Comments on Responses to Youth: Transition to Adulthood

Our report is based on a perspective about the settings in which youth find themselves in modern society. That perspective is, in brief, that certain institutions outside the school which once served extensive socialization functions for youth now are much less able to do so. These institutions are the family, the neighborhood, and informal or casual work settings. Schooling, once an auxiliary institution to these others, has expanded to fill the vacuum. The result is an ever-lengthening period of life during which young people are physicially mature but unnecessary to the economic functioning of the family and the society, and kept as dependents to train for self-improvement in school.