Act Your Age!

This work examines the making of adolescence at the turn of the 20th century and the ways the fears and programmatic responses are re-invented as new today, for example in model middle schools. This system of reasoning about youth constrains our contemporary responses to adolescence and secondary schooling, so that we cannot think about youth in different terms. The legacy of the system of reasoning that centred whiteness, masculinity and citizenship disables our efforts to work with youth differently today, a time when the slow development prescribed for adolescence is no longer viable.