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Kathrin Horschelmann 7 Politics, Lifestyle, and Identity The Story of Sven, Eastern Germany S ven was a fifteen-year-old boy who participated in a research project conducted by myself and Nadine Schäfer in the eastern German city of Leipzig (Saxony) in 2003.1 He was one of five participants in a group we interviewed over a period of five weeks. The group met once a week and discussed a range of issues centred on globalization, identity, and youth culture . We explored how important friends, family, and locality were in the young people’s lives, how their leisure interests connected with global flows of culture, and to what extent their current cultural activities intersected with concerns about future opportunities for education and careers. In order to make the research as accessible as possible and to explore the benefits of both verbal and nonverbal forms of expression, we included a range of qualitative methodologies. In addition to focus-group interviews, we asked participants to conduct a brief questionnaire-based survey with one another, to complete a week’s diary, to take photographs of their everyday lives, and to draw mental maps of places that were important to them. The groups also produced posters reflecting the outcomes of the research. These were exhibited to the public in a cultural institute at the end of the year. The methods we chose allowed participants to answer questions about globalization and everyday life in significant depth. The time taken for group discussions made it possible for participants to reflect on their answers as well as on the visual materials they produced. The group setting meant that we could observe processes of interaction and opinion formation between young people as they occurred. While this influenced their responses, it enabled 82 Chapter 7 discussions that were led less by the researcher than by dynamics in the group. It also allowed our participants to set their own priorities. Young people in Western Europe are often described as more lifestyle oriented, less bound by traditional values and communities and having more choice over their future life-options than previous generations. This greater choice is seen to lead to heightened individual freedom, but also to greater risks, as responsibility for the choices one makes increases while fewer welfare provisions and more flexible labor markets produce new uncertainties. For young people in Leipzig many of these developments were noticeable, but for different reasons and with greater severity. The main cause of an increase in lifestyle options and insecurities was the end of state-socialism in 1989. Since the so-called Peaceful Revolution, new freedoms of political opinion, religion, travel, and consumption have led to a multiplication of lifestyles and a move toward more varied, global youth cultures. At the same time, the education system has been overhauled radically from a comprehensive system that gave students equal opportunities independent of class to a new, tiered system that divides students by their ability from an early age.2 Students and their parents now have to choose between two differently graded senior high schools from the age of eleven to twelve. The lower- to intermediary-level schools are called Realschule, while the higher-level schools, which lead to university- access qualifications, are called Gymnasium. At the Realschule, students are graded further by their ability. Some obtain a basic certificate at the age of fourteen, while others go on to gain a higher grade at the age of sixteen, which qualifies them for vocational training or to move onto a university- access course (Abitur). Although there are possibilities for students to move between school levels, their original choice often determines their future training and career paths. “Choice” more accurately translates as “responsibility” and is restricted by young people’s social backgrounds. After their school education, young people enter a strongly regulated educational market, in which they typically either complete an apprenticeship or gain a university degree. Despite these relatively clear options, uncertainty abounds, either because students have to wait for a long time before they can get an apprenticeship or because they do not fulfill the requirements for a university degree of their choice. Students with a basic certificate and those without any school-leaving certificate frequently take a “job-preparation course,” while those with an apprenticeship or on a university course struggle with low salaries or low stipends and may take on additional jobs to supplement their income. Parental resources make a...

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