youth culture of the 1960s

2025 Words9 Pages
Youth Culture of the 1960s: Counterculture, Music, and Drugs Abstract: This paper examines the youth culture of the 1960s focusing on the counterculture, music, and drugs. By looking closer at these three topics with the youth culture we can see how they affected these young people towards social change within society. Change from the conservative 1950s to the liberal 1960s through youth revolutions is the overall focus of this paper. The 1960s during American history was a time of tumultuous change that was beginning with the problems overseas as well as social problems at home. Ranging from the Vietnam War to the Civil Rights Movement, America’s youth were trapped in the midst of the chaos of the decade. These youth which were the children of the veterans who fought in WWII, the baby-boomer generation, had started going to college and started forming their own political ideologies. There was an influx of youths to different colleges during the 1960s which made many of them start to think in ways that would oppose their parents’ ideologies of the conservative 1950s. These new ways of thinking along with great numbers of supporters would allow for such change to occur during an era that was already experiencing struggle. This wave of youth among American society would also impact the culture in which these people were living in. Throughout the 1960s, the impacts of the counterculture in American society, music, and drugs would all be key factors in the development of youth culture and social change. The Counterculture The conservative 1950s would pave the way for social change during the 1960s as the children of these traditionalist families would start to become more liberal in their college years. As many young people across the nation were coming together during these years they would bring with them different attitudes towards authority and
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