Sociétés et Jeunesses en Difficulté ()
The Religion of the Urban Cool
Abstract
In these perilous times of welfare reforms deprived youths of a working class background, those identified with the religion of the urban cool, “the get rich quick or die trying” culture, a category often intersecting with that of ethnic minority status, are at the centre of public attention. The ideal of youth work as enhancing the social mobility of these youths seems to loose ground against the new politically correct stance of youth work as contributing to the safety of upstanding citizens and their possessions against these youths. In this article an alternative position is advocated. One in which we recognize these youths and their adherence to the religion of the urban cool as ciphers to decipher the societal-wide structural pathology whereby all ethnicities, classes, and generations, equate success and wellbeing with what and how one consumes. The religion of the urban cool heralds the religion of unbridled consumption.
