ABSTRACT
A discussion of youth and youth work, especially one that attempts to think globally, needs to be located within an understanding of the historical and political contingency of its subject. The connection with the social roles and institutions has been different. Even within a particular society, these things are subject to change over time. If there is anything biological about youth/adolescence, it is not the biology that determines what it means to live as a young person in any given social and historical context. In this context, the chapter draws attention to the process by which modern conceptions of youth as adolescence, created through the establishment and reach of secondary schooling and the scientific discourse of adolescence, are expanding across the world. The chapter discusses that youth work emerges as a socially necessary mechanism for addressing some of the problems created by the modern organization of youth and their downstream consequences.
