Räume - Identität, Geschlecht und Körper bei Jugendlichen

What is the life of young Austrians like, what are they interested in, which desires and perspectives do they have? These were the basic questions of our study. Qualitative interviews and topic centred workshops with youth on the hand and so-called "adults" on the other hand were made to gain some insight into the way young people see themselves and to present the ideas adults (researchers included) have about the young generation. As far as young people are concerned, it can be stated, that they are very heterogeneous in their ways of living, acting and thinking. There are only few aspects to generalize, which can be summarized like this: friendship, relationships in general and confidence are among their most relevant values and this fact doesn`t depend on sex, age, ethnic-cultural identity or social status. Experiences arising from former relationships as well as experiences with being estimated exert a lot of influence on all kinds of relationships, those of friendship, of love and even those of work. The ideas of masculinity and femininity that have been imparted to them have the same effect. In addition to this it can be noticed that traditional structures of family life are in a state of disintegration, which doesn`t mean the same thing to all young people, but depends strongly on their individual experiences. Undoubtedly, mobility has increased to a great extent, in fields of reality as well as in those of virtual life, which ends up in the fact that young people are offered lots of opportunities as far as education or leisure amenities are concerned. The uniting link of our project is formed by the ideas and images adults have about youth and by the standardizations and constructional processes involved. This fact has become visible on the level of our own research work, of the interviews and of the group work with adults as well as connected with youth work at present and specialized literature on youth research. Adults show a strong tendency to classify young people as members of certain groups, to orientate themselves by visible features, for example dress codes, and, generally speaking, to categorize youth. In the course of our research process the focus of interest has become the question why adults are not able to perceive youth in a more distinguishing way. The answer has been found by thorough explanations: Adults sometimes feel scared of young people, strictly speaking, they feel scared of what they associate with them. An increasing collective obsession with youthfulness may cause feelings of envy and rivalry that adults have towards youth. These feelings have to remain unconscious and can only be expressed indirectly, for instance by the use of language showing devaluating tendencies, such as "Kids can do nothing but rubbish "a. s. o.