Problematizing a popular panacea: A critical examination of the (continued) use of ‘social generations’ in youth sociology

Abstract

Scholars using the concept of ‘social generation’ are committed to understanding the relationship between social change and social inequality. However, in this article we raise a variety of concerns about the empirical and theoretical foundations of the social generation approach. Complementing and advancing critical scholarship on social change, our concern is to advocate for a theoretically robust sociology of youth that can properly tackle questions pertaining to contemporary intergenerational relations and tensions, and issues of power and inequality. We argue that, in relation to social generation approaches, (1) the concept of generational habitus is incoherent and moreover, redundant given the triple historicization already built into Bourdieu’s conceptual apparatus; (2) the notion of generational units cannot attend to inequality and, indeed, is absent, and potentially unworkable, in the research by its main advocates; and (3) that the idea of ‘global generation’ relies too heavily on research from the Global North and, thus, is at odds with the experience of the majority of the world’s youth population located in the Global South.

Using methods across generations: researcher reflections from a research project involving young people and their parents

“…One of the greatest dangers of working with the 'young people-friendly' template is that it oversimplifies and artificially packages and separates adults and young people (see also Birch 2018). This stance supports recent work in the social sciences from Roberts and France (2020) who question the ubiquity of generational framings within youth research, both at a theoretical and empirical level, arguing that the packaging of generations as collective identities is too neat, generalised and simplistic (see also Ferreira 2018). We argue that both young people and adults have the right to contribute effectively to research.…”

Beyond millennials v baby boomers: Using kindness to assess generationalism across four age cohorts in Australia

“…Further, the AuSSA findings show that millennials, compared with pre-boomers, are less likely to believe that most people can be trusted (Habibis et al, 2016). While cross-sectional, these findings suggest that we should be sceptical of generational framings that claim that younger cohorts are more narcissistic or less empathetic than previous cohorts (Roberts & France, 2021).…”

“…The concept of social generation has been subject to criticism (France & Roberts, 2015;Pollock, 2008), particularly in terms of a perceived underplaying of the intergenerational reproduction of class inequality and difference. While these critiques raise important and targeted theoretical questions about the concept's utility (Roberts & France, 2021), aspects of some critiques of the sociology of generations are arguably in part the result of conflating popular (and some academic work, usually with a basis in psychology which tends towards 'generationalism') with sociological work on generations that has a very different theoretical underpinning. Engaging fully with these critiques is beyond the scope of this article.…”

The ‘Boomer remover’: Intergenerational discounting, the coronavirus and climate change

“…Edmunds & Turner, 2002a, 2002bKertzer, 1983;Mannheim, 1952Mannheim, /1970Pilcher, 1994) to one of examining appeals to 'generational thinking' or 'generationalism' (White, 2013), in public discourse. This scholarship has critically interrogated the deployment of generational claims, highlighting the empirical murkiness of their referents (Roberts & France, 2021), the contradictions in their implications (Bristow, 2021), and the political significance of how they are used to narrate social conditions and events -especially where generations are represented in a simplified, stereotyped, or exaggerated form (Airey et al, 2021;Bristow, 2015Bristow, , 2016Bristow, , 2019Martin & Roberts, 2021;Somers, 2017). The objective of this body of research is not to dispense with generation as mere fiction, but rather to see the deployment of 'generation' as the articulation and application of a particular category of analysis and practice that itself warrants examination (White, 2013).…”