“Youth” is a greasy term that slips out of the grip of any definition. Yet, everyone talks about youth, in academics, pastoral ministry, and daily life. Is the concept of youth that straightforward? Take, for instance, the age criterion in defining youth. The age-range could be as low as 12 years, as it is the case in the Ugandan Youth Policy (Uganda, 2001), and as high as 35 years, as in Kenyan constitutions, or even 40 years as in Malaysian Youth Policy. Other people offer a descriptive definition of youth in terms of energy, dynamism, and vitality. Today, as life-expectancy gets prolonged in most countries, people live very energetic and active life when they are 80 years and more. So, does a person of 80 qualify to be classified as youth? How do we define youth, then?
There are several reasons that contribute to the fluidity of the terminology and conceptualisation of youth. One of the reasons is the transitional character itself of the age-group of people that the term refers to. When a society is in an accelerated state of flux the first groups that are likely to be affected are children and youth (Chisholm, 1990, p.17). To a small or large degree, this has been true throughout human history: the nature of being youth has been changing. Therefore, there is indeed an historical impact on the definition of youth. When the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) speak about children and youth (Mk 10:13-16; 1Pet 5:5), what age-group of people are they talking about? Could that be different from the way the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) talk about children and youth? And could that be totally different from the understanding of the Kenyan constitutions?
Consider an example from history. Don Bosco, a Catholic priest of Turin in Italy, is acclaimed as one of the first to begin a youth club (also referred to as “youth patronage”), and this was in the context of the Catholic Church in the 19th Century (Loncle, 2009). The “youth” he worked with, were they young men in their 30’s, as Kenyan constitution would like to have it? Not at all. He worked among 15-year olds. So, what has happened to the concept of youth in the 20th Century?
Despite these intricacies around ‘youth’, a serious consideration on the nuances of the term is seldom a subject for study. Therefore, the objective of this article is to explore the meaning of “youth” and other terms related to it, such as, child, adolescent, teenager, emerging adult. The paper also looks at different criteria employed to define youth. Often, the paper focuses on terminology tracing their etymology and historical origin. As the French historian Aries (1962) argues, the absence of specific terminology to refer to a particular age of development implies that people of that era did not feel the need for explicit distinction of those age groups. On the contrary, the introduction of a specific term to refer to a particular age-group means that this group began to gain noticeable significance in terms of numbers and social role. Thus, the present paper points out the implication of terminologies and the difficulty in the definition and conceptualisation of youth. Due to lack of data, we will explore the global scenario and conceptually extend it to the African context, and point out the pastoral implications of such conceptualisation.
Besides this introduction, the paper had three other parts. The first of the three sections explores the history and meaning of terms related to youthhood. The following section discusses the insights that emerge from the discourse around youthhood. Finally, some pastoral implications are pointed out.
Reference:
Selvam, S.G. (2018). Defining youth: Pastoral Implications for Africa. In G. Caramazza & E. Gibson, Young people, the faith and vocational discernment (pp.9-28). Nairobi: Institute of Youth Studies.