ABSTRACT
The so-called ‘problem’ of youth disaffection has formed the basis of much recent debate in the UK, and this has resulted in something of a moral panic concerning the threat that young people pose to social and moral order (Davies 2005). Such panics are not new, however, nor are they confi ned to the UK; indeed, Smink (2000: p. ix) describes youth disaffection as ‘a worldwide problem’. Furthermore, understandings of ‘youth in trouble’ or ‘youth as trouble’, fuelled tendentiously by media representations of youth issues, behaviors and practices in contemporary Western society (e.g. unemployment, crime, underage sex, and alcohol or drug abuse) serve to reinforce and reproduce the popular narrative concerning youth disaffection.
