Contextualizing Risk and Danger: An Analysis of Young People's Perceptions of Risk

Abstract

Current debates about the nature of risk in late modernity suggest that changing social structures and a weakening, or increasingly global mediation of social constraints associated with the old order, have given rise to a new set of risks and opportunities. Social inequalities continue to impact upon people's lives but from within the contingencies of individualizing processes of 'risk society'. Whilst it is acknowledged that there are differences between the production and perception of risks, there is a need for empirical evidence examining how risks are unequally distributed. The same study can provide illustration of how the solutions to social ills are often sought at an individual rather than a collective level through personal action. Drawing upon data from a three-year project, this paper explores young people's perceptions of risk. It is argued that since young people's experiences continue to be shaped by local social dimensions of class and gender, risk behaviour should continue to be analysed within these contexts.