Seminar of youth research, policy and practice : Young People and Social Change after the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Seminar : Young People and Social Change after the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Anniversary seminar of youth research, policy and practice
Budapest, Central European University (CEU) - November 20, 2009
The Research Committee 34, Sociology of Youth, International Sociological Association; in co-operation with The Directorate for Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe; the Partnership between the Council of Europe and the European Commission in the field of Youth ; the Italian Sociological Association; the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Milan-Bicocca is organising a seminar of youth research, policy and practice entitled "Young People and Social Change after the Fall of the Berlin Wall" on the 20th November 2009 in Budapest.
After the breakdown of state socialism in Europe the societal role of youth changed dramatically from that of an ideological driving force of communism to that of an agent and carrier of democratisation and marketisation.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989, a symbol of both the raising of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War, this seminar takes a look at how the opening up of these societies to Europe and the world changed the conditions and experiences of growing up in the area. It will examine the status of young people in these societies before and after 1989, their living conditions, issues of social participation, the way in which they construct their identity and constitute and represent current social realities, their cultures and gender constructions as well as the interplay of continuities and discontinuities beyond this historical separator. The seminar focuses on four main topical fields: youth transitions and their national contexts, youth in the post-communist landscapes of inequality and uncertainty, and the consequences of social change for the possible convergence of youth across the former dividing line of the Iron Curtain. A fourth stream addresses the history and activities of cooperation between youth experts from the East and the West regarding research, policy and practice.
Morning Plenary
Chair: Carmen Leccardi, University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy
Institutional Greetings:
- Carmen Leccardi and Carles Feixa, Research Committee 34 "Sociology of Youth", ISA
- Marta Medlinska, Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of Youth
- Vera Asenova, Center for the Study of Imperfections in Democracies, CEU
10:00 – 12:45: Presentations
- Ken Roberts, University of Liverpool, UK: "1989: So hard to remember and so easy to forget"
Discussant: Siyka Kovacheva, University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria: "Changing times, changing lives -The social construction of youth and its public images in Bulgaria before and after 1989" - Mirjana Ule, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia: "Reconstruction of Youth in Postsocialism. Expectations and dilemmas"
Discussant: Herwig Reiter, University of Bremen, Germany
Afternoon working groups
I) Youth transitions in post-communism
Chair: Siyka Kovacheva, University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
- Kuhar Metka, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia: "Frozen transitions? Young people in the Balkans"
- Tomanović Smiljka, University of Belgrade, Serbia: "State of Youth in Serbia: General Overview"
- Joachen, University of Bremen; Khachatryan Gohar, Caucasus Research Resource Centre Yerevan; Velidze Rusudan, BCG; Pollock Gary, Manchester Metropolitan University; Roberts Ken, University of Liverpool : "Transition to adulthood in rural villages Caucasus"
- Krzaklewska Ewa, Jagiellonian University, Poland: "Transition to adulthood: national or ‘globalized' approach?"
II) Inequality and uncertainty
Chair: Carles Feixa, University of Lleida, Spain
- Gvozdanović Anja, Institute for Social Research, Zagreb, Croatia: "Some Democratic Values and Attitudes of Students and Youth in Croatia"
- Muranyi Istvan, Berenyi Zoltan, University of Debrecen, Hungary: "The role of democracy interpretation at teenagers' prejudice"
- Pyšňakova Michaela, Masarykova University, Brno, Czech Republic: "The ‘post-revolutionary' Czech consumer generation"
- Soos Timea, Berkeley, US / CEU Budapest, Hungary: "The process of commodification in post-socialist Eastern Europe and its effect on the youth: Who inhabits the space of abjection now?"
- Fero Martin, University of Trnava, Slovakia: "Particularities in motivational structure of young managers after the breakdown of state socialism in Slovakia"
III) Western and eastern, or modern youth?
Chair: Herwig Reiter, University of Bremen, Germany
- Archer Rory, ex CEU, Hungary, Germany: "Western or eastern, or modern youth? Balkan hybrid folk genres and (trans)nationalism"
- Omelchenko Elena, ‘Region' Centre, Ulyanovsk, Russia: "Generation R(ecession)?"
- Rizov Vladimir, NPSSPEO "M.V. Lomonosov", Bulgaria: "Marks of the socialist past - Knowledge, interpretation and attitude of young people in Bulgaria towards the monuments built during the socialist regime"
- Sekulić Tatjana, Panto Letterio, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy: "Born in '89. The burden of the past and the biographical construction among European young people: twenty-year-old youngsters from two European cities - Milan and Sarajevo - confronted."
- Steiner Christine, German Youth Institute, Munich, Germany: "Radically Modern? East German Youth After the German-German Unification"
IV) Cross-border cooperation in research, policy, and practice
Chair: Lyudmila Nurse, Oxford XXI, UK
- Parac Stanka, Boaria Marco, Cvijić Srdjan, Gangloff Camille, Association of Local Democracy Agencies, Council of Europe, Strasbourg, France: "Youth in Transition and Conflict"
- Calafateanu Adina Marina, London Metropolitan University/Maastricht, Romania/Netherlands: "Transition or adaptation? - The Communist Youth Union vs. Youth Non-governmental Associations"
- Sinczuch Marchin, University of Warsaw, Poland: "The structural dimensions of intergenerational communication process. The case of Poland"
- Mitulescu Sorin, University of Bucharest "Dimitrie Cantemir", Romania: "Youth vision about the future in 1985 and in 2006. A comparative analysis"
- Ivleva Tatyana, Bashkir State University, Russia: "Youth transitions in post-communism Russia"
1989 - Young people and social change after the fall of the Berlin Wall
This collection of essays, based on the outcomes of this seminar, examines the circumstances of young people in Eastern Europe before and after 1989 from a variety of angles: their transition to adulthood; their living conditions; the scope they have for social participation; the way in which...