The English language version of proceedings of a bilateral UK/FRG conference held at Philipps Universitaet, Marburg. The theme of this conference was the examination of childhood and youth as life-stages in the context of contemporary social and cultural change, with an eye to future developments.

Childhood and youth studies in the United Kingdom and West Germany - an introduction, Lynne Chisholm, Philip Brown, Peter Buchner and Heinz- Herrmann Kruger; what does the future hold? youth and socio-cultural change in the FRG, Jurgen Zinneker; a sharper lens or a new camera? youth research, young people and social change in Britain, Lynne Chisholm; persons in their own right - children and sociology in the UK, Diana Leonard; growing up in the Eighties - changes in the social biography in the FRG, Peter Buchner; schooling and economic life in the UK, Philip Brown; caught between standardization and disintergration - changes in the life-phase Youth in West Germany since 1945, Heinz-Hermann Kruger; the shifting sands of a social contract - young people in the transition between school and work, Helga Kruger; beyond individualization - what sort of social change?, Gill Jones and Claire Wallace; patriachy for children - on the stability of power relations in children's lives, John Hood-Williams; illusory equality - discipline-based anticipatory socialisation and the reproduction of social inequalities at university, Steffani Engler; youth, race and language in contemporary Britain - deconstructing ethnicity?, Roger Hewitt; how Black are the German Turks?, ethnicity, marginality and inter-ethnic relations for young people of Turkish origin in the FRG, Georg Auernheimer; changing leisure and cultural patterns among British youth, Michael Brake; West German youth cultures at the close of the Eighties, Wilfried Ferchhoff.