Moral panics and intergenerational conflict: The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there

This thesis explores the social processes that emanate from the interaction between young people and adults. All adults have been a young person and have at some point in their youth suffered denigration from adults. Yet adults participating in the research for this thesis have, in turn, committed similar denigration of young people. This thesis seeks to address this phenomenon, drawing upon theories of moral panics and the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Conducted from the research position of a Baby Boomer with a lifetime career working with young people, yet also susceptible to denigrating young people, this study finds that notions of popular memory (Brabazon) and musical ‘latching’ (De Nora) combine to privilege youth experiences in the formation of the habitus, especially in regard to attitudes towards popular culture and technology. It is this privileging of each generation’s youth experiences which informs and moulds adult attitudes towards ensuing youth generations. Data collected from semi-structured interviews and focus groups, along with secondary source material (internet, magazine and newspaper articles, contemporary music tracks) provided the raw material for analysis. The methodology used to undertake this analysis was Bourdieu’s theory of practice. The concepts of habitus and misrecognition have been central in analysing how youth cultural experiences inform the evolution of the adult habitus. The embodiment of early youth cultural experiences leads adults to the inescapable conclusion that theirs was the most genuine youth experience and that any youth cultural experience of ensuing generations cannot match this perceived authenticity. This misrecognition then permits the adult to denigrate the youth cultural product and the experiences of ensuing youth generations, as well as the young people themselves.