The moral economy of contemporary working‐class adolescence: managing symbolic capital in a French public ‘Adolescent Centre’

Abstract

Working‐class adolescents of French urban peripheries are key figures in a new social debate that reactivates the nineteenth century spectre of ‘dangerous’ classes to be controlled. Since the 1990s, French social counselling has privileged two modalities of response: taking account of suffering and government by listening and speech. We hypothesize that the contemporary moral economy allows for social interactions that go beyond social control and institutional domination. This is partly because professionals engaged in this moral undertaking may keep a critical distance, and partly because the concerned populations aren't necessarily devoid of resources to advance their interests or incapable of resistance. The concept of moral economy, coupled with the ethnographic method, is heuristic for fully comprehending the complexity of these issues and their stakes. Our fieldwork was centred on a French Adolescent Centre in an impoverished commune in Paris's periphery, from January 2010 through March 2011. These institutions were established in the early 2000s to respond to adolescent ‘suffering’ by crossing social work and psychiatry. Adolescents, parents, and other institutions (especially schools) solicit the professionally diverse staff for assistance, which in turn may take on cases and/or make referrals to other support institutions. By paying attention to all the scenes upon which the story of a counselled adolescent evolves, and bearing more general social evolutions in mind by applying the concept of moral economy, we can consider the multiplicity of seemingly contradictory processes as a whole. We see the destabilization of parents and their loss of symbolic capital, partly due to the norms of contemporary parenthood and partly due to the stigmatization of working‐class adolescence. But we also discern possibilities for expressing sentiments of injustice and humiliation, for increasing symbolic capital, and in some cases a reappropriation of the system, particularly in trajectories marked by a will for social ascension.

Physical constraint as psychological holding: Mental-health treatment for difficult and violent adolescents in France

“…This study focuses on the treatment of adolescent violence within a general environment and is not limited to the management of agitated patients in a medical arena (emergency room or psychiatric hospitalisation) (Coutant and Eideliman, 2013;Brodwin and Velpry, 2014). How is this ideal translated into practical standards?…”

“…In the same period, but this time under a right-wing Government, the field of mental health grew and the attention focused on "behavioural disorders" became more and more central to the implementation of new facilities and the rolling-out of new diagnoses. Following a report to the Minist ere de la famille (Ministry for Family Development) (Rufo and Joyeux, 2004) regarding the health of adolescents in France, Maisons d'adolescents or "Adolescent Centres"dlocal-authority accommodation and care institutionsdbecame responsible for identifying adolescents' "suffering" in general contexts and, from 2004, were progressively established throughout France (Coutant and Eideliman, 2013). At the current time, there are 102 (over the 119 administrative d epartements) based on the "Le Havre" model, launched in that city in 1999.…”

“…Here, the two initial explanations prevail: Western thinking has considered adolescence dangerous in essence since the advent of industrialisation (Muchembled, 2008). Furthermore, fieldwork actors multiply strategies to destigmatize adolescents while, at the same, making invisible the ethnicization of how adolescent violence is dealt with (Coutant and Eideliman, 2013).…”

“These days, it’s hell to have boys in France!”: emotion management in a French adolescent center

“…Before coming to the adolescent center, she was suffering from both a downward scholastic slide related to her false identity and from another form of shame because her professional goals didn't match the hopes of her mother, who associates seeing psychologists with insanity. At the time we met, Gladys seemed to have found a compromise by preparing herself for the nursing school entrance exam while taking advantage of her individual counseling at the adolescent center to better understand and assume her "difference" and to acculturate herself to the professional culture that attracts her (Coutant and Eideliman 2013).…”

“…The paper was translated by Juliette Rogers, to whom we are deeply grateful. the surreptitious reintroduction of distinctions of gender and class, with boys from the banlieues increasingly being cast in the role of perpetrator (Coutant and Eideliman 2013).…”