Howard Williamson – författare

First published in 1997, this volume is concerned primarily, though not exclusively, with one particular vulnerable group: unqualified young men on the margins. These young men, whose cultures of machismo, manualism and anti-mentalism previously served to prepare them for the manual labour market, are increasingly the careerless, the jobless and the folk-devils of the modern, post-industrial society. In research, they have received considerable attention, though more for their capacity to be spectacular, deviant and bizarre than through the deep anxieties and despondency about the future experienced by many. Howard Williamson contends that the development of effective youth policy depends essentially upon a synthesis of political priorities, professional agendas and young people’s perspectives and responses. While not quite an ‘underclass’, many suffer from a ‘tangle of pathologies’ which obstructs the possibility of them finding a way back into mainstream economic, housing and relationship transitions.

First published in 1997, this volume is concerned primarily, though not exclusively, with one particular vulnerable group: unqualified young men on the margins. These young men, whose cultures of machismo, manualism and anti-mentalism previously served to prepare them for the manual labour market, are increasingly the careerless, the jobless and the folk-devils of the modern, post-industrial society. In research, they have received considerable attention, though more for their capacity to be spectacular, deviant and bizarre than through the deep anxieties and despondency about the future experienced by many. Howard Williamson contends that the development of effective youth policy depends essentially upon a synthesis of political priorities, professional agendas and young people’s perspectives and responses. While not quite an ‘underclass’, many suffer from a ‘tangle of pathologies’ which obstructs the possibility of them finding a way back into mainstream economic, housing and relationship transitions.

The Milltown Boys at Sixty is a story like no other, giving both an insider and an outsider view of the ‘Milltown Boys’, exploring the nature of an ethnographic relationship based on research about their experiences of the criminal justice system.

A group classically labelled as delinquents, drug-takers and drop-outs, the Boys were also, in many different ways, fathers, friends and family men, differentially immersed in the labour market, in very different family relationships and now very differently connected to criminal activity. Williamson has written books capturing their experiences over the fifty years of his continued association with them: about their teenage years; and twenty years later, in middle-age. This book is about them as they pass the age of 60, providing a personal account of the relationship between Williamson and the Boys, and the distinctive – perhaps even controversial – research methodology that enabled the mapping of their lives. It provides a unique and detailed insight into the ways in which the lives of the Milltown Boys that started with such shared beginnings have unfolded in so many diverse and fascinating ways.

These accounts will be of interest to the lay reader curious about the way others have managed (or failed to manage) their lives, the professional who works with those living, often struggling, on the wrong side of the tracks, and the academic researching and teaching about social exclusion, substance misuse, criminal justice transitions and the life course.

The Milltown Boys at Sixty is a story like no other, giving both an insider and an outsider view of the ‘Milltown Boys’, exploring the nature of an ethnographic relationship based on research about their experiences of the criminal justice system.

A group classically labelled as delinquents, drug-takers and drop-outs, the Boys were also, in many different ways, fathers, friends and family men, differentially immersed in the labour market, in very different family relationships and now very differently connected to criminal activity. Williamson has written books capturing their experiences over the fifty years of his continued association with them: about their teenage years; and twenty years later, in middle-age. This book is about them as they pass the age of 60, providing a personal account of the relationship between Williamson and the Boys, and the distinctive – perhaps even controversial – research methodology that enabled the mapping of their lives. It provides a unique and detailed insight into the ways in which the lives of the Milltown Boys that started with such shared beginnings have unfolded in so many diverse and fascinating ways.

These accounts will be of interest to the lay reader curious about the way others have managed (or failed to manage) their lives, the professional who works with those living, often struggling, on the wrong side of the tracks, and the academic researching and teaching about social exclusion, substance misuse, criminal justice transitions and the life course.

This Advanced Introduction to Youth Studies analyses the historical development of the sociology of youth in the context of changing population demographics. Howard Williamson and James Côté explore competing paradigms underlying current understandings of youth with reference to key philosophical, theoretical and methodological debates.

Young people’s transitions to adulthood and youth cultural behaviour are then explored. The authors conclude with a consideration of youth policies and how, in the future, these may be better informed by sociological research.

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