ABSTRACT
A focus on social generations has recently re-emerged in youth studies. This chapter introduces this approach, concentrating on the formative work of Karl Mannheim, traces its marginalization in youth studies, and proposes reasons for its resurgence. Using my own work as an example, I suggest that the concept is returning to prominence as it provides a framework for theorizing and researching the intersection of changing youth transitions and cultural forms with broader social transformations. There remain important unanswered questions about the value of the concept of social generations for youth studies. It has been criticized in particular for conceptual fuzziness, for obscuring intragenerational differences and inequalities, particularly by class, and ignoring intergenerational solidarities. As an undervalued legacy, ambivalences and issues evident in Mannheim’s early formulation and its subsequent applications are yet to receive the critical attention they deserve. It is the nature of the sociological project that many such questions are unlikely to be definitively settled. I do, however, argue that tentative answers can be put forward to most of the challenges raised, and that the charge of obscuring inequalities is incorrect. Instead the sociology of generations prompts researchers to ask reflexive questions about how class, race, gender, sexuality, and ability come to shape young lives in changing times.
