Thresholds

The difficult journey to personal identity

POSTMODERN SOCIETY:
NO PLACE FOR ADOLESCENTS

"Thought of the Week" for October 6, 2003

"...there is little or no place for adolescents in today's postmodern society. This has contributed to many more young people than in the past acquiring elements of a patchwork self that make them more vulnerable to stress. At the very same time we are also exposing young people to new and more demanding forms of stress when they are most vulnerable.

David Elkind, All Grown Up and No Place to Go: Teenagers in Crises (Revised edition), p. 22.

Comment:

Two paths to personal identity

by Reg Harris

Copyright © 2003 by Reg Harris. Updated October 7, 2007. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.

Earlier in the chapter from which this excerpt was taken, Elkind discusses the two ways in which personal identity is constructed: through differentiation and integration or through substitution.

In differentiation and integration, the child must "experience many different social interactions that allow them to differentiate their own feelings, desires, thoughts and beliefs from those of other people. At the same time, however, young people also need to discover how much they are like other people" (p. 19). This is a slow process, demanding support and involvement. It does, however, prepare the child to construct a stable, individual self-perception in adolescence. The sense of identity built through differentiation and integration is very stable, nearly impossible to break down in virtually any situation.

In contrast, through substitution, children build a sense of being based on observing and copying the world around them. They don't grow by replacing old understandings with new, more encompassing understandings, but by simply compiling "feelings, thoughts, and beliefs appropriated from others" (Elkind, p. 21) in the form of a "patchwork" self. This patchwork self has no real inner self to rely on for guidance or direction. As a result, people with patchwork selves are easily influenced by others because they have no internal reference and because they have developed the habit of following others rather than making decisions based on their own understandings. They are always looking for external direction.

The adolescent with a patchwork self must look to others for direction in coping, behaving, and believing. Because they have not gone through the internal growth demanded by differentiation and integration, they are unprepared to utilize their past experiences and insights to help them deal with new situations. Thus, each new situation becomes a challenge for which they are unequipped, requiring them to look for external direction.

Our schools, our media and our culture are creating more and more people with patchwork selves, people who can be easily manipulated and controlled because they have not developed the solid self image that comes through the journey to growth (differentiation and integration).

Elkind says (in the quote at the top) that there is little or no place for adolescents in our postmodern world. I feel that he is right. In a world where both parents work, where children are exposed to adult decisions and situations before they are emotionally ready, and where children often have to be seen as competent long before they reach competence, there is not time for the important growing processes of differentiation and integration. Adolescents are thrust into situations (even in school, i.e., college and career education at age 14!) where they must adapt quickly, forcing them to build their self-concept through substitution. To often the result is a young adult who has been alienated from his own experience, someone who is bitter that he or she has never had the chance to explore their own being, and who can never be engaged with education in a genuine, self-affirming way.

Most American schools, based on a 19th century Prussian model that eventually incorporated behavoristic and socialistic principles, simply contribute to this problem. They damage children as much as (perhaps, more than) the culture in general. School should be a safe place, free of the kinds of stress that force children to grow up too quickly. Schools should encourage social interaction, self-exploration, and individually paced progress rather than one-size-fits-all, standardized curriculums that only add to the stress and inhibit genuine growth.