Teenage Troubles - 9780195429794

Teenage Troubles: Youth and Deviance in Canada 3rd edition is a comprehensive analysis of youth and deviance in Canada that questions much of the conventional thinking about youthful misbehavior. Chapter 1 discusses the social construction of youth problems and the sources and nature of popular images of deviant youth. This discussion is contrasted by Chapter 2, which presents the reality of youth deviance, as measured by both official and unofficial accounts, and provides a largely descriptive account of patterns of adolescent deviance and victimization in Canada.

Chapter 3 explains subcultural theory and gives an account of the attempts to integrate theory into other sociological theories of delinquency. The book then goes on to apply the theory in an analysis of the main arenas in which adolescent subcultures emerge and where patterns of deviance and victimization are acted out: high school (Chapter 4) and the street (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 (new to the third edition) analyzes youth gangs, which are becoming a topic of increasing focus in public discourse on law and order issues in Canada.

In Chapter 7, the book turns special attention to female delinquency, usually an afterthought in most studies of youth deviance because most theory and research has been based on assumptions made about male behavior and experiences. Chapter 7 confronts the problem of distorted images of female delinquency, examines attempts to explain its patterns and incidence, and explores how female deviants have been dealt with by the criminal justice system. Chapter 8 follows by exploring the definitional questions introduced in the beginning of the book: why and how do societies like Canada respond as they do to the behavior of the young? The focus is on the intense debate surrounding young offender legislation (including the YCJA), shifting philosophies of juvenile justice, and different attempts to reduce levels of juvenile crime.

The book closes with a final chapter reviewing the main ideas and themes presented.