Social Issues in Focus: New Generation Research in Modern Greece

This paper provides an empirical exploration of the transformations in Modern Greek society, by assessing subjective experiences and eval- uations in relation to the Greek Crisis. The investigation concerns whether change in everyday life deriving from the Greek crisis also involves an alteration in the ways that Greeks perceive and consider social reali- ty and themselves within it. This study supports the view that social re- ality in modern Greek society is currently reshaped and this is relat- ed to the fact that Greeks have started reorganising their ways of think- ing and behaving. Participants reported that practices, norms and men- talities inherited by previous generations are no longer helpful. Cus- toms (such as clientelism) and mentalities (such as prioritizing the per- sonal over the collective interest) must now change and be reformed as the new reality demands different ways of thinking and rapid adap- tation to a new way of living which has become economically restricted and politically unstable.