Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

In Tight Economy Teen Retailers Take Notice of Moms

The tight economy has meant fewer jobs for teens, leaving more of them with empty wallets and at the mercy of that heartless arbiter of teen fashion: mom. The Wall Street Journal reports that even stores that specialize in clothes for younger consumers are following the money to its source. Aeropostale's employee handbook states: "Because parents make the final decision, they want to feel valued, and they want to feel good about what they purchase."

Retailers have traditionally catered directly to their teen customers. But some are now going out of their way to be mom-friendly, and the matriarchs are noticing:

"We're cognizant of the mom and the impact that that mom has," says Tom Johnson, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Aeropostale ... Mr. Johnson says meeting her needs "is critical to our success." ... Ana Greenfield, a mother of two teens from Paramus, N.J. finds the store "less snooty, less provocative" than other teen retailers.

Meanwhile, those "provocative" retailers may be ignoring mom at their own peril. Abercrombie & Fitch remains "committed to the nightclub-like atmosphere popular among teens" for both its flagship and Hollister brands. Turned off moms wait outside the store, seething over the "very aggravating, very loud" atmosphere on the other side of the door, and veto purchases that they deem too expensive.

Source: The Consumerist
http://consumerist.com/5366838/tight+fisted-moms-set-rules-on-teen-clothing-purchases#c

Marketers Identify Today's Key Teen Segments

Marketers may want to fine-tune their advertising to target “jockettes” and “young metrosexuals.” These are the two largest teen segments, according to a new behavioral segmentation report by Euro RSCG Discovery.

Euro RSCG teamed with American Student List, a youth and teen marketing data provider, to develop "Teen Segments." The report identifies 11 key teen markets based on demographic and psychographic characteristics, which are meant to help marketers better target direct marketing communications to teens, according to Euro RSCG. The segmentation is comprised of six male and five female groups. 

When it comes to teen males, the report found that "young metrosexuals," those classified as individuals who focus on their outward appearance, make up more than 25 percent. The other male segments include "big man on campus," "technosapiens," "red-blooded boys," "tuned inward" and "under construction." 

"Jockettes," young women who embody active lifestyles and participate in sports, are the most common female segment that makes up over 25 percent. The report also categorized girls as "in-style socialites," "most likely to succeed," "style meets thrift" and "traditionalists."

Source: AdWeek
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/client/e3ie2038d49cf28a730c4ebeb20d2fd2604?imw=Y

Teenage Jobless Rate Reaches Record High

This August, the teenage unemployment rate — that is, the percentage of teenagers who wanted a job who could not find one — was 25.5 percent, its highest level since the government began keeping track of such statistics in 1948. Likewise, the percentage of teenagers over all who were working was at its lowest level in recorded history.

Recessions disproportionately hurt America’s youngest and most inexperienced workers, who are often the first to be laid off and the last to be rehired. Jobs for youth also never recovered after the last recession, in 2001.

But this August found more than a quarter of the teenagers in the job market unable to find work, an unemployment rate nearly three times that of the nonteenage population (9 percent), and nearly four times that of workers over 55 (6.8 percent, also a record high for that age group). An estimated 1.64 million people ages 16-19 were unemployed.

Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/economy/05teen.html

Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2013

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Emeritus Public Affairs Director Ron Nief.  It is used around the world as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

Members of the class of 2013 won't be surprised when they can charge a latté on their cell phone and curl up in the corner to read a textbook on an electronic screen. The migration of once independent media—radio, TV, videos and CDs—to the computer has never amazed them. They have grown up in a politically correct universe in which multi-culturalism has been a given.  It is a world organized around globalization, with McDonald's everywhere on the planet. Carter and Reagan are as distant to them as Truman and Eisenhower were to their parents. Tattoos, once thought "lower class," are, to them, quite chic. Everybody knows the news before the evening news comes on.

Most students entering college for the first time this fall were born in 1991.

1. For these students, Martha Graham, Pan American Airways, Michael Landon, Dr. Seuss, Miles Davis, The Dallas Times Herald, Gene Roddenberry, and Freddie Mercury have always been dead.

2. Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.

3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.

4. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.

5. Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.

6. Salsa has always outsold ketchup.

7. Earvin "Magic" Johnson has always been HIV-positive.

8. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.

9. They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.

10. Rap music has always been main stream.

To view the entire list of 75 items, click the source link below.

Source: Beloit College
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2013.php

Survey: Teens Stressing About The Economy

Turns out that teen girls are stressed-out about money and the economy, according to a new survey from Seventeen and Bank of America.

While 85% of girls are worried about the economy, 75% of teen boys are fretting too. And while many are worried about how to pay for things like lip glosses and plaid miniskirts, 69% are also worried about the cost of college, compared to 59% of boys.

The survey, which included 2,000 kids aged 16 to 21, finds that 38% have altered college plans in some way, while one in five have had to either go with their second choice or attend a state school in order to save money. And 45% say their parents are worrying or fighting about money more often.

Girls also worry that they spend more readily than they save: Only 34% believe they're in total control of their finances.

Source: Marketing Daily
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=111266

Back-to-School Shoppers Heading to Discount Stores, Look for Sales

The down economy is putting a damper on back-to-school shopping this year, and while consumers may look for savings online, they plan to do most of their purchasing in-store.

Data from BIGresearch and the National Retail Federation (NRF) indicates that nearly one-half of US consumers with children ages 6 to 17 will be cutting spending on back-to-school items due to the recession.

