Usage de ressources symboliques à l'adolescence

Abstract

This paper proposes a sociocultural approach to adolescents’ uses of films, music and texts as developmental resources. After a short characterization of the challenges of youth, the paper considers adolescence as a period rich in ruptures and transitions as young people move through a diversity of spheres of experiences, requiring processes of identity change, learning and sense making. The paper then examines the resources adolescents might find to facilitate the changes thus required. The paper presents some data from a large research project on secondary school adolescents. It shows the diversity of their cultural experiences, often demanding in term of time and yet remote from school contents. It also shows how young people use some of the cultural elements found in their leisure as symbolic resources, and suggests that texts met at school might become symbolic resources, too. Such uses of texts are likely to support learning and further identity processes and sense making. The importance of adult recognition of these diverse experiences is finally suggested.