Youth culture is "the sum of the ways of living of adolescents; it refers to the body of norms, values, and practices recognized and shared by members of the adolescent society as appropriate guides to actions". This definition includes two elements. The first is culture, which can be defined as the symbolic systems, and processes of maintaining and transforming those systems, that people share. The second part of this definition is that youth culture is specific to adolescents, and differs at least partially from the culture of older generations.
Elements of youth culture include beliefs, behaviors, styles, and interests. An emphasis on clothes, popular music, sports, vocabulary, and dating set adolescents apart from other age groups, giving them what many believe is a distinct culture of their own. Within youth culture, there are many distinct and constantly changing youth subcultures. These subcultures’ norms, values, behaviors, and styles vary widely, and may differ from the general youth culture.
Read more about Youth Culture: Existence of Youth Culture, Theories, Impact On Adolescents, Impact On Society in General
Famous quotes containing the words youth and/or culture:
“I urge you to spend your youth profitably in study and virtue.... In brief, let me see in you an abyss of knowledge.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,—not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements, and modes of culture only!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)