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Reflexivity of Contemporary Youth, Risk and Cultural Capital

University of Newcastle, Australia, Steven.Threadgold{at}newcastle.edu.au

Pam Nilan

University of Newcastle, Australia, Pamela.Nilan{at}newcastle.edu.au

Using research examples, this article expands the theoretical premise that the `new' reflexivity constitutes an element of cultural capital for contemporary youth. Employing the sociological ideas of cultural capital, habitus, reflexivity and risk, the authors propose that Beck's notion of `risk' provides a useful way of understanding what drives the development of this reflexivity in the habitus of groups of young people, especially negotiation of risk. However, the emergence of this new reflexivity in youth habitus does not diminish the importance of socioeconomic class as some proponents of reflexive modernization claim. Quite the contrary. The capacity for reflexive negotiation of future risks, both real and perceived, has become another form of what Bourdieu calls embodied cultural capital — which remains inequitably distributed along class lines.

Key Words: cultural capital • habitus • reflexive modernization • reflexivity • risk • youth

Current Sociology, Vol. 57, No. 1, 47-68 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0011392108097452


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