Learning and Thinking in Adolescence and Youth How to Inhabit New Provinces of Meaning  

Oleh:

Carugati, Felice

Jenis: Article from Books - E-Book
Dalam koleksi: Joining Society Social Interaction and Learning in Adolescence and Youth, page 119-140.
Topik: Learning; Thinking; and Social Practices; Learning and New Technologies; Modern Societies
Fulltext: Learning and Thinking in Adolescence and Youth How to Inhabit New Provinces of Meaning.pdf (404.1KB)

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More than 50 years ago, Kurt Lewin was very conscious of the tremendous task of approaching the multifaceted phenomenon of adolescence and transitions to adulthood. According to Lewin (1951), “The problem of adolescence shows clearly that a way must be found to treat changes, shifts in ideology and group-belongingness within one realm of scienti?c language in a single realm of discourse or concepts. How can this be done?” (p. 133). Lewin tried to conceptualize, within the framework of his ?eld theory, some characteristics of this transitional period of life. Instead of treating the issue from an Aristotelian point of view, Lewin proposed (from a Galileian perspective) to engage in a study of situations and instances that show the so-called typical dif?culties of adolescent behavior (1951, p. 135). Thus, the transition from childhood to adulthood could be seen as a change in group af?liations, particularly salient in social contexts in which the separation between children’s and adults’ worlds becomes a crucial feature of the modernity of societies. Moreover, the transition to adulthood can also be considered a situation unfamiliar to adolescents, a region of experience for which they are requested to build up adequate cognitive, social, and emo- tional tools; a region in which salient questions must be answered: for exam- ple, What kind of person does society require me to become? What kind of person would I like to become? What kind of con?ict or contradiction arises when coping with these two major questions? In addition, the widening of spatial, temporal, emotional, and social regions, as well as of future perspectives (expectations, fears, hopes, projects); the new interests in social groups and gender-marked interpersonal relations; and the coping with ideologies, organizations, bureaucracies, and institutions, (i.e., coping with the social distribution of power, social con?icts, and social inequalities) – all these characteristics of adolescents’ lives could lead to a conceptualization of the transition to adolescence and youth as a major phenomenon in secondary socialization (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). During that socialization, contradictions, con?icting viewpoints (i.e., the multiple social realities and, in a sense, the eventual incompatibility between different life trajectories and perspectives), and personal and societal requests have to be negotiated, and new decisions, new trajectories, and reorganization of perspectives, beliefs, and opinions have to be produced. The analogy between adolescence and marginal groups proposed by Lewin seems very appropriate to describe the intriguing task of adolescents joining society.

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