Youth

The chapter will outline dominant approaches to youth and young people, drawing on influential psychological and sociological approaches that have set the parameters for past and current conceptualisations of youth. It will be argued that our common-sense ideas about youth are created by the coming together of psychological and sociological discourses which name and set boundaries on expectations and behaviours. The chapter goes on to discuss current themes in the sociology of youth. The chapter begins, as ever, with a question: what is youth?