Browse Hierarchy EDST6007: Understanding Youth, Deviance, and Discipline

This module explores the connected themes of youth, deviance and discipline, drawing on anthropological, sociological and historical perspectives. The aim of the module is to allow students to gain an understanding of processes of social and cultural reproduction, through the lens of youth culture and its association with deviance and the need for social control. In lectures and seminars we will explore why it is that young people are so often seen either as perpetrators of deviant or criminal behaviour, or as innocents in danger of being polluted by deviant influences in society. This will lead to a stronger understanding of the sociological and historical conditions that bring about our everyday understanding of youth as a stage in the life course. The module also aims to provide students with skills for social analysis and the ability to articulate critical analyses of research evidence. Drawing on a wide range of media texts and evidence from popular culture, we explore sociological & anthropological understandings of deviance & discipline. We will relate these themes to the social construction of youth as a category of the life course. We will then explore a number of cross-cultural and historical examples where youth, deviance and discipline collide, often with colourful results.