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Youth Culture

Trends in youth culture either already have or still need to be given room in schools. There is a simple reason for this: if adults accept children’s and adolescents’ own forms of culture as legitimate means of expression, then this strengthens the young people’s confidence in themselves and encourages them to create rather than to consume culture. Relating what you yourself have created to familiar cultural forms and thereby gaining new insights represents nothing less than the simplest form of research. Hence there are many reasons for the provision of (brief) encounters in school with youth culture.
• Awareness of the background and history of different kinds of music alters our perception of them.
• De-mystifying the media and their reporting through one’s own knowledge of and about the music and the way it is made.
• Easier transition from consumption to active use of media production.

It is, however, important to point out that teachers should never wish to appear ‘cool’ by doing so. It is simply a matter of having a natural and enthusiastic approach to this subject, otherwise the children and adolescents will consider treating it in school as talking down to them and interfering in their own private sphere – adults checking on the younger generation’s life environment.
There are many fascinating aspects to youth culture and its music trends which can easily fire the older generation with their own, genuine enthusiasm. As one example of the altogether very diverse world of youth culture, we have concentrated on the hip-hop scene, its international roots and the means it employs which are informed by them. Presenting further music scenes from other countries is also one of the specific aims and intentions of this project.
The trends presented here constitute only a small part of the very varied cultural scene to be found in Austria. On account of the developments at grass roots level (in the sense of musical or cultural changes in trends which occur beyond the reach of the commercial media) scenes divide, unite and re-form as new splinter groups. These divisions and unifications allow musical identities to come into being and to be documented.

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