Hine's "The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager"

Again, the spell check is a current known issue, so be gentle!

My last post on Hine kind of went off into left field, so I decided to make this post to ground me a bit. I don't know, I still liked what I wrote, it was my reaction at the time I suppose. I tend to go off into rants about social injustice, ask Jen!

In his The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager, Thomas Hine laments the sociocultural status of teenagers in the United States. He argues that teenagers are wrongly lumped into some artificially constructed group that is incapable of making rational decisions on its own. Hine maintains that teens are actually able people, but because this label is placed on them it becomes "an impediment that has kept them from becoming the people they were ready to be."

If we look at Hine's ideas and stories, then we look at the in-class project with the Life magizine cover and the actress (whose name escapes me at the moment) you can see just what he is trying to say. The magazine's cover basically glorifies the fact that the actress had acended out of the abyss of teenagerdom, to emerge some new and better being. We know this to be false. A person's teenage years holds great sway over their future.

In the end, Hine states the teenagers and parents alike need to bridge the generational divide. Communication and parental involvment, in a constructive way, can be the "most powerful factor that determines the well being of young people." He concludes by saying that the "teenage mystique" is in fact, the culmination of constant change young people experience - both physically, emotionally, and culturally.

I'd like to see what Hine suggests for specific prescriptions to the problems we, as a culture, face in regards to teenagers.

That's all for now. See you Monday PM!

In Solidarity,
NAU