Some young people dye their hair red and go to punk concerts, listen to hip hop, spend all their time in Second Life, dress up like cartoon characters and go to anime fairs, or skateboard every day. They’re part of the phenomenon called youth culture. Often related to gender, race, class and socio-economic circumstances, youth cultures enable young people to find new communities and try on different identities as they work their way to a clearer sense of self. Students in this class will investigate several youth cultures, looking closely at why people join and what it means to belong. They will also conduct independent, original research on a youth culture of their choice and draw their own conclusions about how youth cultures interact with mainstream society. (This is an Honors course.) Note: This course fulfills the Human Behavior (GB) requirement for students under GenEd and the Individual & Society (IN) requirement for students under Core.
Students cannot receive credit for this course if they have successfully completed ANTHRO 0817, Asian Studies 0817, Education 0817 or SOC 0817.