Youth culture is the way adolescents live, and the norms values, and practices they share. Culture is the shared symbolic systems, and processes of maintaining and transforming those systems. Youth culture differs from the culture of older generations.
Elements of youth culture include beliefs, behaviors, styles, and interests. An emphasis on clothes, popular music, sports, vocabulary, and dating set adolescents apart from other age groups, giving them what many believe is a distinct culture of their own. Within youth culture, there are many distinct and constantly changing youth subcultures. These subcultures: norms, values, behaviors, and styles vary widely, and may differ from the general youth culture. Understanding what adolescents think and do is fundamental to understanding the relationship between structure and agency, social patterns and individual action.
Culture has the power to transform entire societies, strengthen local communities and forge a sense of identity and belonging for people of all ages. As a vector for youth development and civic engagement, culture plays an essential role in promoting sustainable social and economic development for future generations. Youth can act as a bridge between cultures and serve as key agents in promoting peace and intercultural understanding.
I understand everyday participation as the informal activities young people choose to engage with in their free time. As including a range of activities facilitated for young people in care such as special projects or groups, afterschool clubs, attending special annual events and so forth. Facilitating participation that encourages young people to create wider social networks and experiences outside of the care system is also important and local cultural and leisure services provide rich opportunities for these personal development opportunities.
My focus point will be youth participation in local community. In this case my home town Kavadarci.
Kavadarci is placed in Tikvesh region of the Republic of Macedonia. In the heart of Macedonia, it is home to a lot of different people with way different mentality. Kavadarci is not that big but deffinately has a big soul. I was part of some events which happened in a very short period of time that talks about the opportunities our local community gives to youngsters. Local authority facilitated participation are activities organised by and involving the local authority. Activities can include weekly projects/ groups, afterschool clubs, residential weekends, special events and day trips. I have visited three different events: afterschool party in one of our local pubs, art exhibition and amusement park in order to show how many different options we can choose.
In the photos below you can see youngsters at the art exhibition of two artists from Kavadarci- Vladimir Simeonov and Dragan Vergovski- Alpi. The exhibition is the foreground of the creation of the manifestation "Kavadarci Cultural Autumn 2017" and took place in the Gallery at the Cultural Center "Ivan Mazov - Klime" in Kavadarci.
Investing in local cultural resources including tangible and intangible heritage including traditional knowledge and skills, as well as music, dance, theatre and festivals, can develop sustainable creative economies, open up opportunities to youth, and help strengthen identity and social cohesion. Promoting creativity for and among youth and harnessing young people’s creative potential and energy therefore needs to be a priority in finding creative solutions to today’s challenges.
Visiting museums, going to the theater, attending a concert, or reading a novel are all expressions of personal taste. However, they are also reflective of a person’s position in society, a connection that is much more salient in the arts than in any other lifestyle domain.
Arts participation is a cognitive activity and the transmission of knowledge (i.e., information transfer) is the crucial part of socialization.
Art, as a type of learning in the process of socialization, provides members of the society, whether they are closely involved with art or not, with the opportunity to understand the social values and internalize them in some way. The relationship with art, considered within the process of contact between the individual and the society through life experiences, stands out with its effectiveness as an indicator of socialization, because a wholistic analysis of all the data with regard to the way of thinking, understanding, religion, language and origin within the process of socialization interpreted as the internalization of the social value judgements and norms by enabling the individual to acquire them in various ways.
The last event that I have visited was the amusement park. I chose this place because it directly affects the cultural development of the youngsters and their socialization.
Creativity is a source of considerable potential in promoting sustainable socio-economic development for people of all ages. The creative industries can serve as a springboard for new ideas and innovation, which can open up new opportunities for employment and learning, while at the same time promoting well-being and selfesteem and empowering entire communities. Young women and men are increasingly engaged in proposing creative solutions to local challenges. This creative energy needs to be harnessed so as to maximize the positive impact it can have on society.
In my opinion Important progress has been made but much can still be done to further maximize the potential of culture as a vector for youth development and civic engagement.
Author and photographer: Sonja Stavrova, youth correspondent from Kavadarci, the Republic of Macedonia.
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