Family Life Education Series
"Our Teenage Children in the 21st Century" -
Sub-culture of Teenage Youth - Part 1

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As you may still remember, Professor Cheng Chi-ho of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, had shared with us his ideas concerning the "youth problem" issue, "problem youth" and "how 'sub-culture' affect most people in our society". We are firm believers that through understanding and communication, we would be able to provide appropriate counseling and service to this population.

Culture consists of various sub-cultures in our society. It is characterised as a shared cognition of norms, folkways, law, religion, values and beliefs among people in that society. Most people would agree that since the beginning of the 21st century, our society has been progressively materialistic and valuing high productivity and efficiency. People's self-worth, image and identity are closely tied to their income; monetary achievements have been their main pre-occupation in life. So you may ask, how are our youth and adolescents doing in a society like this?

Youth and adolescent development has been enriched by four elements, namely rapid economical growth, acceptance of diverse living standard, media-technology development and relatively creative characteristic of the younger generation. The sub-culture of youth and adolescents developed rapidly in the western societies as early as in the 60's and 70's with the "Beatles" culture. Since then, it has gained momentum from time to time.

In the 80's and 90's, the sub-culture gained certain characteristics: (1) materialism; (2) expressive & excessive usage of slang; (3) promiscuity, and (4) substance abuse. In the last and the present centuries, this sub-culture had evolved and actively influenced the various aspects of our society, namely the consumer's market, music, media & sports industry, language, diet & food, and communication.

- From Welfare Services Group -