“Youth: Typically regarded in sociology as an ascribed status, or socially constructed label, rather than simply the biological condition of being young. The term is used in three ways: very generally, to cover a set of phases in the life-cycle from early infancy to young adulthood; in preference to the rather unsatisfactory term adolescence, to denote theory and research on teenagers, and the transition to adulthood; and, less commonly now, for a set of supposed emotional and social problems associated with growing up in an urban industrial society.”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Mark's Text Terminal 