd do a
fabulous job for the African-American citizens of this
country. He has done nothing." (Trump on President Barack
Obama. "This Week," 2015)
Today…