The Only Constant Thing Is Change? Education, Adolescence, and the Need for Innovation in Late Modernity

Educational policies in many countries increasingly aim at preparing pupils for a globalized world of permanently accelerating social change; the ideal type of subjectivity they produce is a skilled, self-employed entrepreneur, flexible enough to adapt both life plan and identity to the always changing needs of global markets. For a sociology of education which aims to analyze all aspects of these contradictory processes, a socio-psychological concept of adolescence offers an interesting perspective: here, adolescence is considered the life phase most directly associated with individual change as well as social innovation. Educational institutions in the classic modern nation state aimed to contain and channel the dynamics of adolescence by offering youths a “psycho-social moratorium” (Erikson) or “potential space of adolescence” (King). In contrast to rituals of initiation in traditional communities, modern nation states thus made use of the innovative potential of adolescence. Following debates about education in Germany and other European countries it seems that on the one hand adolescents are expected to be “innovative”, while at the same time curricula demand an always increasing workload and integrate working and learning more intimately or anticipate work environments, which makes it more and more difficult to consider high school any kind of “moratorium” – especially as it is a decisive phase for social mobility.

I want to present and discuss several theses regarding the relationship between educational institutions and the dynamics of adolescence, both in Western and (de)colonized societies.