Teenagers As a Social Construct

Richard Delgado, University of Alabama School of Law, has published Two Narratives of Youth at 37 Seattle University Law Review xxxiii (Fall 2013). Here is the abstract.

In the course of a review of a colleague's book on the Beat generation of poets and novelists, I examine two narratives that society has adopted of youth -- at least certain rich and spoiled ones.

The narratives -- boys will be boys and genius is a little bit crazy -- have implications for the police, educators, and parents inasmuch as they buy wide latitude for young people like Alan Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and their crowd, who went to good schools, were their teachers' darlings, drank and took drugs, and committed many crimes along the way to becoming famous.

If you have a teen-age child or relative, you will perhaps enjoy my demonstration that teenagers are a social construction and do not really exist.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.