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A R T I C L E

Copyright © 2009SAGE Publications(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)www.sagepublications.comVol 17(2): 167–18910.1177/110330880901700204Nordic Journal of Youth Research

Young

Youth culture as a context of political learningHow young people politicize amongst each other

NICOLLE PFAFFMartin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

AbstractResearch 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-specifi c styles of music, symbols and values is only rarely taken into account by the current re-search 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.

Keywordsyouth culture, political socialization, youth protest, civic education, mixed methods

168 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

INTRODUCTION

Studying scientifi c fi ndings on the political culture of youth can give the impression that democracy has signifi cant problems with its children. In

nearly all western countries, pedagogues, researchers and politicians report disenchantment with politics and decreasing voter turnout, lack of interest and participation and violence against the state by excluded and marginalized groups (see for example, Putnam, 2000; Torney-Purta et al., 2001; Youniss et al., 2002). Youth research is required to explain the ongoing process of political socialization and the development of citizenship by the young in democratic societies. It can also develop and describe methods of civic education and inter-vention, which help to integrate young people back into the processes of civil society and politics. Therefore, citizenship, political attitudes and participa-tion once again became a topic of interest to social scientists during the 1990s (see Forbrig et al., 2005; Torney-Purta et al., 1999; Wallace et al., 2005), and much research has been done during the last decade, especially in Europe and Northern America. The results indicate that public institutions such as schools, social services and the community — but also family, the media and politics itself — can provide knowledge and critical interpretations of political processes as well as provide chances for participation to enable young people to develop civic competencies for their later citizenship (Brady et al., 1995; Sherrod, 2003). While these agencies of socialization are widely explored, the infl uence of youth cultural styles has been only rarely investigated (Youniss et al., 2002: 270). Up to now only a small group of mostly reconstructive studies has dealt with the political culture of young people in the context of selected youth cultures (see Möller, 2000; Rose, 1994; the contributions in Schildt and Siegfried, 2006). A few quantitative investigations discussed connections between popular music styles and political attitudes or youth participation (see Fung, 1994; Jackson, 2002; 2005); however there is a signifi cant lack of empirical research on the relevance of youth cultural styles for political learning and socialization.

In this article, selected fi ndings of an empirical study on political socialization in the context of youth cultural styles will be presented. These fi ndings under-line that youth culture has to be taken into account as one sphere of political and civic learning next to family, school and service organizations. I will call attention to the impact of youth cultures concerning the development of com-petencies such as the ability to discuss and analyze political issues, processes and current lines of confl ict, or the capability to express political values and opinions.

The fi rst part of the article provides an introduction to some aspects of the current state of research on political socialization and citizenship and to the main infl uences on the development of political attitudes and participation during adolescence. Thereafter the empirical investigation will be presented in a methodical manner. The following sections present selected results of the study and draw some conclusions for the further investigation of political socialization during adolescence.

Pfaff Youth culture as a context of political learning 169

Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

POLITICAL SOCIALIZATION, CITIZENSHIP AND THE YOUTH CULTURE: CURRENT THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND RESEARCH EFFORTS

Present research in the area of youth and politics mainly consist of two lines: studies on the political culture of the young on the one hand and research on the process of political socialization and the question of how political attitudes and participation develop on the other. The fi rst tradition deals with political attitudes towards the state, the idea of democracy and parties, or with trad-itional forms of participation, such as voting or party membership (see, for instance, Hurrelmann and Albert, 2002; 2006 for Germany; Putnam, 2000 for the US; Goerres, 2007; Helve and Wallace, 2001 for Europe). The results of this research on the political culture of the young have been widely interpreted as disenchantment with politics and political disaffection, which has led to a comeback for empirical research on political socialization. The second tradition understands the process of political socialization on a microlevel approach as ‘the patterns and processes by which individuals engage in political development and learning, constructing their particular relationships to the political contexts in which they live’ (Sapiro 2004: 3). Focusing on very specifi c sets of opinions like racism (see Heitmeyer and Müller,1995; Möller, 2000) or on the effects of certain agencies of socialization (in general for this approach see Setterston and Owens, 2002), such as the family (Bock, 2000; Hopf and Hopf, 1997), or media (Horowitz, 2005), diverse infl uences on the process of political socialization have been documented for most of the relevant fi elds of life, such as family, school, media, but also socio-economic conditions — for instance, income dis-parities or the environment (summarizing Sapiro 2004; Sherrod et al., 2002; Torney-Purta et al., 2001). In addition recent studies took into consideration the peer group (see Pfaff and Krüger, 2006), non-governmental organizations (such as Glanville, 1999; Warleigh, 2001), as well as music styles (Dolfsma, 1999; Fung, 1994; Jackson, 2002; 2005).

