Aging & Social Change: Eleventh Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

This article uses 14 in-depth interviews with individuals who felt involved with and were young during what is commonly known as “the Sixties” in America to explore the potential relevance of youth-generated boundaries for now even older age. Analyzed data are specifically focused upon informants’ subjective identifications and life course understandings as among the first to have passed through a more geometrically developed youth culture as well as now experience more complete lives within the cultural and commodification transformations that hallmarked the post-World War 2 West. Interviews show a continued significance of youth-generated boundaries around aging, parent culture, and adulthood informants attribute to the Sixties that influence how they conceptualize their current self, their peers, and understand social generations in general. In this vein, we specifically argue our data extend recent research in subcultural studies on how subjective youth cultural connects can configure adulthoods to even the later phases of life. Where these processes are shown to shape aspects of how sampled Sixties generational affiliates are now looking ahead to navigating older age, findings may ultimately hold implications for understanding the dispositions of increasing numbers of individuals approaching and experiencing this phase of life ahead in Western(izing) contexts.