ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the book’s overall argument for a new approach to young people’s risk-taking practices. Set against the backdrop of recurring ‘moral panics’ around young people’s activities, the chapter critiques individualist approaches to youth risk-taking. Following this, it outlines how a sociologically informed empirical analysis of young people’s engagement with risk-taking practices can draw out the routinised and socially embedded character of such practices. More specifically, it sets up the four dimensions in focus in the empirical analyses: routinisation, coordination, embodiment, and social context. Further, it argues that such analyses offer an alternative and inherently social perspective on youth risk-taking and in that sense provide a timely intervention in the field of youth studies. The chapter closes with analytical and ethical reflections.
