Reconceptualising ‘mainstream’ youth

This book deals with a topic that has been a relatively neglected area in Czech youth research: mainstream youth and consumption. It explores the extent to which the concept of “mainstream youth” provides a useful insight for understanding young people's relationship to social change and how this concept could enrich future youth research in the Czech Republic. The findings, based on a qualitative research study focused on the importance of consumption in the daily lives of “ordinary” young people, challenge the orthodox representation of a passively conformist mainstream that currently dominates Czech youth research. The paradox of choice and active conformity highlights the presence of reflexivity and the active engagement of young people in late modern consumer culture and social life. This book serves as both a supplement and a critique of the trend in current Czech academic research, which tends to focus on marginalised, spectacular, or extreme youth groups and cultures.