Youth Subcultures

Kidulthood

Kirsty Grocott’s article in the Daily Telegraph, See below link: provides a useful resource for a paired work activity. The article begins with considering the case of the 15 year old student who ran away to France with her 30 year old teacher and moves on to consider ways in which adults are living in a type of ‘kidulthood’ and why? As a comprehension exercise students could be asked to summarise the article in 150 words. They could also be tasked with creating a glossary of key words, such as ‘authoritative parenting’, ‘kidulthood’ and ‘liberal’.

Discover More Blurring the boundaries: why are adults so drawn to the world of kidulthood?

Literature and film also provides some good examples of ways in which there has been a blurring of the lines between childhood/youth and adulthood. Twilight, Harry Potter, Divergent and The Hunger Games are all examples of media products consumed by all age ranges. Trailers for each of these films are given below. As a class activity, students could watch the clips and suggest factors within the films that may appeal to the two demographic groups of ‘youth’ and ‘adult’. Are these factors the same for each group or different? Of course, there will probably be members of the class who have watched these films in their entirety and so will be able to provide further comments and insights:

Twilight: See Above Video

Harry Potter (all eight):



Divergent:



The Hunger Games:



Alternatively, students could choose one of the films to watch at home before writing a brief report on how the film works to appeal to different audiences.