Introduction: The Social Construction of Adolescence in Contemporaneity

I present to the academic community the book The Social Construction of Adolescence in Contemporaneity, specially organized for the journal Sociological Studies of Children and Youth—SSCY.

This edition, with nine chapters, presents contributions of researchers from Brazil, Singapore, India, and the Faroe Islands.

These contributions establish reflections on the constructions of adolescence through music, literature, school, military service, political engagement, corporeity, in addition to questions related to preconceived questions about this phase of life established in institutions.

I consider it essential to start this book by discussing the concept of “adolescence,” as it is not a field present in sociology. Thus, I go through a “deconstruction” of this institutionalized view of adolescence (something marked by biological and psychological changes), and I begin to build a conceptual perspective that motivated the organization of this book.