Youth culture as a context of political learning

Abstract

Research on the political socialization of the young currently focuses on the following life spheres: family, school, media, service institutions, socio-structural and socio-economic conditions. Studies mainly rely on standardized methods, for example, reports on elections or youth surveys on political culture. Just as the voices of adolescents are not heeded, youth culture as youth-specific styles of music, symbols and values is only rarely taken into account by the current research on political socialization. Based on quantitative and qualitative methods, this article outlines the importance of youth cultural styles for the development of civic competencies. In the case of Germany it can be shown that particular youth cultural styles provide space for the analysis of current social and political problems and provide chances for young people to take political action