Az ifjúsági kultúra megjelenése a magyar pedagógiai sajtóban, 1960–1970
Representations of youth culture in the Hungarian pedagogical periodicals (1960–1970)

Summary/Abstract: The paper is based on the analysis of the visual corpus of Hungarian educational periodicals from the 1960s. The journals are: Család és Iskola (Family and School), Gyermekünk (Our Child), Köznevelés (Public Education), Óvodai Nevelés (Nursing in the Kindergarten), A Tanító (Elementary School-Teacher), A Tanító Munkája (Work of the Elementary School- Teacher). The analysis needs an interdisciplinary approach and a mixed methodology of traditional educational history, anthropology and iconography. I have made a database from the periodicals’ visual sources, which contains about 5,000 photographs. The paper examines a special approach of my doctoral thesis on the cultural constructions of the new performances of youth culture in Hungary, including beat-music, long hair, parties and gangs. The anthropology of everyday life gives us the opportunity to analyse the possible subcultures in the Kádár era: the media represented the appearance of consumer society and juvenile delinquency in the late 1960s, which jeopardized Socialist ethics and the common values. Aspects of youth had been dominated by adults, mostly special experts (psychologists, police or teachers), who legitimated a special knowledge and discourse. The discourse included the dangers of unreasonable autonomy, alcoholism, the insanity of beat and jazz music, the lack of principles and sexual liberty – we can describe this phenomenon as moral panic. The final judgment of youth culture was ambivalent, beside the negative attitude we can also find humorous or tolerant approaches to this question. I find it significant that the separate category of youth had the chance to appear in the 1960s in Hungary, according to the changes of European mentality.

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