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AIPPh Documentation Leusden 2009
second (S. Eisenstadt, F. Tenbruck, T. Roszak and others) and third (H. Schelsky,
L. Rosenmayer) directions.
We see the circumstances of the great advance in the theoretical understanding
of youth in these two periods, because just at that time youth showed its worth through
self-reference in the forms of youth movement especially vividly. The theoretical
presuppositions for determination of youth as an object of special research had already
been in the 19 th century, but nevertheless they were not realized in the youth theories.
There are the theoretical possibilities of development of the conceptions on youth in
modern sociology, which has changed greatly with the propagation of phenomenological
sociology and strengthening of the postmodern tendencies, but these possibilities remain
mostly potential. In this fact we find the peculiarities of youth self-realization and its
self-reference. Apparently, what is ascribed to the present youth subcultures is not
enough for youth self-reference and in these forms what was typical for the mass youth
movement of the 1920s and the 1960s is not attained.
The Thesaurus Conception of Youth
The theoretical elaboration of youth problems, as we understand it, must chiefly
follow the path of solution of a number of contradictions, which have been formed in the
practice of empirical researches. It is also closely connected with the question about the
sociological providing of youth policy, social and youth work and other theoretical scope
of scientific knowledge about youth. Many attempts of Russian researchers are aimed at
the development of a theory of youth, which would be more adequate to practical
purposes. One of such theories is based on the thesaurus approach 2 . Within this theory,
the youth is interpreted as a social group consisting of:
(1) People, who assimilate and appropriate a social subjectivity, have the social
status of young people and identify themselves as being young;
thesauruses.
(2) Thesauruses, which are prevalent in this social group;
(3) The symbolical and physical world, which expresses and reflects these
Such components of the concept and such a connection between them, which is
understood as reflection of the social reality, change the very view on sociology of youth.
2 Lukov, 2003.
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