With so much emphasis on savings, it is no surprise that nearly three-quarters of consumers plan to shop at discount stores.

Only 22.2% said they would purchase back-to-school items on the Web. Last year, 24.8% of respondents to the same NRF survey indicated they would shop online.

Nearly 15% of respondents said their plans would not change because of the economy. The rest were looking to cut back by shopping for sales more often (56.2%), comparison shopping with both circulars (42.5%) and Websites (26.4%), buying generic products (41.7%) and using coupons more (40.0%).

 

 

Source: eMarketer
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007205

The Death of Handwriting

There's an interesting feature in Time Magazine this week on the death of cursive handwriting. Today's kids are spending little if any time being taught to write in cursive. The question is, does it matter?

People born after 1980 tend to have a distinctive style of handwriting: a little bit sloppy, a little bit childish and almost never in cursive. The knee-jerk explanation is that computers are responsible for our increasingly illegible scrawl, but Steve Graham, a special-education and literacy professor at Vanderbilt University, says that's not the case. The simple fact is that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. "Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore," he says.

Today schoolchildren typically learn print in kindergarten, cursive in third grade. But they don't master either one. Over the decades, daily handwriting lessons have decreased from an average of 30 minutes to 15.

Zaner-Bloser, the nation's largest supplier of handwriting manuals, offers coursework through the eighth grade but admits that these days, schools rarely purchase materials beyond the third grade.

Is that such a bad thing? Except for physicians — whose illegible handwriting on charts and prescription pads causes thousands of deaths a year — penmanship has almost no bearing on job performance. And aside from the occasional grocery list or Post-it note, most adults write very little by hand. The Emily Post Institute recommends sending a handwritten thank-you but says it doesn't matter whether the note is in cursive or print, as long as it looks tidy. But with the declining emphasis in schools, neatness is becoming a rarity.

Source: Time
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912419-2,00.html

Parents Send Kids To Camp Grandparents For Savings

Despite the financial motivation behind parents sending their kids to visit grandparents this summer instead of sending them to camp, there are other benefits. Chief among these are kids having opportunity to spend time with their grandparents! Our society has changed much over the years and the days of kids having easy access to interaction with grandparents is no longer normative. So, recession aside, I'm all for parents taking up this inter-generational opportunity for grandparents to spend more time with their grandchildren.

Over the river and through the recession to grandmother's house they go. The lingering recession is forcing cash-strapped parents to cancel camp for the kids. Instead, they're being packed off to their grandparents'.

The hundreds of dollars a week that would have paid for camp are being diverted to more essential needs -- groceries, electricity and house payments.

The arrangement shifts the child-care burden to grandparents, many of whom enjoy the extra time with their grandchildren. The kids' parents save money and get some time to themselves. And the grandkids get more love and attention, and better food.

"If this economic trouble is bringing people together, that's a positive," said Georgia Hope Witkin, associate professor of psychology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and a contributing editor of the Web site Grandparents.com.

The American Camp Association reports registration numbers are down at some of the nation's 12,000 camps, but it's too early to estimate overall attendance this year. Reports from around the country point to lower turnout from Maine to Florida to Texas and elsewhere.

"Grandparents are the new summer camp," Witkin said.

Source: Baltimore Sun / Associated Press
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-grandparents-0720,0,3566561.story

Teens Battle Older Workers For Summer Jobs

The recession is having a trickle-down effect on younger workers as older workers are getting jobs once filled by teens on summer vacation.

Last year, the Montgomery County’s Summer YouthWorks program daily bused 150 to 200 teenagers to Kings Island for jobs.

This year that number is down to 41.

That’s a precise snapshot of the summer job picture for teenagers.

“The jobs aren’t there. The companies that traditionally have hired kids for seasonal employment are hiring older workers now,” said Rocky Rockhold, supervisor of special projects and youth activities for the county Department of Jobs and Family Services.

Teen summer employment has dropped like a stone. A study by the Center for Labor Market Study at Northeastern University found the summer employment rate of 16- to 19-year-olds fell from 48.4 percent in 1989 to 32.7 percent last summer.

Things look worse for this summer. Another center study found that from October 2007 through November 2008, employment of those 30 and younger dropped by more than 1.2 million jobs. During the same period, more than 1 million jobs were added, filled by workers 55 and older.

Source: Dayton Daily News
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/teens-battle-older-workers-for-summer-jobs-119352.html

Boston Latin Officials Seek To Quash 'Vampire' Rumors

File this one under "truth is stranger than fiction." What does it say about our culture when popularized fiction bridges the gap to reality and school officials actually have to spend their time dealing with issues like this? Your thoughts?

A school administrator wants to set the record straight: There are no vampires at Boston Latin.

The headmaster of the prestigious exam school took the unusual step today of sending a notice to faculty, students, and parents saying that "rumors involving 'vampires'" had begun spreading through the building Wednesday, causing disruption and anxiety for a number of students.

Lynne Mooney Teta asked everyone's help in calming the school community down.

"I seek your cooperation in redirecting your energy toward the learning objectives of the day. Please do not sensationalize or discuss these rumors," she said.

She also said she was concerned that some students' safety might be jeopardized because of the rumors, and asked students to report if any student is being harassed.

"At no time was anyone's safety in jeopardy," she said.

Source: Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/03/boston_latin_of.html