Partying as Everyday Life: Investigations of Teenagers’ Leisure Life

Abstract

This article investigates what partying means to Danish adolescents aged 14–16. A new theoretical approach to teenage partying is suggested. It combines the structural anthropological tradition of analysing partying and use of alcohol as a rite de passage with a phenomenological perspective which situates the event in everyday life. By drawing on Maffesoli's concept of ‘sociality’ and Lincoln's concept of zoning the spatial and social logic of the house, partying is analysed using both qualitative and quantitative material. The analysis suggests that the consumption of alcohol (i.e. collective intoxication) is one way the parents’ dining room is transformed creatively into a space for teenage partying. Hence, the social logic of a party is to consume alcohol collectively as it symbolises commitment to both the party and to the specific group of friends. Finally, attention is drawn to how parties are attractive, not just because of the possibility of experimenting with alcohol, but because they are a way to extend the network of friends. These fragile friendships can be seen as a fluid sociality which constantly demands attention and reassurance. Partying, then, is also a way to reaffirm friendship and is therefore an integrated part of adolescents’ everyday life.

Notes

1. Northcote (2006) discusses the somewhat similar processes of young adults’ clubbing as a ‘quasi rite de passage’.

2. Analysing the Danish PUNA data, Gundelach (2006) also finds that the confirmation party in Denmark no longer is central for drinking. Eighty per cent did not drink alcohol during this formal rite de passage into adulthood.

3. These data were supplemented with data from a small observation study of public teenage parties. This study was made in the three areas where the interviews took place. This material is not substantial and has primarily been used to obtain local knowledge about partying in those areas and to enable the researchers to ask relevant questions.

4. We do, however, focus mostly on the eight-grade and ninth-grade interviews, as this age group is represented in the quantitative material and as house parties are the most common type of teenage parties at this point.

5. In contrast to the house party (see below), a hall party is held in a public space (usually the local sports hall), which means that in principle anyone can attend if they pay the entrance fee, usually about £5. However, it is mainly young people from the nearby towns and areas that attend. Some hall parties are rather large events with 600 participants, others are smaller with 200–300 participants.

6. If the house party is held with adult permission, the parents are usually nearby, for instance out dining in the town, visiting the neighbours or in another room in the house. The important thing is that the parents are out of sight, at least as long as there are no problems (gatecrashers, etc.) and the adolescents feel they have control over the party.

7. The respondents did not answer these eight questions if they indicated that they had never been to a house party.

8. ‘The relationship between two binary variables can also be measured by the odds ratio statistic and the Mantel–Haenszel statistic. There is however a one-to-one relationship between Goodman and Kruskall's marginal γ-coefficient, so one is as good as the other. Things are not quite that simple for the partial γ-coefficients and the Mantel-Haenszel statistic, but both statistics can be viewed as weighted sums of respectively stratified γ-coefficient and stratified odds-ratio statistics, with no clear indication of one being better than the other’ (Kreiner 2003, p. 45).

9. In the statistical analysis, the two variables were at the same recursive level (i.e. symmetrical).

10. The notion of buying rounds—well known and studied in countries such as the UK and the USA—is not applicable to house parties, as the adolescents bring alcohol to the party. Despite the fact that the legal age for purchasing alcohol in Denmark is 16 years, most adolescents do not find it difficult to obtain (Jørgensen et al. 2006).

11. In the survey the adolescents were asked to report how many close friends they have outside the school class (response categories: zero friends to seven or more friends). Adolescents who frequently go to house parties are more likely to have many close friends outside the school class. These results are supported by findings in Norway, Scotland and Sweden. Kloep et al. (2001) showed that ‘time spent in activities with friends’ was the strongest predictor of higher alcohol use.

12. It can be argued that drug-taking as well as drinking can be part of forming special ways of being together and communicating mutual attraction. Bill Sanders (2006) argues that ecstasy use is central for feeling part of a certain house, trance, techno and jungle dance club. It has become a normal activity that the ravers use for making the space a leisure–pleasure landscape to their taste. In a study of gay nightclubs in Sydney, Slavin (2004) similarly finds that the drugs are central to constructing a specific sociality.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jakob Demant

Jakob Demant, PhD Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen & Centre for Alocohol and Drug Research

Jeanette Østergaard

Jeanette Østergaard, PhD Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, & Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research