Youth Culture 101 Study Guide - Chapter Two: The Times... They Are A-Changin'

Past Chapters
Overview
Chapter One: Good News: There's a Teenager in Your Life

Question 1.
For years, culture watchers like Alvin Toeffler, David Elkind, Neil Postman and Douglas Coupland have been predicting the ‘acceleration of culture.’ Yesterday’s prediction is today’s reality. As Walt Mueller states, “The rate of change is gaining momentum. Like a snowball that accelerates and grows during its rapid descent down a steep hill, today’s youth culture is changing at breakneck speed.” (p.33)

In what ways has the world in which children and teens growing up similar and/or different to your own experience of childhood and adolescence?

Question 2.
Walt Mueller describes culture as, “…the ‘soup’ in which our teenagers swim around and soak every day. The soup’s ingredients include values, attitudes and behaviors – as well as media, peer group, language, and so on that express them. To know kids, we must lift the lid on the soup pot an see what’s in the mix… if we hope to effectively protect our kids from harm, provide for their well being, and lead them to vital faith in Christ, we must understand their world… a world that’s very different from the world we knew when we were that age.” (p.35)

Identify some aspects from today’s youth culture which you observe and think to yourself, “I don’t get that! I don’t understand why they do that?” How can you begin to understand the ‘soup ingredients’ that are shaping the values, attitudes and behaviors of the youth we are working with? Do they differ from your own experience of adolescence? If so, what are the differences that are fueling this shift in culture?

Question 3.
Mueller discusses Chap Clark’s concept of ‘systemic abandonment’ by parents. “In order to survive systemic abandonment and still function, vulnerable and confused young people create a separate and highly structured social system Clark calls ‘the world beneath,’ a safe place where they find connections – with equally confused young and abandoned peers – that help them as they navigate the difficult waters of adolescence… Clark concludes that one of the most vital things those of us who are close to kids… can do is to ‘understand their world.” (p.39)

In what ways can the local church/Corps and community center serve as an alternative safe space where adolescents can come to build meaningful relationships that will help to fulfill this need in a way that is positive and pro-social?

Question 4.
In chapter 2, Mueller identifies six major factors that have contributed to an increased stress on the relationship of parents and youth. These ‘family permutations’ include:

• An increase and acceptance of divorce (p.42)
• The rise in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births (p.44)
• The crisis of fatherlessness (p.45)
• An increasing number of mothers who work outside the home (p.46)
• A decreasing amount of time parents are spending with their kids (p.46)
• More children are victims of family violence (p.46)

Some would argue that the family is the first ingredient in the cultural soup that shapes youth’s values, beliefs and practices. Would you agree or disagree that the shift in family values and the increase in systemic abandonment has contributed toward a very different social construction of adolescence?

Question 5.
With a decrease in the family as moral compass for today’s children, and a divide between values communicated in church and school, “…the voices of other institutions become more powerful in their ability to educate and socialize teenagers.” (p.49). These voices are largely shaped by the rise in digital, personalized technologies that saturate our youth in a media sphere in which everything in a teen’s world - from peer interaction to savvy consumer advertising becomes an integral part of their everyday lives.

To what extent are personalized technologies (cell phones, iPods) and social networking media (YouTube, MySpace) replacing the local village (parents, school, church, peers) with a ‘electronically-mediated global village’ (celebrities, advertisers, online acquaintances, etc.) to raise our children. What role does technology play in the shift which is taking place in our culture(s)?

Question 6.
Mueller reminds us that, “…we know we can’t guide our kids through the soup of today’s culture until we deal with the inconsistencies in our own lives first. We have two choices. We can take the easy way out (for now) and keep sailing along on the same course, preferring not to rock the boat. Or we can row vigorously into the sea of youth culture and strive to understand it.” (p.69)

What is our own perspective on media? Is this a God-glorifying position? Do we lean to one of the extremes of being either isolationist and reactionary or relativistic and co-opted? How do we overcome fear or apathy in order to begin to seriously engage in today’s youth culture?

Question 7.
How would you go about setting up a meeting with parents to discuss the “principles that bridge the cultural generational gap” that Walt Mueller outlines at the end of this chapter?

• Understanding the world of kids is primarily a parent’s calling
• It’s never too early
• It’s never too late
• It won’t be easy
• Pain is a blessing
• Understanding youth culture equips parents to pass on the torch of faith
• Understanding youth culture fosters relational closeness (pp.70-75)