What is 'Youth Culture'?

On Monday 1st March, Envision Grad Horatio Caine delivered a session to the Communities and Campaigns team at the Cooperative HQ in Manchester all about ‘Youth Culture’.

In the first of a number of these sessions as part of the Truth about Youth campaign, Horatio went through what it is like to be a young person in the 21st century, covering everything from ‘What is an emo?’ to ‘How do young people use the internet?’   The Coop were amazed to hear that some young people these days can hold 10 MSN conversations whilst updating their Facebook statuses AND doing their maths homework!  They also took part in a ‘Youth Culture’ quiz, where they had to name the winner of last year’s X-Factor and translate some common abbreviations – like ‘IRL’, ‘BTW’ and ‘NM’, amongst other gruelling questions.

Horatio was also careful to point out the danger of generalising all young people.  He said, “Organisations seem to sit and try to decide what young people 'would' think about certain issues. It cannot be emphasised enough that young people are not only as individual as any other group, but that the only way to know what they think is to ask them what they think and to truly listen to them.”

If you’re a Grad and are interested in running an Envision Youth Culture workshop, then let us know.