This two-volume set chronicles how technology, economics, the media and society created the modern concept of youth. Topics explored include hip hop culture, punk culture, social justice movements, video games, political activism, post-feminism, television, race and ethnicity, visual art, sports, drugs, and much more.

What are the components of youth cultures today? This encyclopedia examines the facets of youth cultures and brings them to the forefront. Although issues of youth culture are frequently cited in classrooms and public forums, most encyclopedias of childhood and youth are devoted to history, human development, and society. A limitation on the reference bookshelf is the restriction of youth to pre-adolescence, although issues of youth continue into young adulthood. This encyclopedia addresses an academic audience of professors and students in childhood studies, American studies, and culture studies. The authors span disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and folklore. The Encyclopedia of Youth Cultures in America addresses a need for historical, social, and cultural information on a wide array of youth groups. Such a reference work serves as a corrective to the narrow public view that young people are part of an amalgamated youth group or occupy malicious gangs and satanic cults. Widespread reports of bullying, school violence, dominance of athletics over academics, and changing demographics in the United States has drawn renewed attention to the changing cultural landscape of youth in and out of school to explain social and psychological problems.

This expansive, lively introduction charts the connections between international youth cultures and the development of global media and communication. From 1950s drive-ins and jukeboxes to contemporary social media, the book examines modern youth cultures in their social, economic, and political contexts. Exploring the rise of young people as a distinct media market, the book examines the relation of youth to modern consumerism, marketing, and digital technologies. The chapters are packed with analysis of media representations of youth, debates about the media’s 'effects' on young audiences, and young people’s use of the media to elaborate identities and negotiate social relationships. Drawing on a wealth of international examples, the book explores the impact of globalisation and new media technologies on youth cultures around the world. Assessing a profusion of worldwide research, the book shows how modern youth cultures can only be understood as part of an international web of connections, exchanges, and experiences. With an ideal balance between detailed examples and engaging analysis, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in youth cultures and the modern media.

These volumes offer an in-depth analysis of youth sexualities as they shape and are shaped by public feelings and by American social, cultural, and political contexts. The idea of youth sexuality makes many adults anxious, but sexuality is a very real part of youth and is the subject of many important social issues. Society now increasingly, sometimes grudgingly, recognizes youth as sexual actors; this collection examines contradictory public feelings related to youth sexualities, including perennial and new topics such as sex education, sexting, teen mothers, masculinities, sexualization, popular culture, the increasing visibility of LGBTQ youth, and the digital world. The contributors examine the back-and-forth of adult and institutional concerns, policies, and practices as they both govern and are influenced by youths' sexual subjectivities, identities, actions, and activism. The first volume historicizes "official knowledge" and cultural constructions of youth sexualities; offers examples of the "framing" of youth through research, film, the media, and transnational NGOs; and foregrounds youths' experiences of sexuality in everyday life. The second volume considers adult and youth activism. Through first-person and analytical accounts, the book offers multiple perspectives of ways in which adult professionals, such as youth workers and researchers, can work side-by-side with youth rather than "above" or "in front of" them.

Youth as a unique group is a 20th century idea. The changes wrought worldwide by WWII, propelled adolescence to a status and identity that coincided with unparalleled economic growth. While developmental psychologists refined their theories of normal growth and maturation, society and the media were at work constructing youth as consumers, thereby liberating them from traditional family controls. An increasingly smaller world impinges mightily on the culture of youth. An international and inter-disciplinary roster of experts shed light on today's youth culture by exploring such topics as hip hop culture; punk culture; social justice movements; video games; political activism; language and identity; post-feminism; television; rites of passage; heterosexuality and homosexuality; race and ethnicity; social class; poetry and literature; visual art; conceptions of beauty and body image; academics; sports; drugs; families; refugee youth; the Internet; youth journalism; fashion; and violence. Adults and adolescents will find this authoritative and reliable guide accessible and fascinating. In addition to excellent essays, users will find a timeline of contemporaneous international develpments in youth culture. An introductory essay places youth in historical and contemporary contexts and underscores the notion that despite their power as consumers in a market-oriented world, youth are still seen--and see themselves--in contradictory ways. In short, this work brings new understanding to the complex and fluid phenomenon of youth culture.

In 2011, Arab youth took to the streets in their thousands to demand their freedom. Although it is too early to speculate on the ultimate outcome of the uprisings, one auspicious feature stands out: they reveal the genesis of a new generation sparked by the desire for civil liberties, advocacy for human rights, and participatory democracy. This unique volume explores some of the antecedents of the upheavals and anticipates alternative venues of resistance that marginalized youth - from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine to Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iran - can mobilize to realize their emancipatory expectations. Themes covered include the forging of meaningful collective identities in times of risk and uncertainty; youth militancy, neighborhood violence and youth gangs; the surge of youthful activism; and youths' expressive outlets through popular arts and street music.