Youth and Generation

Book excerpt: "Woodman and Wyn have produced a text that offers conceptual clarity and real depth on debates in youth studies. The authors skilfully guide us through the main sociological theories on young people and furnish us with sophisticated critiques from which to rethink youth and generation in the contemporary moment." - Professor Anoop Nayak, Newcastle University The promise of youth studies is not in simply showing that class, gender and race continue to influence life chances, but to show how they shape young lives today. Dan Woodman and Johanna Wyn argue that understanding new forms of inequality in a context of increasing social change is a central challenge for youth researchers. Youth and Generation sets an agenda for youth studies building on the concepts of ‘social generation’ and ‘individualisation’ to suggest a framework for thinking about change and inequality in young lives in the emerging Asian Century.