The making of a generation: the children of the 1970s in adulthood

'Generation' is a term usually deployed in two problematic ways. It is a key trope for use in marketing. In connection, but more troubling, it is a form of symbolic violence in mainstream media and political discourses where an array of generalisations, stereotypes and labels are mobilised to pathologise structural problems as individual deficiencies - lazy students bludging off their parents; disloyal careerists; technologically dependent, mindless consumers; socially irresponsible, politically apathetic individuals - and so on. By using socio-histoirical definition of generation, where it denotes how people born at a similar time face similar economic, social and cultural norms that do not necessarily parlay into common values and experiences, Andres and Wyn skilfully show how two traditional contours of inequality - class and gender - still play key roles in shaping the very different transitions of young people and do much to destroy these governmentalised caricatures.