ABSTRACT
In this context I use the term ‘adolescence’ advisedly and with great caution. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of ‘adolescence’ reads as follows: ‘The process or condition of growing up; the growing age of human beings; the period which extends from childhood to manhood or womanhood: youth, ordinarily considered as extending from 14 to 25 in males and from 12 to 21 in females.’ Significantly, this quote demonstrates that even within contemporary Western culture there are those who would variously define male and female adolescence, notably allocating a shorter duration to female than to male adolescence. Perhaps a more popular contemporary definition of adolescence would identify the adolescent phase for both male and female with the teenage years, extending from about 13 to 18. However, the very existence of two such varied contemporary definitions illustrates enduring ambiguity in the concept and perception of adolescence. We might also add that in present-day Western society, the term ‘adolescence’ carries with it a powerful range of associations, not all of them positive. Juvenile crime and teenage pregnancies cause our society agonies of navel-gazing in an attempt to discover the root cause and solution for these social ills (Garland 1991). Furthermore, on a more positive note, today’s adolescent claims a strong social identity in the ‘youth culture’ and ‘teen cult’ created, by and large, by advertisers and the music and fashion industries who exploit the notinconsiderable economic potential of their young audience.
