Young consumer identity in a restrictive school environment — Addictive substances, symbolic goods and consumer skills

Minna Autio, Jaana Lähteenmaa, Ulrika Holmberg and Jukka Kujala

Children and Youth Services Review, 2016, vol. 68, issue C, 100-106

Abstract: For young people, consuming is an act of constructing identity, where goods, services and styles are important parts of signifying who they are. Our study focuses on young people who are living in restrictive environments, such as special boarding schools. They have been placed there because of social and educational reasons. Although aspects of education and health of young people in out-of-home care have been studied, their consumer behavior has been given limited attention. Our study shows that young people openly report the use of addictive substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, drugs as well as gambling. They also build up their consumer identity by appreciating symbolic goods, such as clothes, music and sport. Spending on expensive clothes serves their favorable self-image. The fact that the schools provide all their essential needs makes the learning of consumer skills challenging although the schools reinforce management skills such as planning the use of money. Young people struggle with their identities at the borders of their school environment (i.e. education, school discipline) and the temptations of consumer culture. Even if they manage to break their damaging life path, they will be consumers throughout their life, meaning their consumer skills need to be strengthened by special education.

Keywords: Young consumer; Identity; School; Reform school; Restrictive environment; Out-of-home care; Special education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740916302195
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:68:y:2016:i:c:p:100-106

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.07.003

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().