Nevertheless, a fundamental critique can be levelled at both traditions con-cerning their measurement as well as their perspective, which is based on an adult-centered point of view and does not include youth-specifi c expressions and phenomena in the fi elds of politics (Pfaff, 2006). The research on the pol-itical socialization of the young has always been normative; successful soci-alization up to now has mainly been seen as the perpetuation of values and practices consistent with the existing political system (Gimpel et al., 2003).

However, from the perspective of youth research this approach must be seriously questioned. Especially, studies on youth cultural styles always assumed the use of cultural and aesthetic expressions as forms to understand and medi-ate, but also to denounce youth-specifi c perspectives on their spheres of life as well as on current social problems (see Brake, 1980; Hebdige, 1979). Subse-quent to this assumption, a vast number of mainly reconstructive studies in many different social and cultural contexts showed how certain dress and dancing

170 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

styles, music and media preferences, given codes of behaviour or forms of inter-action of young people can be read as cultural and aesthetic expressions of their life experiences and current and future orientations (see studies such as Bennett, 1999; Muggleton, 2000; Willis, 1977). Most of this work did refer to the relations of young people with their social class origins, societal norms and values, school achievement expectations among others, but did not understand youth cultural practices and styles as types of political expression (for early work in this tradition see Corrigan and Frith, 1976; as well as other contributions in the volume of Hall and Jefferson, 1976).

However, based on these early attempts to understand youth cultural styles not only as cultural but also as political expressions especially in recent de-cades, a number of studies dealt with the political perceptions and practices of young people in the context of certain youth cultural styles. For example there are various recent studies on the student movements of the 1960s and 70s (Schildt and Siegfried 2006; Seidman, 2004; Thomas, 2003) or the current anti-globalization movement (Capling and Nossal, 2001; Nur, 2005). Another youth movement studied in relation to their political attitudes and practices is right wing youth styles as they emerged in great number all over Europe during the 1990s (Hagan et al., 1995; Koopmans, 1996; Mudde, 2005). In addition, other youth protests have been investigated under the rubric of political practices of the young (Eckert and Willems, 1986; Roth and Rucht, 2000). Most of these investigations simply look at the distribution and the social context of youth protest; some also explore the perceptions and practices of the young people. But even though the examined groups can be described in terms of protest styles, only a very few studies delve into the concrete interactive matters of production and negotiation of political attitudes and practices of the investi-gated groups and movements in a perspective of political socialization research (Hagan et al., 1995; some papers in Roth and Rucht, 2000).

The investigation of protest cultures, such as the peace or globalization move-ment, goes along with a critique of the socialization approach. This critique points out that the socialization approach does not take into account new innovations and developments in the context of political participation. Meanwhile, there are plenty of studies on new youth-specifi c forms of participation, which show, for example, that traditional forms of membership in political organizations have been replaced by short-term engagements in political actions and events (see Bennett, 1998; Roker et al., 1999; Roth and Rucht, 2000; Younnis et al., 2002). Furthermore, new emerging forms of engagement such as internet activ-ism (Delli Carpini, 2000; Earl and Schussman, 2007; Scott and Street, 2000), concious consumerism (Nava, 1992; Stolle et al., 2005) or music events with political impact (Burgess et al., 2000; Cloonan and Street 1998) have been subjected to scrutiny. However, most work on political culture as well as on political socialization does not take the newly produced and dynamic forms of youth political participation into account.

Beyond studies on explicit protesting youth cultures it seems that hardly any work has been done on the relevance of youth cultural styles, which do not

Pfaff Youth culture as a context of political learning 171

Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

show an obvious interest in political protest. However, a deeper look at different research traditions reveals some interesting fi ndings. First, some reconstructive studies on certain music scenes, such as hip–hop (Androutsopoulos and Scholz, 2002; Weller, 2003) or techno (Bornemann and Senders, 2000; Welniak, 2001) describe socially critical attitudes and participative approaches as part of the aesthetic practices within these styles. Second, there are limited quantitative studies on the relation between pop culture or entertainment and political atti-tudes (Fung, 1994; Jackson, 2002; 2005). Also, those studies mostly lack inte-gration into or even a relation to the paradigm of political socialization and civic learning and therefore are not referred to by the current work on the develop-ment of political attitudes and practices of the young.

Taking into account some basic principles of youth culture research, this analysis is based on an advanced concept of political socialization, which not only normatively understands the process of socialization as one of the production of a (positive) personal relation to a given political system and initiation into its structures of participation, but also as a process of the construction of political processes and practices in one’s own contexts (Hall and Jefferson, 1976). This includes understanding cultural and symbolic expressions as important aspects of political action and therefore political participation and civic engagement in a broader sense as age- and context-specifi c perception and expression of social structures and problems.

METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH

Based on a conceptual and theoretical framework, which understands socializa-tion as adaptation as well as construction (see Cook et al., 2002) and a concept of participation, which takes into account cultural and micropolitical prac-tices next to traditional governance-related forms of engagement, I aim to shed light on the importance of youth cultures as agents in the process of political socialization of adolescents. Two basic research questions head the following presentation. First, I look at members of various youth cultural styles and their selected political attitudes as well as their involvement with certain forms of political participation. Second, I ask in which way youth cultural styles support the political thinking and practices of their members.

Both questions are addressed using different research methods. The political culture of members of different styles will be explored based on a youth survey carried out in 2003 with eighth and ninth graders at schools in one East and one West German region, overall approximately 4800 respondents (see Helsper et al., 2006; 2007). To facilitate identifi cation with youth cultures, we adopted meas-urement instruments established in youth studies (see for example, Hurrelmann and Albert, 2002; 2006) to discover the degree of individual identifi cation with 23 popular youth cultural styles such as music styles and political youth scenes. The construction of the 16 items on political engagement and participation

172 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

relate to the IEA Civic Education Study (see Oesterreich, 2002; Torney-Purta et al., 2001). Further, some more youth-specifi c forms of political expression, such as online activism on political issues, participation in local initiatives, strikes or riots have been added based on previous multi-method research exploring forms of youth participation and civic learning in a selected East German federal state (Krüger et. al., 2002). The analysis of the quantitative data conducted for this article mainly relates to the systematization of the landscape of youth cultural styles in East and West Germany and to their specifi c political attitudes and experiences with political participation. Socio-demographic and socio-economic attributes as well as information about school, family and peer integration have been taken into account at each stage of the analysis.

The question of how youth cultural styles support certain political positions and practices is connected to the concrete daily practices and interactions of young people and therefore has been investigated using a methodological approach, which addresses orientations and practices in the sense of the ‘modus operandi’ or habitus of specifi c social contexts (Bohnsack, 2003; Bohnsack and Nohl, 2003; Weller, 2003). The analysis is based on transcribed discussions with all four groups of young people, two in a Hip–Hop scene and two in a Gothic–Punk scene. The left-wing youth cultural styles in eastern and hip–hop in western Germany have been chosen based on a quantitative analysis where adherents of both styles appeared to hold distinguishable political attitudes and to be highly politically engaged in certain ways (as shown in the following paragraphs). Contacts with the two goth–punk groups in an East German and the two rap–crews in a West German city were made in schools that were already involved in the antecedent quantitative study. The discussions had been carried out with groups of friends who talked about the youth cultural style and practices of the young people, about the relation between their style and society, public views of their specifi c style, society and social problems as well as about the political opinions and actions of the group members. The discussions were transcribed and analyzed; for this article, quotations were chosen that related to the current subject of presentation (see Pfaff, 2006 for detailed description of methods, groups and fi eld access as well as for more results).

The overall triangular design of the study assumes that quantitative and quali-tative approaches can complement each other in relation to certain aspects of the basic research questions (see Bryman, 1992; Newman and Benz, 1998). In the study the present paper is based on, the quantitative survey has been carried out fi rst to investigate existing distributions of diverse youth cultural styles, political attitudes and forms of participation and to relate youth cultural styles to different political positions and types of engagement. Additionally, the reconstructive study was based on fi rst results of the youth survey concerning youth cultural styles and was meant to investigate the specifi c processes of con-struction of political attitudes and practices in selected youth cultural styles.

Pfaff Youth culture as a context of political learning 173

Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

THE LANDSCAPE OF YOUTH CULTURE IN EAST AND WEST GERMANY

There is a long tradition of quantitative youth research exploring the landscape of youth cultures in western Germany starting with the youth studies con-ducted by the Youth Offi ce of the Shell consortium in 1985 (Fischer et al., 1985; Zinnecker, 1987). From the 1950s, youth culture in Germany has been investigated, periodically tracing trends and developments such as the political movements during the 1970s and 1980s or the prevailing music styles of the 1960s. With the reunifi cation of Germany at the beginning of the 1990s, these investigations have greatly increased, remarking similarities concerning sym-pathies with youth cultural styles. Later on, fundamental differences related to living conditions and also in matters of the relationship of the young to social and political movements have been noted (Behnken et al., 1991; Bois-Reymond et al., 2001).

