The 'Age of Consent' Controversy: Age and Gender as Social Practice
- 1 March 1983
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Sociology
- Vol. 19 (1) , 96-112
- https://doi.org/10.1177/144078338301900105
Abstract
This paper examines features of a controversy surrounding a recommendation to change 'age of consent' legislation in N.S.W. The use made of commonsense notions of age and gender relations as sense- making methods in organizing the popular defeat of the proposal is shown, casting participants in the controversy as practitioners of social structures. Competing adult discourses about young people are identified in the materials, and the study of such material is suggested as part of a comprehensive sociology of youth.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- New Movements in the Sociology of Youth: A CritiqueBritish Journal of Sociology, 1981