CONDIZIONE GIOVANILE, IDENTITÀ E DEVIANZA

Starting from the sociological discussion about the existence of a «youth condition», this work outlines the elements of specificity marking the juvenile segment and the identity construction process of a young person and the eventual outcomes of marginality and deviance. By following the juvenile paradigm parabolic trend, from the discovering period during which the «integrationist» interpretation prevailed, through the expansive period where the «conflictualist» approach took place, until the decline period when the «subjective» analysis predominated, a distinctive youth character dilatation, a diffusivity which determines the flattening of the generational difference and a growing youth subjectivity differentiation marked by an «existential plurality» are outlined. In front of the complex and changeable social reality, the youth identity (a meaningful nucleus socially oriented to reach the adult status), is more and more destructured becoming a subjective meaning elaboration process, open and flexible, but weak in singling out selective criterion choices; deviance too from an infrequent and pathologic happening, becomes a casual and possible outcome. On the whole, the interpretative categories considered (youth condition, identity and deviance), even if weakend in their explanatory capability — continue to represent a critical point from which it is possible to reflect about young people.