ABSTRACT
Consider for a moment some familiar public spaces: your local mall, a cineplex, the outside seating of fast food restaurants, a bowling alley, skateboarding sites, video arcades, or buses around 3 P.M. any Monday through Friday. Ubiquitous in all of those spaces are teenagers-almost always in groups and sporting hair, clothes, piercings, and attitudes that mark them as belonging to "another tribe." Teenagers are so obvious and omnipresent that we seem hardly to notice them unless their peals of laughter cause us to nervously look their way, or they interfere with the expected movement or pace of a common task such as standing in line or shopping for groceries, or they walk too close on the street or in the mall. The ubiquity of teenagers in social spaces beyond households and schools is matched by their prominence in our talk. A little conscious attention finds adolescents in television sitcoms; in social science, psychology, and therapy; and in news-making discussions of public problems. Typically teenagers appear in our cultural talk as synonymous with crazed hormones, as delinquents, deficiencies, or clowns, that is, beings not to be talcen too seriously. They are most often spoken of with familiarity, sometimes with affection, and regularly with some hostility or displeasure. In these various venues and with decidedly mixed emotions, we talk about "the trouble with teenagers?'
