Spanish Youth Since 1975: Challenge & Achievement

This course considers contemporary expressions and representations of Spanish youth since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975. Addressing social topics such as drug and alcohol use, affordable housing, joblessness, political activism, education reform, and family life, this course asks a number of pertinent and oppressing questions about contemporary Spain. What motivates Spanish youth today? Are the young of Spain politically active or apathetic? How and why has political engagement fluctuated over time? What issues do young Spanish women, recent immigrants and Catalans face today? What is causing late emancipation and low birthrates?

To answer these questions, you will investigate specific social and political movements, such as the anti-military movement, the Okupa movement, and more recent activist groups opposed to bullfighting, denouncing the housing shortage amid Spain's mortgage crisis, protesting the Plan Bolonya in universities, and in support of the 15M movement of 2011. You will also discover and analyze the musical and popular genres that captured the imagination of Spain's young across successive decades. To this end, you will critique films and song lyrics along with local academic articles in order to grasp and appreciate major social, cultural and political issues mobilizing Spanish youth in the post Franco years.

Field studies in Barcelona include exploring established Okupa houses, the former bullring Las Arenas, unemployment offices, and universities. You will discuss these issues directly with young Spanish people. The aim of the course is for American college students to better understand their peers in Spain enabling them to reach cross-cultural understanding as well as providing them with the tools to initiate conversation in a variety of settings.

This course is cross-listed as SOC361