What is Croatia’s youth listening to? Are they interested in culture? Find out more this Friday in Sinj!
Although there is a general assumption that taste is merely an individual category that can not be explained by broader social processes and structures, sociological theories and research, studies have shown for years that cultural tastes are largely conditioned by a variety of more general social and cultural factors. This perspective is particularly attractive to observe within the public debate on changes in culture in Croatia. Namely, if cultural needs are viewed as a product of wider social processes and structures, public debates often as causes of “escape” to cultural and musical genres (which are claimed to be identically “not belonging to the national cultural code”) mention foreign political and cultural factors (“invasion from the east” and so on). At the same time, there are seldom outstanding efforts to understand the existing state within the scientific theoretical and empirical frameworks on the accumulation and transfer of cultural capital, but also the analyzation of national and local public policies and programs as fundamental structural assumptions of changes in cultural needs and cultural tastes of young people.
For this reason, the data collected in 2015/2016 will be presented and analyzed on a representative sample of 2680 third and fourth grade secondary school students in larger cities on the Adriatic coast (Pula, Rijeka, Zadar, Šibenik, Split and Dubrovnik) which will then be placed in existing sociological theories and perspectives related to cultural needs and cultural capital with a brief analysis of public policies on the institutional and independent cultural scene of recent years in Croatia. The synthesis of these analyzes will seek to achieve a better understanding of the cultural, social and political momentum of Croatian society and young people with developmental projections concerning the state of affairs.
As part of the project (NO) CULTURE AND YOUTH organized by the Sinj Cultural Center, and conducted by Sociology master Anita Žmire and Kristina Mravak, on Friday, March 2 (18:00) in the attic of the Sikirica Gallery, a lecture will be held to be present the sociological research results on cultural needs and preferences of young people in six Adriatic towns – Pula, Rijeka, Zadar, Šibenik, Split and Dubrovnik. The research was conducted by scientists from the Department of Sociology at the University of Zadar – dr. Sc. Sven Marcelić, PhD Željka Tonković and PhD. Krešimir Krolo, who will hold the lecture and present the highly anticipated results.
