ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the significance of young people’s transitions from childhood to adulthood within British society. It starts with a brief overview of public and official discourses concerning the definition of boundaries between adolescence and adulthood. Next, drawing upon a London-based study of the parenting and health of young people (Brannen, Dodd, Oakley and Storey, 1994), it considers different social constructions of adolescence as defined by parents and their 16-year-old children, the impact of these constructions upon the ways in which parents and children negotiate their relationships with one another, and the implications of these patterns of negotiation for young people’s independence and autonomy within their families of origin.
