Somogyi Múzeumok Közleményei 14. (2000)

Szapu Magda: Mai ifjúsági csoportkultúrák egy dunántúli városban. A disszertáció tézisei

451 Today's juvenile group cultures in a Transdanubian city MAGDA SZAPU The research of juvenile culture is interdisciplinary, its literature is abundant. A number of international and national researches give account about the importance of the theme. But the branches of learning are in debt with an overall study about the lifestyle, the way of thinking and the amusement culture of the older teenagers. Our study is the summary of a two years long many sided research using various methods conducted in a Transdanubian county seat - Kaposvár - among 17-18 years old youngsters - students of grammar schools and technical schools. The entire material in a form of a Ph.D. dissertation can be read at the Folklore Department of the ELTE-ВТК University in Budapest, within the range of the Hungarian and Comparative Folkloristic doctorate program, and hopefully during the second half of this year will appear in print. The dissertation elaborates the theme presented in the title with the help of deep interviews, questionnaires and observations with approximately 500 teenagers. Group cultures can be differentiated according to musical style within the juvenile culture: the rockers, the alternatives, the punks, the skinheads, the rappers, the disco music fans, the ravers and the house music fans. These related groups belong to three major families the followers of rock-rap- and pop or techno-based music. We interpret these cultures - in contradiction with the terminology „subculture" - present in social sciences - as an individual group culture: and refer to them as such cultures living next to each other at the same period of time and bearing equivalent value, which together form today's juvenile culture. The studied settlement according to its position (the relative closeness of the Croatian and Austrian borders, the Balaton and the American military base at Taszár), and its size (halfway between the more complex capital city and the more closely connected villages) shows a favourable possibility for fieldwork. At the same time, in our territory all those juvenile groups can be found that are present nation-wide, and presumably outside the country as well. The evaluation and presentation of the material starts from the individual and moves through smaller groups - groups of friends, partner relations - towards age groups. Studying the family background of juveniles, their partner relations, their connections between generations and in generations, their relations to other nations or groups and their individual motifs (solving problems, escaping, noxious passions, religious attitudes, environmental effect, future beliefs, scale of values) and first of all the method and form of spending their free time. Amusement is one form of spending free time - such behaviour and activity form, which is socially consented and is a habit permanently and periodically repeated. Its scenes are the places of amusement and meeting places. The dissertation shows the various types of places of amusement (discotheques, rock clubs, alternative amusement places, house clubs, secondary school parties, pubs etc.), the functional and contentual marks and instruments. The music, the text, the dance and the dressing - outer appearance - belongs to the latter. Behaviour culture, consummation habits, requirements of amusement, body jewels, tattooing, •extreme slimming diets etc. All belong to the manifestation of the frame of mind and the scale of values of a certain group. The central theme of the study is fashion, which naturally is present not only in dressing, but in the manner of living, in lifestyle and in the frame of mind. The dissertation begins with a brief musical historical and social historical survey and ends with the presentation of the eight groups as well as the studied seven secondary schools. During the typological comparison we confronted related groups (punks and skinhead youngsters) and groups alien or sometimes even hostile to each other (alternative and house girls with rocker or rapper boys). The written text is completed by 50 colour pictures, a number of diagrams and illustrations, as well as many ten thousands of elaborated data.