Since the mid-1990s, a rising spread of right-wing youth cultures that con-ducted violent attacks on immigrants all over Europe, but especially in the East, has led to an intensifi cation of the research on the political culture of the young in Germany (Fritzsche, 1997; Hurrelmann and Albert, 2002). The position on a left–right continuum in Western Europe up to now has been used as a meas-urement to describe the ideological and political orientation of citizens. This political code reduces the complexity of ideologies for politicians and polit-ical scientists, citizens, the media and also the young. Thus the codes are con-sidered to refl ect ‘general attitudes towards the socio-economic structure of society: a position on the left indicates a favorable attitude towards changes in the direction of greater (social, political, and economic) equality, while a location on the right side represents opposition to such changes’ (Eisinga and Franses, 1996: 345). However, the continuum is used as the central ideological schema of orientation expressing the lowest common denominator of existing structures of societal confl icts (Mair and Castles, 1997). Even if the importance of the left–right scale as a reference for ideological and political thinking seems to have declined during recent decades (Eisinga and Franses, 1996), for certain youth cultures it still provides a point of reference in terms of ideology and decision-making, as the next section of this article points out.

As stated before, in Germany, as well as in other European countries, youth culture historically has been strongly connected to societal movements and organizations. Since the 1970s, the leftist peace and environmental movement in Western Europe has been closely associated with certain youth cultural styles and youth organizations (Schildt and Siegfried, 2006; Strandbu and Krange, 2003). Even in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), the youth supplied a wide range of members for the Christian peace movement (Pfaff, 2006). During the 1980s, these sometimes radical leftist youth cultures have been distinguished by tending towards non-political music and media styles.

174 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

Oppositional styles also cropped up in the form of diverse right-wing youth cul-tural styles, such as skinheads or neo-nazis (Stock and Mühlberg, 1990). These new styles culminated in the mid 1990s, reaching frequencies of diffusion of up to 10 per cent of the youth population in Eastern Germany (Pfaff and Krüger, 2006). The research on the emerging right-wing youth culture in Germany has pointed out that these styles have an important impact on the development and diffusion of ethnocentric and violent ideologies among young people (Brown, 2004; Merkl and Weinberg, 1997; Pfaff, 2005; Virchow, 2004).

However, during the 1990s, music styles associated with these right-wing groups were also propagated further among youth and reached a much greater diffusion than any other youth cultural style related to political ideologies or protest movements (Fritzsche, 1997; Pfaff and Krüger, 2004). In Germany at the end of the 1990s, techno and hip–hop were the most popular youth cultural styles, even if they were enjoyed by young people in different areas under dif-ferent socio-economic conditions. While hip–hop has been both the music of immigrant youth as well as highly educated male young people in urban areas (Androutsopoulos and Scholz, 2003; Bennett, 1999), techno especially belonged to young rural people all over the country independent of gender, race or education. At the beginning of 2003, hip–hop was the most popular youth culture among adolescents in East and West Germany. Yet overall most respond-ents identifi ed with or showed sympathy with different music styles. Following the results of the youth survey the following section aims to systematize the landscape of youth cultural styles in Germany. Therefore cluster analyses (un-weighted pair groups) have been carried out to distinguish groups of young people with different youth cultural orientations. The resulting constructed classifi cation has been tested in relation to socio-economic attributes (for a de-tailed method description see Romesburg, 2004; Pfaff, 2006: 108ff).

However, the statistical differentiation between groups of the young dis-tinguishes between two forms of youth cultural affi liation: two-thirds of the respondents sympathize with certain youth cultural styles (specialized self-localization) and one-third position themselves across the styles by evaluating youth cultures all together (see also Strzoda et al., 1996, for an analogue result on youth survey data).

For further analysis, groups belonging to the specialized form of youth cultural self-localization are of special interest. These groups can be distinguished as sympathizers with youth cultural protest or alternative music styles (30 per cent) and young people identifying themselves with popular music styles (35 per cent). A more differentiated breakdown leads to four groups of protest and alter-native music styles (presented in Figure 1) and three groups of sympathizers with popular music and media styles: hip–hop, techno and ‘computer freaks’.

This article focuses on protest styles and alternative music styles, which can be distinguished in the four groups presented in Figure 1. Two of the four groups belong to both ends of the political spectrum in Germany. These sides have been depicted for years with the terms left and right — as it is common in most European countries. The data show one of the groups being more closely

Pfaff Youth culture as a context of political learning 175

Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

connected to the political sphere and another group always identifying with rightist or leftist groups as well as with certain music styles. These groups are more widespread in the East than in West Germany, and male youth join them more often than females. Concerning education, it can be stated that the more the orientation to right-wing styles, the lower the level of school attended, and the more the alignment with the left, the higher the level of education.

