February 24, 2022

 16.00 h 

 Registration

 Room 51.100 - 1st floor building 51. La Nau - Campus del Poblenou - Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Anton Popov (Aston University, Birmingham, UK)

A generational gap?

Changes and continuities in reproduction of social inequalities of youth through familial cultural practices

An outline

The paper presents a research findings of research of an intergenerational dynamics in cultural socialisation in a familial settings. Drawing on qualitative interviews with young people, their parents and great parents from 10 families in the UK, the paper demonstrates that family remains a key source of primary cultural socialisation, where cultural knowledge, values and practices are re-produced intergenerationally. Arguably, the very idea of family for our participants suggests the sense of continuity in terms of relations (perceived as historical connections with ancestors and geographical spread of relatives) but also values and ethics (providing moral bounds between family members). At the same time, family as a site of cultural socialisation is prone to changes that are sometimes expressed in terms of the ‘generational gap’. However, the generations themselves are the embodiment of the broader cultural and social changes that have occurred in the course of history. Therefore, the generational differences (including those that we observed in the course of our research) are the product of those social, cultural and political transformations that shaped current society in Britain. Furthermore, the socio-economic position of our participants has been identified as important variable that impacts the reproduction of cultural practices and values in the family environment through leisure time activities. These activities that are sometimes named as hobbies or interests by our informants effectively constitute the essential element of a family’s habitus (using Bourdieu’s term), a framework for the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital that is transferable into the socio-economic status, thus ensuring the reproduction of family’s structural dispositions. The research demonstrates that socialisation into familial habitus might further entrench socio-economic inequalities. In some cases, such reproduction of familial habitus might lead to the transmission of rather exclusivist cultural identities.  

Organised by the Research Group on Youth, Society and Communication, JOVIS.com and the M.A. in International Studies on Media, Power and Difference.