From sociology of deviance to sociology of risk Youth homelessness and the problem of empiricism

This article investigates the 'science of risk' and claims about its capacity to inform us about young people and the risks they present to themselves and others. To critically review the application of at-risk concepts to young people, two representative case studies are drawn on. with attention given to the ways they are informed by functionalist sociology. The discovery of the youth at risk category has largely supplanted older categories such as 'delinquency and 'maladjustment' that were foundational to the sociology of deviance. Yet the methodologies, epistemological assumptions and politics of governance inherent in the older projects remain the same. Too many risk-based researches rely on normative assumptions about social and economic dependence of young people, which when given expression and legitimacy through the research findings reinforce the authority of discourses of 'youth' as dependent. Many of the youth at risk researches tend to make assumptions about the category of youth as dependent and in need of close supervision. Risk-based research authorizes researchers as expert speakers about homeless youth at the same time as it delegitimates young people as speakers and active subjects capable of framing the problems in different ways. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.