However, there are several peculiarities related to the political culture of young people in these four groups: they are more interested in politics, are much more able to locate themselves in the German political sphere, show clearer party affi liations and lower percentages of youth who would refuse to vote in national elections, and most groups have a variety of experiences of pol-itical protests and participation.

Table 1 shows the two polarizing protest cultures that sympathize with right- or left-wing youth cultural styles and compares them with all respondents of the survey and with those who identify with the hip–hop style as one culture of popular music. The table reveals some highly differentiating politically rela-ted attitudes and types of participation. It can be seen that the affi liation with certain youth cultures not only makes a difference in political attitudes but also civic and political actions. While most youth cultures show no impact on the political culture of their sympathizers, youth belonging to the selected groups show more political engagement. Furthermore, these cultures seem to provide both opportunities for conventional and unconventional participation in politics as well as in civic actions, including instances of violent action in connection with the expression of their political aims or critiques. At the same time, adopt-ing certain youth cultural styles seems to overlap the effects of special socio-demographic attributes such as the educational level of the parents. Especially, the young people identifying with right-wing youth cultures, who mostly come from less educated families, evidence a higher degree of political interest and

Figure 1 Forms of youth cultural self-localization in Germany

Global Self-localization (1/3) Specialized Self-localization (2/3)

Protest styles and AlternativeMusic Styles (30%)

Popular Music andMedia Styles (35%)

Proximity toSkinheads,

Neo-Nazis andHooligans (4%)

Fans of MainstreamMusic with Sympathyfor Right-wing Styles

(10%)

Fans of MainstreamMusic with Sympathy

for Left-wing andAlternative Styles

(9%)

Proximity toPunk, Gothic,

Metal undAntifa (7%)

Tab

le 1

Po

litic

al a

ttit

ud

es a

nd

exp

erie

nce

s fo

r sel

ecte

d y

ou

th c

ult

ure

s

Self-

loca

lizat

ion

Tow

ards

Yo

uth

Cul

ture

sIn

tere

st in

Po

litic

s∗Id

enti

fi cat

ion

wit

h Po

litic

al P

oles∗∗

Expe

rien

ce w

ith

Dem

onst

rati

ons∗

Expe

rien

ce w

ith

Polit

ical

D

iscu

ssio

ns o

n th

e In

tern

et

or P

etit

ions∗

Expe

rien

ce

wit

h Ri

ots

at

Dem

onst

rati

ons∗∗

Ove

rall

12%

17%

12%

29%

10%

Prox

imit

y to

rig

ht-

win

g y

ou

th c

ult

ure

s20

%37

%17

%29

%27

%Pr

oxim

ity

to le

ft-w

ing

yo

uth

cu

ltu

res

24%

59%

31%

47%

23%

Iden

tifi c

atio

n w

ith

th

e h

ip–h

op

sty

le16

%22

%11

%26

%13

%

Not

e: ∗

p ≤

0.0

5, ∗∗

p ≤

0.01

.

Pfaff Youth culture as a context of political learning 177

Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

participation than do other teenagers or even adults from these social back-grounds (see, for example, Böhm-Kasper and Krappidel, 2006; Heitmeyer, 2002).

Additional path and regression analyses on the youth survey data show a clear effect of belonging to right- and left-wing youth cultures as regards certain political attitudes, namely interference with the impact of other contexts of political socialization, such as the educational level of parents or their interest in politics. This analysis also shows that regarding the two protest cultures, effects of affi liation with right- or left-wing cultures appear in experiences with unconventional political behavior and in actions that include or are related to violence (see Pfaff, 2006: 172ff; Pfaff and Krüger, 2006).

Even if these results have to be proved in additional longitudinal studies, they highlight the impact of certain youth cultural styles in the process of pol-itical socialization. Moreover, they raise the question of how this infl uence is developed in concrete styles and groups. To answer this question by example, the next section draws upon selected results from the qualitative case study of a left-wing youth culture in an East German city.

POLITICAL CODES AS YOUTH CULTURAL BORDERS

The following section is based on results from case studies using the example of two groups of friends that belong to a left-wing goth and punk scene in an East German city that is characterized by high unemployment rates, a low por-tion of immigrants and a relatively high number of right-wing youth groups in the neighbouring countryside.

During the group discussions, both groups independently spoke about their political affi liations at the beginning of their discourses and described themselves as leftists when asked for their attitudes and opinions in relation to politics. Results of the youth survey show that this is true for most of the re-spondents who have been allocated to left-wing youth cultures, whereas overall only about 17 per cent of all respondents locate themselves at both ends of the political continuum.

