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"Substantially re-written and updated, this new edition continues to highlight the importance of class to sociological study. Examining key theory and fascinating research, it now explores social mobility, class transformations and the importance of culture to class formation. This is invaluable reading for those studying class in modern Britain"--

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of tables -- List of boxes -- Map of Europe -- 1 Introduction -- Eastern Europe and the west -- Communism and post-communism -- Youth's new condition in Eastern Europe -- Studying youth -- Issues in youth studies -- Book plan and sources of evidence -- 2 Labour markets -- Introduction -- Shock therapy -- Youth on the move -- Winners -- Summary and conclusions -- 3 Education -- Introduction -- Communist education -- Euro-modernisation -- Euro-convergence -- The American alternative -- The Americanisation of education in Eastern Europe -- Gender in education and the labour market -- Summary and conclusions: education and global youth in the 21st century -- 4 Individualisation and the reflexive self -- Introduction -- Individualisation -- Reflexivity -- Post-communism -- Persistent systemic inequalities -- Summary and conclusions: structured individualisation -- 5 Housing and family transitions and gender divisions -- Introduction -- A brief history of western practices -- Eastern Europe -- Crisis -- Gender -- Summary and conclusions, and the contemporary relevance of the transition paradigm -- 6 Leisure -- Introduction -- Online youth -- The legacy of the 1990s -- Young people's leisure in post-communist Eastern Europe -- The reforms: the leisure debits -- Youth cultures -- The stratification of youth lifestyles -- Endnote -- Summary and conclusions -- 7 Class divisions -- Introduction -- What is class? -- Classes under communism -- Class structure and social change in the west -- Class in Eastern Europe after communism -- Young people in the new class systems -- Class and political representation -- Summary and conclusions -- 8 Politics -- Introduction -- Young people and politics under communism -- 1989 and what happened afterwards.

This second edition is a complete rewrite of the first edition published in 1999. It is an introductory undergraduate text on leisure in the UK and other similar Western societies. It has a sociological perspective and discusses recent debates and research on topics such as post-modernity, gender/feminist issues, consumer cultures and lifestyles. The book has 8 chapters and a subject index.

Middling youth were centre stage in research on school-to-work transitions from the early-20th century up to and throughout the 1980s. Since then they have been overshadowed by sociological attention to the young unemployed/NEETs on the one side, and university students and graduates on the other. Simultaneously, economists have been crowding out sociologists in the study of education-to-work transitions, especially in the middle ground. However, this paper argues that this is not just a case of the sociological gaze missing the middle. It is argued that old middling labour market destinations have diminished in number, and the new middle remains elusive because the employment tends to be precarious. Thus today's middling groups of school-leavers must either try to move-up or face career-long threats of descent to the bottom.

Junge Menschen aus Ost- und Ostmitteleuropa sahen sich in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten mit einer doppelten Herausforderung konfrontiert: Sie mussten ihren eigenen Übergang ins Erwachsenenalter bewältigen und die Transformation ihrer Gesellschaften miterleben. Arbeitslosigkeit und prekäre Arbeitsverhältnisse haben bei den jungen Menschen zwar zu diffuser Unzufriedenheit und sporadischem Protest geführt. Eine neue Generation mit einer politischen Vision ist in Osteuropa jedoch nicht in Sicht. (Osteuropa (Berlin) / SWP)