Deconstructing Youth

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 1-11

3. The State of Contemporary Youth: Conceptual Underpinnings of Dominant Youth Discourses

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 12-50

4. Deconstruction and the Question of Identity

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 51-69

5. Reasonable Unreason: The Limits of Youth in the Teen Brain

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 70-101

6. Presumed Innocent: The Paradox of ‘Coming of Age’ and the Problem of Youth Sexuality

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 102-135

7. Normal Abnormality: Coming to Terms with Teen Violence and the Undecidability of Youth

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 136-170

8. Conclusion

   • Fleur Gabriel

   Pages 171-175

9. Back Matter

   Pages 176-197

   PDF

Young people are regularly posited as a threat to social order and Deconstructing Youth explores why. Applying Derridean deconstruction to case studies on youth sexuality, violence and developmental neuroscience, Gabriel offers a fresh perspective on how we might attend to 'youth problems' by recasting the foundations of the concept of 'youth'.

• identity
• violence
• youth
• childhood studies

“Each chapter in this book is successful in highlighting the flawed logic and general ambivalence with which society approaches and conceptualizes the period of adolescence. … the content presented in the chapters was often thorough and well presented. Reading this book helps one to learn that the period of adolescence has been debated for many years, and continues to be a controversial topic.” (Victoria Carter, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 46, 2017)

“Deconstructing Youth: Youth Discourses at the Limits of Sense, by Fleur Gabriel, provides a compelling analytical account of the confounding presence that youth have in modern Western culture. The book is geared towards adults seeking to better understand the youth mind. … Gabriel’s work makes a significant contribution to the study of adolescence. Each chapter introduces highly debated topics surrounding the uncertain, undefinable identity of today’s modern youth.” (Jonathan M. Baker, Adolescent Research Review, Vol. 1, 2016)

• Monash University, Australia

  Fleur Gabriel

Fleur Gabriel lectures in media and communication studies at Monash University, Australia.

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