The fi rst group gave themselves the name ‘alternative 4’, parodying a German hip–hop band called ‘The Fantastic Four’, which suggests that borders between different youth cultures are of special importance for the self-representation of all styles. In the group, the question regarding their position in terms of polit-ics led to a discourse on politics and radicalism (group Alternative Four: section ‘radicalism’):

Interviewer: If you are talking about politics already, how would you describe yourself in these terms? Is there any allocation (...)

Boy 1: Well of course leftists or (laughing) Boy 2: So politically extreme left or left, how you defi ne it, the one more the

other less (4 seconds silence) leftist actually, so to speak — that we deny many things the state presents to us: certain laws, programs,

178 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

taxes, democracy, and fi ght against this, and not like other people go to elections and say: well, the Christian Democratic Union, they want to increase taxes.1

This group of 16 and 17 year old males defi ne themselves as leftists and the following description of their political attitudes is mainly related to their re-fusal of state expectations on its citizens. Therefore, their understanding of democracy and of the current form of government in Germany is based on a critique of the responsibility that goes along with citizenship. As in other parts of the discourse, the boys use the term ‘we’ to describe political attitudes and actions, which indicates two things. First, the boys have a clear understanding of shared political opinions, which indicates that political discussions in this group are pretty common. Second, the young people see themselves as a part of a larger political movement: a unifi ed Left that also includes smaller political parties who fi ght against social inequality and for more transparency in political processes and decisions. Thus, the group’s denial of democracy as refl ected in their discourse seems to be ambivalent. It is related to the current system of established parties where new political organizations and smaller parties face serious diffi culties in reaching governmental power on local, but even more on county and national levels. They distance themselves from citizens who, in elections, vote for the party that makes the most hopeful promises for their own use and advantage.

Later on in the discussion, the young people addressed the topic of extremism and radicalization once more (group Alternative Four: section ‘radicalism’):

Boy 3: For example radicalism — I can’t understand at all because left-wing extremism for me is just like right-wing extremism. Both result in obtrusions and this I don’t like so much. Everybody is supposed to do what he wants and nobody should be forced into anything.

Boy 2: But this is somehow wrong because right-wing extremism — that’s only idiots aiming a dictatorship, wanting one idiot who kicks out all the immigrants and left-wing extremism, that’s people wanting anarchy, not giving a damn about politics any more. That’s how I see it.

One member of this group distances himself from radicalism in any form, de-scribing it as political obtrusion. This section of the discourse indicates disunity amongst the group members concerning the question of how far left they localize themselves on the left–right continuum. It can be seen that the young people negotiate group positions and collective opinions by addressing pol-itical questions in group discourses. While dealing with prevalent attitudes and positions in an interactive manner, they learn to carry on political arguments and establish interest in the political discourse of their country. This group ad-dresses major problems of society such as the integration of immigrants, pol-itical disenchantment and the depreciation of democracy.

Another group, consisting of girls and boys age 14 to 20, also addressed pol-itics at the beginning of the discussion when one boy told how he was fi red

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from his job because of his leftist political opinions and the punk style he wore while working. When asked for their political position as a group, they also located themselves on the left side of the continuum — yet not as clearly as the other group did (group P–Parque: section ‘work and politics’).

Interviewer: And how is this going in this group? Boy 4: Mainly leftists. Girl 1: Actually more likely leftist. Boy 2: Yes. Boy 1: In the proper sense yes. Boy 4: There are some who don’t show that they have a right opinion but

I think they don’t have any chance to be accepted here. Not that we would organize entry tests, but if someone expresses something right-wing…

Girl 1: They will not be accepted.

In this group the self-localization as leftists is related to the defeat of right-wing opinions and attitudes and the immediate exclusion from the group. Political attitudes tend to be constitutive for the group and have to be negotiated in a political discourse with new members. This indicates that political topics and positions have a substantial impact within the group whose members search for mutuality in relation to a common understanding and position vis á vis major societal lines of confl ict. Nevertheless there are indications of a restriction in the identifi cation with the leftists, which has not been addressed in the dis-course directly. In the following sections of the discussion, the opposition to right-wing attitudes is generalized. Instead of describing their own opinions in form and content, an even stronger opposition to the rightists is expressed. Right-wing positions have been criminalized, ‘Right wing is no opinion, it’s criminal’ and antagonized ‘among punks this is always very dangerous’. The following section from the focus group explains the restrictions against the leftist opinions and reveals that the common attitudes within the group appear to be precarious concerning the question of a general tolerance against others, which does not only exclude rightists but also groups of foreigners (group P–Parque: section ‘violence’):

Boy 2: There are always some nations — one can say I don’t like them very much. Not everybody can tell he likes everybody.

