ABSTRACT
It has often been stated that youth is in a process of infantilisation-that young people are economically dependent on their parents for longer than has ever been the case in the past (Jeffs and Smith, 1990; Jones and Wallace, 1992). Along with this extended period of dependency, it has been noted that the culture of childhood and youth is increasingly being controlled by parents, and that youth culture is now more often taking place in supervised and protected spaces (James, 1993; Büchner, 1990) rather than on the streets as previous commentators have found (see for example Corrigan, 1979; Hall and Jefferson, 1976). It should not be forgotten that the classic studies of youth culture and youth sub-culture were in the main studies of young working class men (McRobbie and Garber, 1976). Girls were ‘invisible’ in these studies of youth on the streets, and were said instead to be taking part in youth culture in their bedrooms, which has been seen as ‘one way in which girls resisted boys’ domination of the streets, that is using their homes as the base from which to explore aspects of teenage culture’ (Griffiths, 1988:53). In the present
social and economic climate, then, it can be argued that the siting of male youth cultures has moved from the street into the home. In that case, it becomes timely to examine what effects, if any, this move into the home has on gender relations in the domestic sphere. What does the increased use of the home as a site of youth culture by boys mean for girls? This chapter addresses Nava’s argument quoted above and is concerned with an examination of the activities and regulations of boys and girls within the home as becomes manifest when focusing on sibling relations around computer and video games.
