ABSTRACT
What is youth? Youth is a socially constructed intermediary phase that stands between childhood and adulthood: it is not defined chronologically as a stage that can be tied to specific age ranges, nor can its end point be linked to specific activities, such as taking up paid work or having sexual relations. Youth is a broader concept than adolescence, which relates to specific developmental phases, beginning with puberty and ending once physiological
and emotional maturity is achieved, and it tends to cover a more protracted time span. The term adolescence was coined by G. Stanley Hall in 1904 in an ambitious two-volume book entitled Adolescence: Its Psychology and its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education. For Hall, the physiological changes associated with adolescence meant that the experience was essentially traumatic: characterized by ‘storm and stress’. Adolescence was a period which involved risky behaviour, mood swings and conflict with parents. Subsequently, psychologists such as Bühler (1921) and Erikson (1968) recognized that there was an important cultural dimension to adolescence and that physiological explanations were somewhat limited. In recent years there has been something of a resurgence of interest in developmental theory and the physiology of adolescence as researchers have begun to use modern brain imaging technology to study differences in the brain activity of young people and adults. The argument here is that the brain’s frontal lobe cortex, which plays an important role in judgement, does not mature fully until young people are in their early or late twenties. As a result, young people may exercise poor judgement and are prone to risky behaviour (Evans et al., 2007; Bessant, 2008). Bessant notes, however, that some neuroscientists are highly critical of this reductionist tendency and argue that young people’s experiences, well-being and relationships also have a powerful impact on development and on decision-making processes.