Boy 3: Because you don’t know everybody. Boy 2: But in the end nevertheless one can tell one is a leftist. Sure, as

said before, one can’t like everybody. Especially related to, lets say immigrants, if I am in another country then I belong to the unpopular foreigners. That’s why you aren’t a rightist. I don’t know how to address (3 seconds silence) yes, one doesn’t like everybody, that’s impossible.

Boy 3: But again this is a diffi cult topic. I would say there are Germans who are assholes and there are foreigners who are assholes, even if there are immigrants who are just like we are.

Boy 2: That’s what I wanted to say more or less.

180 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

Despite their description as leftists, one member of the group is legitimizing negative opinions about other nations. This also explains the restrictions of the identifi cation with left-wing positions in the group. The boy points out that there are ‘nations’ he doesn’t like. He doesn’t express stereotypes against other cultures in general but prejudices against certain ethnic groups. His opinion is generally rather more xenophobic than racist. This attitude is contentious within the group, but there is no argument emerging from the boy’s views. Instead, his opinion is corrected by other group members: a developmental model is placed against his racist argumentation indicating that knowledge and understanding of other cultures leads to more tolerance in dealing with them. Furthermore the boy’s prejudices against immigrants in general have been re-placed by an argumentation that emphasizes personal attributes rather than ethnic characteristics.

Similarities between these two groups mainly exist in how they address pol-itical issues. First of all, politics are important for the representation of their style and for their understanding of themselves as groups. Political attitudes and interests are constitutional for being a member of the group and the discussion about political issues and major societal problems belongs to their understanding of themselves as sympathizers of a special style. Or, as one of the boys in the fi rst groups put it: ‘I never saw a goth with right-wing attitudes’. Even if the truth of this statement remains open to discussion and other experiences are reported, the expression targets why these young people localize themselves at one end of the left-right continuum and consequently argue about their position and about political issues: identifi cation with a style is concomitant with holding a certain political position. The opinions and attitudes related to this position have to be negotiated within the group and with the political opponent. Oliver Böhm-Kasper (2006) highlighted the importance of peer communication about politics for the political engagements of adolescents using a multi-level approach for the quantitative youth survey presented in this paper. He pointed out that the impact of peers discussing political issues on their civic competencies was even higher than the measured family infl uences. The quotations and their inter-pretations in this section suggest why this is so: political debates belong to the central practices within the investigated left-wing youth groups. At the same time the argumentations and discussions about current political issues must be understood as important interactions in the process of political socialization. Even if a certain political opinion seems crucial for membership in a particular style-related youth group, the specifi c arrangement of these attitudes is a matter of the style-specifi c practice of political debate.

STYLES AS SPACES OF PARTICIPATION

Chances of political participation for youth in Germany are limited even if pub-lic institutions make massive efforts to create settings for young people to learn how to act politically. With some local exceptions, people under 18 are not

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permitted to vote in elections, and political parties’ youth organizations rarely are allowed to participate in political decision-making. Two institutions that provide opportunities for participation and political engagement for young people will be presented in the following section. It will be shown how youth cultures apply to them and how young people use the political structures pro-vided there for their critical actions.

As has been stated already (Oesterreich, 2002 for the German educational system; Torney-Purta et al., 2001), school is undertaking measures to provide chances for participation and political action for their students in terms of student councils and participative decision-making structures. In the case studies of the groups from left-wing youth cultures, the young people from the fi rst group discussed an instance from their own school where the school leadership, teachers and student council have not been able to solve a problem. During a school reform in the system of higher education of the county, the following problem had arisen: for the students of grade 11 and their teachers, it was unclear how to calculate the fi nal results of the fi rst term. For those students of this comprehensive school (which was the only one in the county at this time) who wanted to leave school and apply for further education or vocational training, this turned out to be a serious problem. In spite of diverse efforts by teachers and student council, the school leadership still didn’t tackle the problem. Some students from the group opted for another unconventional way (group Alternative Four: section ‘engagement’):

Boy 2: /…/Him and me, I’m the class representative and he is my deputy, went to an event where we could talk directly to supervisors from the school administration, without dealing with the school leadership again. We went directly to the school administration to tell them about the problem and to make a suggestion. And they turned out to be quite tolerant and understanding.

