Questioning popular representations of 'youth'

 

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Content type
Family Matters article
Published

August 1994

Abstract

The author comments on the ways in which we insist on categorising young people, defining them variously as delinquent or maladjusted, or to invent new categories like 'the sulker', 'the mirror addict', 'the worry wart', the 'drug dabbler' and the 'sexplorer'. She argues such approaches provide the bases for typologies that cause considerable damage to our capacities for relating to and understanding young people. The apparent 'need' we seem to have to exoticise 'youth' in many instances gives certain aspects of their behaviours deviant status thereby inhibiting our capacity to relate to young people.

The author comments on the ways in which we insist on categorising young people, defining them variously as delinquent or maladjusted, or to invent new categories like 'the sulker', 'the mirror addict', 'the worry wart', the 'drug dabbler' and the 'sexplorer'. She argues such approaches provide the bases for typologies that cause considerable damage to our capacities for relating to and understanding young people. The apparent 'need' we seem to have to exoticise 'youth' in many instances gives certain aspects of their behaviours deviant status thereby inhibiting our capacity to relate to young people.

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