Constructing maturity through alcohol experience–Focus group interviews with teenagers

Abstract

Danish 14- and 15-year-olds are at the top of the European list when it comes to drinking and drunkenness. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the struggle for social recognition–with alcohol as the central marker–transpires in groups of teenagers in Denmark. This article shows how alcohol experience and positive attitudes towards drinking are related to popularity and influence in the peer group. The function of alcohol in teenagers’ struggle for recognition is so strong that the participants who drink very little or not at all are put under considerable pressure. With alcohol as a central marker of maturity–and the drinking teenagers’ parents described as supporters of this view–non-drinking teenagers come out as the potential losers in the negotiation of status in the groups. The data are drawn from a large qualitative study in which 28 focus group interviews were conducted with Danish teenagers. This article represents a close reading of two of the interviews. Theoretically, the analysis is inspired by symbolic interactionism, Erwin Goffman's dramaturgical approach to social interaction and the post-structuralist reasoning of Judith Butler.

• Alcohol experience
• teenagers
• focus groups
• social recognition

Notes

Notes

1.  International as well as national studies have demonstrated Danish youths’ high level of alcohol consumption and frequency of binge drinking in comparison with other European countries (Settertobulte et al. 2001; Sabroe and Fonager 2002). The latest “ESPAD” report (European School Survey) shows, for instance, that Danish teenagers are at the top of the list among 36 countries when it comes to experiences of drunkenness. Hence 34% of Danish youths report having been drunk 10 times or more during the last 12 months, the corresponding figure for some other countries being 7% for the USA, 11% for Germany, 15% for Sweden and 25% for the UK (http://www.ias.org.uk/publications/theglobe/04issue3/globe0403). As the existing research shows, it is especially among 15 year olds that we find high consumption rates and drunkenness frequency (Settertobulte et al. 2001).

2.  Post-structuralist approaches such as Butlers are often (rightfully) accused of producing a (social) determinist way of viewing the subject (McNay 2000; Demant and Klinge-Christensen 2004: 7–194), while symbolic interactionism is sometimes criticised for focusing too narrowly on the (interacting) subjects and ignoring the broader social context. We do not intend to pursue these arguments here but simply propose that a combination of the two approaches may provide a nuanced framework that makes allowance for an analysis of both concrete interaction and discursively produced categories such as social age.

3.  Fiona Measham has used the concept of “controlled loss of control” that describes this process of transgressing the limits of control when using psychoactive drugs (including alcohol), while still claiming to be personally in control (Measham 2002, 335–73).