The young people use their knowledge about political structures and institu-tions to address the next higher level of decision-making when efforts within the hierarchies of their own institution failed. Their interest in politics and their critical understanding of political processes provided them with the knowledge of whom to address and also with the necessary cheekiness to ignore the hier-archies within the school system to seek a fast solution in their own interest. Experienced in political discussions and in their roles as representatives of other students, they took the problem to representatives of an institution that actually could solve it directly. Even if both did not participate in the student council themselves, the implicitness of their political action seems to be an indicator for a very clear understanding of democratic processes and success-ful political action. It must be assumed that their general political interest, which is mediated and supported by their youth cultural style, encourages such processes of learning about political structures. At the same time, their ex-perience with political action outside of school in the context of their style,

182 Young 17:2 (2009): 167–189

as is presented below, equips them with the necessary self-awareness to act as political representatives beyond the political structures of their own school.

Another example from the same group explains how youth cultures use participation in social movements for both political action for a clear purpose on the one hand and protest and provocative confl ict in form of actions on the other. Even if youth culture research states a decline in young people’s sym-pathy for social movements in Germany, and especially in East Germany during the 1990s (see Pfaff and Krüger, 2004), the movement against right-wing attacks and politics in the East still tries to elicit the support of many young people, in particular sympathizers with left-wing and alternative styles. In a section of the focus group where the young people talked about their experiences with political action, two boys explained how the demonstrations they took part in proceeded (group Alternative Four: section ‘engagement’):

Boy 1: Well, one moves around mostly in a group… that depends… and then one delivers one’s message.

Boy 4: With speakers in a car or screaming.Boy 1: Posters.Boy 4: Posters.Boy 1: There are battles about and there are these other entirely right-wing

people who have something against it, well this might become quite rude sometimes [...]

Boy 3: Is this fun or what?Boy 4: Well it’s connected to fun (laughing), you look forward to it, and you go

there and deliver your message, what you like to, what you stand for in life. You tell that to the rest of the citizens.

First, in this example the two boys describe the political practice of demonstra-tions in a highly interactive manner and with precision, which indicates rich experiences with several demonstrations against the right-wing actions in their city. Second, it can be seen that this experience leads to a further understand-ing of the process of gaining publicity for political aims and positions while demonstrating in public. These boys understand the mechanisms of deliver-ing messages to the public and of addressing issues to a broader population. They are also used to dealing with their political and, at the same time, youth cultural opponents — not only through battles but also through discussions. Third, the quotes in this section underline that demonstrating for these youth is not only a form of political action but also a way to have fun and achieve a feeling of community in the practice of participation: demonstrations for them work as an ‘actionism’ (see Bohnsack and Nohl, 2003). Ralf Bohnsack et al. (1995) developed the concept of actionism from a large qualitative study indi-cating that groups of young people use shared performances and rituals to pro-duce community and common orientations. In the focus group example, the actionism of demonstration for the young is a way to perform and develop their understanding of political participation and to make sure of and deepen

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their political attitudes and civic competencies. In that sense for these young people, youth cultural styles and their embedded peer groups work as agents of political socialization.

CONCLUSIONS

The fi ndings presented in this article demonstrate that the identifi cation with certain youth cultural styles and the affi liation with peer groups, which are part of subcultures has an impact on the political culture of adolescents. Thereby, youth cultures serve as agencies of socialization concerning the political attitudes and civic competences of young people. As shown above, the outcomes of these processes include greater competence concerning participation in political de-bates and discussions, more knowledge about politics and political structures, a better understanding of current lines of confl ict and political processes and more confi dence in the expression of one’s own political goals and opinions. This article aimed to highlight the impact of political learning in a youth cultural environment and the results indicate that it would be worth taking into account youth cultures as agents of political socialization, to investigate these cultures in longitudinal and cross-cultural perspectives, and last but not least, to support them, take them seriously and involve them in decision-making in school and other places.

Acknowledgements

The research on which this article is based was funded by the Hans-Boeckler-Foundation and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany. Furthermore I wish to thank the members of the Center of School and Education Research (ZSB) at the University of Halle (Germany) where I conducted and discussed this investigation many times, colleagues at the Stanford Center on Adolescence (USA) as well as the reviewers of Young who offered helpful suggestions on this article.

Note

1 The quotes used in this paper are translated from German.

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NICOLLE PFAFF is a research scholar at the German Research Foundation on a cross-cultural project that explores the performance of gender in pre-adolescent peer groups within different social classes and races in Brazil and Germany. She holds a PhD in Educational Science from the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center of Qualitative Research in Education, Counseling and Social Science (ZBBS). Her research interests include identity development, especially political socialization and gender identity, mixed method designs in educational science as well as research at the juncture of school research and studies on childhood and youth. [email: pfaff@paedagogik.uni-halle.de]