Social attitudes and trends among youth: A qualitative study on ?apache? sub-culture groups in Istanbul

The aim of the thesis which focuses on Apache youth is threefold: Revealing 1) the identities of youth groups socially described as ?apache? and their attitudes and conducts of behavior related to this description; 2) the perception of ?apache? description among these youth groups; and 3) the dimensions of so-called problematic relationship between the ?apache? youth and society. In this regard, the field study is carried out at Istanbul?s Esenler district while the tools of qualitative research such as distinct observation, in-depth interview, focus group study, participatory observation and document analysis techniques. There are 71 in-depth interviews along with 30 people engaged in focus group study in the thesis.Thesis has three parts in addition to introduction and conclusion as it covers the subject, importance, aim and methodology, relevant question and sub-questions as well as the scope and limitations in the introduction part. Moreover, a brief review of youth studies in Turkey both chronological and thematically. In the first part, youth concept and its use in different disciplines is assessed while sub-culture as a notion is discussed on the grounds of its capability to describe the ?apache? youth along with the historical background of ?apache? youth in Turkey. The qualitative research method used in the field study with its theoretical framework is described in the second part. Furthermore, data collection procedures in the field study are discussed along with a detailed description of data analysis tools and techniques. The results provided in the field study are classified into themes, categories and sub-categories in the third part. Last but not the least, the relevance of our study among the ?apache youth? issue is discussed while some remedies to the problem are also offered in the conclusion part, followed by an appendix section including 1) Apache Youth Dictionary and 2) Apaches Visually.