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Young Collegians: Between the Physical and Numerical Territories, Different Processes of Individuation

Technology and Youth: Growing Up in a Digital World

ISBN: 978-1-78560-265-8, eISBN: 978-1-78560-264-1

Publication date: 24 September 2015

Abstract

Purpose

The paper presents final results of a comparative research on young Brazilian collegians in the 18–24-year-old age bracket. The objective was to understand the interactions and ways in which they transit within the physical and digital Web spaces and, within their transits, set up “circulatory territories,” deepen and enrich their secondary socialization setups and sociability, as well as their processes of individuation within the historic condition in which youth lives.

Methodology/approach

The study is supported by conceptual contributions offered by the sociology of youth, circulatory territory, socialization, sociability, and individuation. Research was carried out with students of two different universities: a public/state one and a public/municipal/foundational one situated in different urban centers of the southeastern region of the country. Procedures were qualitative and quantitative – closed questions forms, interviews, registries in field notebooks, etc.

Findings

The results of the investigation demonstrate: (a) that the representatives of the two student collectives studied circulate in physical and digital territories, setting up circulatory territories; (b) there are also different youth lifestyles, either due to social positions and the fact that they possess social capital, or because of differences and inequalities referring to gender, race/ethnicity (whites and non-whites), living situations.

Originality/value

In this manner, the study indicates the importance of questioning the homogenized image of connected youth since some collegians’ lives are limited due to their condition as young workers, while others live their youth condition as a social moratorium, being able to produce other manners of being and of living in the world.

Keywords

Citation

de Almeida, E., Nakano, M., Villar e Villar, M.E. and Mariano, V. (2015), "Young Collegians: Between the Physical and Numerical Territories, Different Processes of Individuation", Technology and Youth: Growing Up in a Digital World (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 19), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 133-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120150000019005

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited