Using research examples, this article expands the theoretical premise that the `new' reflexivity constitutes an element of cultural capital for contemporary youth. Employing the sociological ideas of cultural capital, habitus, reflexivity and risk, the authors propose that Beck's notion of `risk' provides a useful way of understanding what drives the development of this reflexivity in the habitus of groups of young people, especially negotiation of risk. However, the emergence of this new reflexivity in youth habitus does not diminish the importance of socioeconomic class as some proponents of reflexive modernization claim. Quite the contrary. The capacity for reflexive negotiation of future risks, both real and perceived, has become another form of what Bourdieu calls embodied cultural capital — which remains inequitably distributed along class lines.

This paper employs Foucauldian theory to consider Islamic boarding school experiences in Indonesia. For some pupils ‘the spirit of education’ – a dimension of pleasure – comes to be highly valued, creating a lifelong passion for the pursuit of knowledge. Two school principals (both pesantren [Islamic boarding school] graduates themselves) articulated strong commitment to the ‘spirit of education’. Yet their respective boarding schools were very poor, not only by western standards but compared with Indonesian public schools, and conditions were austere. The embodiment of pesantren discourse as high academic achievement is illustrated by the example of Khadija – a young female pesantren graduate now studying at doctoral level in the United Kingdom. Explaining the embodied production of the ‘spirit of education’ demands looking at charismatic pedagogy, strict rules, austere conditions and sparse provision of learning resources as regimes of truth and power–knowledge relations that inhere in pesantren as lived experiences of pupils.

Selected survey data on future aspirations and expectations from 3565 young Indonesians are presented in this study. Muslim-majority Indonesia is an Asian economic success story. The economy has seen solid growth, leading to an expansion of the private sector. The upward credentialling of the labour market and the rapid growth of the middle class have resulted. Accordingly, the transition to adulthood for working-class and lower middle-class youth has been extended by the necessity to complete schooling and tertiary training before work can be obtained and marriage can occur. Marriage and children still signify adulthood for both sexes. Career preference favoured the professions, especially for girls, despite tight competition for university places. While indicating upwardly mobile aspirations to middle-class life, respondents also demonstrated strong commitment to religious faith and normative family formation in the future. High expectations were tempered by realism though. When asked about obstacles to life dreams, most named material challenges such as family finances. Respondents from more privileged backgrounds were more likely to think non-material factors such as their own laziness would constitute an obstacle, while those lower on the socio-economic scale often indicated they did not have much chance of realising their life dreams due to material and structural constraints.

This article is on three kinds of contemporary young masculinities in Indonesia. Proceeding through a discussion of three composite profiles of young men assembled from fieldwork data, the argument is made that these three identifiable discourses of lived masculinity correspond to some dominant images of men circulating in the Indonesian media. Theoretically, these seem to be new or alternative constructions of masculinity, if considered against the men's studies literature. Yet there is evidence that these persuasive new forms of cultural leadership for young Indonesian men still constitute a configuration of hegemonic masculinity, even though the patriarchal bapak stereotype is challenged. It is concluded that young men in Indonesia are under various kinds of pressure: to become a good citizen and dependable provider for the family on the one hand, and on the other hand, to match the fantasy images of global ‘hypermasculinity’ – tough, hard and heroic. To a certain extent this applies in both the secular and religious domains.

This article explores male perceptions and attitudes toward violence against women in Indonesia. It analyzes interview data from Indonesian men collected as part of a large multimethod Australian government–funded project on masculinities and violence in two Asian countries. Reluctance to talk about violence against women was evident, and the accounts of those men who did respond referred to three justificatory discourses: denial, blaming the victim, and exonerating the male perpetrator. The findings support continuation of government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) projects aimed at both empowering women and reeducating men.