Laura Fenton – författare

Young People, Alcohol, and Risk theorises the social, cultural and economic shifts that have underpinned significant declines in young people’s drinking in high- income countries.Since the early 2000s, alcohol use among young people has declined significantly in most high- income countries. Situated within a theoretical framework of ‘social generations’ and ‘risk’, this book explores the key interrelated factors that have cumulatively shifted the social and cultural position of alcohol for young people in these countries. Drawing on interviews and survey data from the authors’ research in Australia, Sweden and the UK, as well as the broader international literature, the book explores the importance of changes in attitudes to alcohol, shifting family and parenting practices, digital technology use and changes in leisure practices, neoliberalism and individualism, health and wellbeing, and gendered practices. These factors have made salient the notion of risk for young people, resulting in a culture of caution. This book will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences, in particular those studying substance use, youth sociology, cultural studies and public health. It will be of use to policy makers and practitioners working with young people.

This volume explores generational differences in alcohol consumption practices and examines the changing role of alcohol across the life course. It considers generational patterns in where, how and why people buy and consume alcohol and how these may interact with identity and belonging and considers how drinking alcohol in adolescence, adulthood, middle-age or later life takes on different functions, meanings and tensions. Alcohol is shown to play an important role in biographical transitions, such as in the coming of age rituals that mark the passage from adolescences to adulthood, whilst drinking alcohol in adulthood and in later life takes on new meanings, pleasures and risks in light of shifting roles and responsibilities relating to work, leisure and the family. The empirically-informed contributions draw on a range of diverse disciplinary backgrounds and a range of cultural contexts provides a nuanced examination of the role of alcohol at different life course stages and explores both continuity and change between generations.