Emotional practices in youth: (in)appropriate anger and emotional complexity of cross-field navigation

This article explores anger expression among young people and the norms for appropriate anger in different social fields. Based on an empirical study of 40 interviews and 30 diaries, the article shows how the dominant norms of anger expression, which emphasize emotional control and verbal expression, contrast with the norms in specific youth subcultures. The findings show that some young people navigate environments with homogeneous expectations for emotional expression, whereas others deal with heterogeneous or conflicting norms across social spaces. Navigating across different social contexts with conflicting norms requires young people to have emotional resources that support anger expression in contextually legitimate ways. To discuss this emotional complexity, we draw from the analytical findings as well as the concepts of emotional practices, emotional reflexivity, emotional habitus, and emotional capital. We also highlight the resources that disadvantaged young people can access when navigating emotional environments with diverging norms.