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      • HARVEST
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      A Foucauldian exploration of youth at-risk : the adoption and integration of conventional goals and values

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      Date
      2004-04-01
      Author
      Eisler, Lauren Dawn
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Doctoral
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      This dissertation utilizes a Foucauldian perspective to explore the relationship between at-risk youth and the acceptance and integration of long-term conventional goals and values held by the general population. I posit that orthodox theories, which argue that youth who engage in delinquent behaviors do so because they either reject the goals and values of society, or they realize they have no legitimate means of goal attainment, fail to adequately explain why some youth appear to integrate and strive for these goals. I argue that Foucault's work on power and knowledge, more specifically the use of bio-power and the technologies of normalization, can be used as an explanation for how at-risk youth come to integrate and accept these conventional goals and fully participate in the creation of themselves as "docile bodies". This issue is explored through an analysis of two sets of data collected through the development and implementation of two separate surveys; one given to the general population of youth and the other to at-risk youth. As well, I explore the findings of personal interviews collected with youth incarcerated in Kilburn Hall, a remand centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. What these data show is that, far from rejecting the conventional goals and values of society, at-risk youth appear to integrate both the goals and a strong ideology of personal responsibility for the attainment, or failure to achieve these goals.
      Degree
      Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
      Department
      Sociology
      Program
      Sociology
      Committee
      Samuelson, Les; Quigley, Tim; Dickinson, Harley D.; Bell, Sandra; Battiste, Marie; Schissel, Bernard; Smith, Barbara
      Copyright Date
      April 2004
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-01112006-203659
      Subject
      At-Risk Youth
      Collections
      • Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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