Search for Structure: A Report on American Youth Today

• NCJ Number: 132976
• Author(s): F A J Ianni
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 344 pages
• Sale Source: Free Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Many teenagers manage to negotiate the difficult transition to adulthood with minimum trauma, while others commit suicide or become runaways, school dropouts, drug addicts, and young criminals.

Abstract

The author spent more than a decade observing and interviewing thousands of adolescents in urban, suburban, and rural communities. He looked at influences shaping teenagers' behaviors, identities, and aspirations. His interviews revealed young people's fantasy worlds and showed how their expectations and goals for the future reflect the reality of their daily lives and their relations with each other and with adults. He determined that teenagers do look to adults for guidance when confronted with the often conflicting demands of home, friends, school, the job market, and the legal system. He believes that in communities where parents, teachers, and other adults take active responsibility and express consistent values and expectations, most teenagers will transition to adulthood successfully. In communities riddled by conflict, poverty, and despair and where institutions and individual adults do not offer cogent and consistent direction for a brighter future, many young people will become discouraged and drift toward delinquency, truancy, unemployment, and pregnancy. The author identifies features of local community programs that can provide the support and guidance teenagers seek and need. He offers direction to parents, teachers, and professionals who must help youth. He views the key element in successful adolescent transition as a consistent "youth charter." This charter is an unwritten but widely understood set of expectations and standards to help adults and teenagers develop a caring community. The author describes mentoring programs, career internships, cooperative linkages between schools and employers, and community programs for juvenile offenders, all of which emphasize establishing connections between adults and adolescents. References and notes