Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter
John Casparis and Edmund W. Vaz, Swiss Family, Society and Youth Culture. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979.
Keywords
youth culture, apprenticeship system, urban-industrial society
Abstract
This little monograph of around one hundred pages attempts to "show, for a comparative sociology of youth, that youth cultures are a systemic property of urban industrial society, and that no 'special' circumstances need to be invoked in order to explain their emergence and persistence." In the first two chapters, the authors briefly survey the salient features of modern Swiss society and the social world of Swiss youth. The study then focuses almost exclusively upon teenagers who upon leaving school enter an apprenticeship (51.3 percent of that age group in 1970). These young people, although more integrated into the working world of adults and more financially independent from their parents than their counterparts in American high schools, create for themselves a lifestyle and social environment quite separate and distinct from that of the other age groups in the society. The final two chapters are based upon a 1973 survey of apprentices in Zurich and illustrate attitudes and activities which set the young people apart from their elders, as well as the minor delinquencies which are specific to their way of life. The conclusion is that the more a youth involves himself in the culture of his age group, the more likely he is to conform to peer pressure and participate in the delinquencies common to that culture .
Recommended Citation
Gujer, Bruno
(1981)
"John Casparis and Edmund W. Vaz, Swiss Family, Society and Youth Culture. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979.,"
Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter: Vol. 17:
Iss.
3, Article 9.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_newsletter/vol17/iss3/9