Popular Notions of Adolescence

Below is a list of types of representation with reference to a quote, what you have to do is
give an example from contemporary media to back up that quote. Choose a character, text
(film or TV show) then explain how that example confirms or opposes the quote.
1) Youth are often represented in accordance with common thoughts on adolescence
a) A period of storm and stress characterised by intergenerational conflicts, mood swings and an
enthusiasm for risky behaviour. - G. Stanley Hall (1906)
b) Adolescence is conflict between identity and role confusion. Resolving this conflict involves
finding a settled role in life. If unsuccessful this results in maladaptation in the form of fanaticism
or the rejection of adult responsibility. - Erik Erikson (1968)
c) Continuing confusion about ones identity is a mark of incomplete development and may result
in deviant or antisocial behaviour. - Erik Erikson (1968)
d) Adolescence is primarily a state of transition, a matter of becoming rather than being. David
Gauntlett
e) Acts of Juvenile delinquency are born from origins more desperate than the need to rebel
against norms or stand up to oppression, and tend to find their root causes in poverty, parental
misguidance (or absence), abuse by elders, and on occasion mental illness. - Tim Shary
f) Youth are product of the society they were born into, and often embody the faults and fears of
adult society (Hegemony).
2. Youth are often demonised in the mass media.
a) We found some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms 'model
student', 'angel', 'altar boy' or 'every mother's perfect son', but sadly these were reserved for
teenage boys who met a violent and untimely death." - Hoodies or Altar Boys
b) the true horrors we fear day to day are not supernatural bogeymen or monsters created by
scientists. They're our own youth. - Daily Mail
3. Youth are represented as being let down by adults
a) Parents aren't always around to help socialize their children or even just to show them
affection. Compared to other cultures, British kids are less integrated into the adult world and
spend more time with peers. - Britains Mean Streets, Time Magazine
b) Young people want to make healthy and informed decisions but until now, too many have
been let down by the education system. - Katrina Mather, 16, Member of Youth Parliament
4. Youth are represented as part of a subculture
a) Recent research has pointed to the dangers of romanticising youthful resistance and the
tendency to overstate the the political dimensions of youth culture - David Buckingham
b) Youth reappropriate artefact which creates group identity and promotes mutual recognition by
members. - Jonathan Epstein
5. Alienation youth are represented as being estranged from parts of society
a) The Youth are prohibited from speaking as moral and political agents, youth become an empty
category inhabited by the desires, fantasies and interest of the adult world. - Jonathan Epstein
b) Adolescence is a growth period conducive to alienation due the betwixt & between nature of
this particular position in lifecourse. Calabrese

How can Youth be seen as a Collective

Identity?
Although there is no consensual definition of collective identity, discussions of the concept
invariably suggest that its essence resides in a shared sense of one-ness or we-ness
anchored in real or imagined shared attributes and experiences among those who comprise
the collectivity and in relation or contrast to one or more actual imagined sets of others.
David Snow, Collective Identity and Expressive Forms
Shared Experiences:
Adolescence physically and emotionally maturing
School/ Education
Finding work
Choosing a career
Finding love/friendship/acceptance
Creating an identity that isnt created by school/parents/authority
Experimentation drugs, culture, crime
Leaving home
CAN YOU ADD TO THE LIST?
Shared attributes
Innocence
Frustration
Enthusiasm
Awkwardness
Hope
Anger
Powerlessness
Stress
CAN YOU ADD TO THE LIST
Who constructs the identity?
A collective identity may have been first constructed by outsiders who may still enforce it,
but depends on some acceptance by those to whom it is applied.
The adult dominant culture (or hegemony) that no longer sees Youth as children but has yet to
recognise them as adults.
Marketers/Mass Media who realise that the teen market is a lucrative one to exploit/sell to.
The Youth themselves that create sub-cultures and lifestyles different to the adult dominant
culture.
Us vs Them
Clearly a collective identity in which the boundaries between us and them are
unambiguously drawn, in which there is strong feeling about those differences, and in which
there is a sense of moral virtue associated with both the perceptions and feelings, should be a
more potent collective identity than one in which either the emotional or moral dimensions are
weakly developed.
David Snow, Collective Identity and Expressive Forms
Us the youth, subcultures, social classes
Them adults, authority, hegemony, dominant culture, other youth subcultures.