Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Anthropologist Fran Markowitz interviewed more than one hundred Russian teenagers to discover how adolescents have been coping with their country's seismic transitions. Her findings present a substantive challenge to near-axiomatic theories of human development that regard cultural stability as indispensable to the successful navigation of adolescence.
Markowitz's fieldwork leads to the surprising conclusion that the disruptions brought by glasnost, perestroika, and the fragmentation of the USSR exerted a greater impact on Western political hopes and on many of Russia's adults than on young people's perceptions of their lives. In their remarks on topics ranging from being Russian to religion, sex, music, and military service, the teenagers convey a flexible and optimistic approach to the future and a sense of security deriving from strong family, school, and neighborhood ties. Their perspectives suggest that culture change and social instability may be seen as positive forces, allowing for expressive opportunities, the establishment of individualized identities, and creative, pragmatic planning.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-237) and index.
Table of Contents
pt. 1. Introduction -- Tales of two transitions -- In the field of youth research -- pt. 2. Tracing the changes; or, what changes? -- Reconstructing Soviet childhood -- Glasnost, perestroika, and taking off the tie -- High school in the Russian Federation -- Other options : class actions and ethnic articulations -- pt. 3. Teenagers in post-Soviet Russia -- Leisure : sex, drugs, and rock and roll -- The meanings of being Russian -- Doing identity : politics, gender, and religion -- What teenagers want from life, and how to get it -- pt. 4. Conclusions, tentative or otherwise -- Cultural instability and adolescence -- References cited -- Index.