Using research examples, this article expands the theoretical premise that the `new' reflexivity constitutes an element of cultural capital for contemporary youth. Employing the sociological ideas of cultural capital, habitus, reflexivity and risk, the authors propose that Beck's notion of `risk' provides a useful way of understanding what drives the development of this reflexivity in the habitus of groups of young people, especially negotiation of risk. However, the emergence of this new reflexivity in youth habitus does not diminish the importance of socioeconomic class as some proponents of reflexive modernization claim. Quite the contrary. The capacity for reflexive negotiation of future risks, both real and perceived, has become another form of what Bourdieu calls embodied cultural capital — which remains inequitably distributed along class lines.
Adams, Matthew (2006) `Hybridising Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity', Sociology40(3): 511-28.
2.
Adkins, Lisa (2002) Revisions: Gender and Sexuality in Late Modernity . Buckingham: Open University Press .
3.
Ball, Stephen (2003) Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage. London: Routledge/Falmer .
4.
Ball, Stephen, Vincent, C. and Braun, A. (2005) `Middle Class Children, Class Dispositions and "Legitimate Culture": Living Class Experience in Care and Education', paper presented at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, York, March.
5.
Bauman, Zygmunt (1998) Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York: Columbia University Press.
6.
Beck, Ulrich (1992) Risk Society, trans. M. Ritter. London: Sage.
7.
Beck, Ulrich (1996) `World Risk Society as Cosmopolitan Society? Ecological Questions in a Framework of Manufactured Uncertainties', Theory, Culture and Society13(4): 1-32.
8.
Beck, Ulrich (2000) What is Globalisation?Cambridge : Polity Press.
9.
Beck, Ulrich and Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth (2002) Individualization: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political ConsequencesLondon: Sage.
10.
Beck, Ulrich and Willms, Johannes (2004) Conversations with Ulrich Beck. Cambridge: Polity Press.
11.
Bennett, Tony, Emmison, Michael and Frow, John (1999) Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1984) Distinction. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge:
13.
Cambridge University Press. (Orig, pub. 1979.)
14.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986) `The Forms of Capital', in John G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, pp. 241-58. New York: Greenwood Press.
15.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1991) Language and Symbolic Power, ed. John B. Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson.Oxford: Polity Press. (Orig. pub. 1982.)
16.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1993) Sociology in Question. London : Sage. (Orig. pub. 1980.)
17.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1996) State Nobility. Cambridge: Polity Press.
18.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1998) Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. R. Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Orig. pub. 1977.)
19.
Bourdieu, Pierre and Passeron, Jean-Claude (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage . (Orig. pub. 1977.)
20.
Brannen, Julia and Nilsen, Ann (2005) `Individualisation, Choice and Structure: A Discussion of Current Trends in Sociological Analysis', The Sociological Review53(3): 412-28.
21.
Bynner, John (2005) `Rethinking the Youth Phase of the Life-Course: The Case for Emerging Adulthood', Journal of Youth Studies8(4): 367-84.
22.
Castells, Manuel (1997) The Power of Identity. London : Blackwell.
23.
Collins, Cherry, Kenway, Jane and McLeod, Julie (2000) Factors Influencing the Educational Performance of Males and Females in School and their Initial Destinations after Leaving School. Burwood, Victoria: Deakin University/ Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
24.
Denney, David (2005) Risk and Society. London: Sage.
25.
Dolby, Nadie and Dimitriadis, Greg (eds) with Willis, Paul (2004) Learning to Labour in New Times. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
26.
Ehrenreich, Barbara and Ehrenreich, John (1979) `The Professional-Managerial Class', in Pat Walker (ed.) Between Labor and Capital, pp. 5-45. Boston, MA: South End Press.
27.
Ekberg, Merryn (2007) `The Parameters of the Risk Society: A Review and Exploration', Current Sociology55(3): 343-66.
28.
Erickson, Bonnie (1996) `Culture, Class and Connections', American Journal of Sociology102(1): 217-51.
29.
ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (n.d.)`Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion' project; at: www.cresc.ac.uk
30.
Everingham, Christine (2003) Social Justice and the Politics of Community. Aldershot: Ashgate.
31.
Furlong, Andy and Cartmel, Fred (1997) Young People and Social Change: Individualization and Risk in Late Modernity. Buckingham: Open University Press.
32.
Giddens, Anthony (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
33.
Giddens, Anthony (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
34.
Giddens, Anthony (1994) `Living in a Post-Traditional Society', in Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (eds) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, pp. 56-109. Cambridge: Polity Press.
35.
Inglehart, Ronald (1997) Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in 43 Countries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
36.
Lash, Scott (1994) `Reflexivity and its Doubles: Structure, Aesthetics, Community', in Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (eds) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, pp. 110-73. Cambridge: Polity Press.
37.
Lash, Scott and Urry, John (1994) Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage.
38.
Lupton, Deborah and Tulloch, John (2002) `"Risk is Part of Your Life": Risk Epistemologies among a Group of Australians', Sociology36(2): 317-34.
39.
McNay, Lois (1999) `Gender, Habitus and the Field: Pierre Bourdieu and the Limits of Reflexivity', Theory, Culture and Society16(1): 95-117.
40.
Pakulski, Jan and Waters, Malcolm (1996) The Death of Class. London: Sage.
41.
Plumridge, Libby and Thomson, Rachel (2003) `Longitudinal Qualitative Studies and the Reflexive Self', International Journal of Social Research Methodology6(3): 213-22.
42.
Rimmer, Mark (2005) `"It Depends What I'm Listening to" . . . or Does it? The Musical Habitus and its Implications for Participation in Youth-based Community Music Activities', paper presented to the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, York, March.
43.
Swartz, David (1997) Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
44.
Sweetman, Paul (2003) `Twenty-First Century Dis-ease? Habitual Reflexivity or the Reflexive Habitus', The Sociological Review51(4): 528-49.
45.
Threadgold, Steven and Nilan, Pam (2004) `Young People, Habitus and Opinions about Politics' , Melbourne Journal of Politics29: 96-113.
46.
Tulloch, John and Lupton, Deborah (2003) Risk and Everyday Life. London : Sage.
47.
Wacquant, Lois (1992) `Introduction', in Pierre Bourdieu and Lois Wacquant (eds) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Cambridge : Polity Press.
48.
White, Rob and Wyn, Joanna (2004) Youth and Society: Exploring the Social Dynamics of Youth Experience. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
49.
Willis, Paul (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Aldershot: Gower Press.
