Original scientific paper
The Church and the Disco: the Socio-Cultural Context and the Orientation of Youth in Zagreb's Dubrava
Vjeran Katunarić
; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Sonja Podgorelec
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Melita Švob
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The work presents a conceptual-theoretic framework for research on individual orientations among youth, a framework in which the results of the international project "Intemationales Lernen" on youth in five European countries will be interpreted. The authors analyse the existing socio-cultural patterns of behaviour, which to a great degree reflect types of structuring in society − segmental in tradition societies and fragmentary in modern ones. The following part of the text presents part of the results of a questionnaire survey on the attitudes of youth conducted on a sample of 200 respondents in the final grades of elementary and secondary schools in Dubrava. Although the sample of respondents does not permit generalisation either on the methodological level (the youth population in Dubrava), or on the level of theoretical interpretation (traits of social groups, representing social realities and individual strategies of behaviour), the authors notice traces of characteristics of the segmental structures of society in the attitudes of youth towards their local ties, the perception of too large social differences, ties to the family and perception of language communities, not necessarily national, as being the most important on the social level. Some other traces are recognised as being the result of a more modern, urban and fragmentary structure. This concerns, above all, the feeling of loneliness, the tendency of older respondents to make and keep friendships on an individual basis, association in areas without a fixed institutional framework (in cafés or disco clubs), and also experience of danger in regard to some places during the evening hours in the area of their local community − Dubrava. The social context, mentality and (barely indicated) the individual orientations of respondents in this study have mixed characteristics of segmentary and fragmentary, traditional and modern society, with reliance on traditional forms of social solidarity more often than on the support of beaucratic institutions.
Keywords
youth; social representation; individual orientations; Dubrava (Zagreb)
Hrčak ID:
126501
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1998.
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