The course is aimed at exploring the subject of youth violence in a global dimension. It will help students in becoming familiar with this cross-national social phenomenon and in critically understanding it not only as a crime issue, but as an expression of social change and of cultural resistance. After a discussion of what is "youth violence" and what behaviors are defined in this way in different contexts and by different actors, we will analyze critically different forms of collective youth violence. Youth violence, in fact, is a broad category - and a controversial concept - that includes different phenomena: Gangs and street organizations, of course, but also young people resisting processes of exclusion expressed by the global movements for social justice and by the more recent anti - austerity mobilizations. Main topics of the class will include how youth violence is theorized and conceptualized in sociological and criminological discourses; traditional and alternative definitions of gangs, their features and their origin in the US and in other countries (Europe and Latin America); the processes of globalization of gangs and the role of social media; he repertoire of actions that characterizes youth violence around the world, with a focus on the European riots in the French banlieues and in other European and Latin American ghettos; the representation of youth violence in the media, in music and movies; the policing of youth violence and youth protest and the search for alternative solutions, like legalization and mediation. In class we will use a variety of scientific readings, of reports and media news, and other sources of visual information, particularly video, and movies.