The selfreception of youth as the war generation

Abstract

The authors start from the assumption that the youth of Dalmatia during the middle 90ies did not enclose themselves within their own “world of indifference” although certain changes had taken place in the socio-cultural identity of youth in Croatia. During and after the war the tensions between parent culture and youth culture had even slackened. By researching youth the authors attempted to embrace the growing expressed plurality and the differentiality of their modes of behaviour. The comparative research aggenda covered an exceptionally wide spectre of investigated features. The authors investigated the war situation and the impact it had on the modification of thought amongst students of sociuology and groups of young people in Dalmatia (N=320). The fundamental aim of the investigation was to analyse the impact of the war situation in Croatia on the changes in selfunderstanding amongst youth. The text presents the results of survey-type sociological investigations which were carried out from 1993 to 1996 and realised in combination with different types of samples and different ways of selecting examinees. The use of the comparative method explained various interactive and similar connections such as those in parental, familial and other relationships. The authors conclude that the factors of postmodernization in Croatia did not have a strong impact on young people but that the war as a social fact played a more determinate role in creating the sense of their position which was seen as equal to the position of grow-ups. In principle, young people remain optimistic, are readier to face the challenges of life and put forward priorities in their life similar to those of young people throughout the world. They are equally demanding in regard to the questions of education and future job opportunities. Admittedly, there do exist insignificant differences in the attitudes between the sociology students and the other groups which were subjected to investigation but they do not in any essential way influence most of the empirical generalizations since we are dealing here with a selfconscious generation, relatively serious, mature and looking with optimism into the future.