Stereotyping among Teenagers in Canada

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Stereotyping among Teenagers in Canada
Adolescence is a unique stage in the development of human beings, more especially the youth. It is the stage during which complex changes occur in the physical, intellectual, sociological, and psychological development of the individual. In terms of sociological transformations, teens learn how to interact with peers, their seniors, and society in general. One attitude-shaping sociological experience that teenagers undergo is stereotyping. Stereotypes are perceptions/ ways of perceiving that reflect the ideas that a group or groups of people hold regarding others. More often, stereotypes are expressed in characterizing phrases that express notions that people have concerning the dignity, personality or character traits of people who are different from them, leading to negative attitudes (Rao, 2000). Similarly, stereotypes are informed by cultural biasness, experiences or group differences. In the Canadian society, group stereotyping occurs in the form of negative attitudes that the older generation has towards the youth. This paper argues that the negative view that the older generation has toward teenagers is often biased, subjective, prejudicial and reflective of media portrayal of the youth as arrogant, recklessly adventurous, rude, rebellious, and irresponsible people.
Teenage-hood is the most critical stage in human development, as it represents the period individuals develop physically, intellectually, psychologically, and socially. Although teenagers are prone to behave in a relatively similar manner during this developmental stage, there can also be developmental variations depending on the individual genetic characteristics, which would play a major role in the onset of the adolescent’s behavioral, biological and hormonal changes. Thus, the wholesale manner in which the youth are judged and given collective tags fails to recognize individual differences. For instance, some individuals are naturally extroverted while others are introverted. The former would tend to be adventurous and talkative/argumentative, traits that could be easily interpreted as reckless and being big-headed. One vital aspect that the older generation fails to take into consideration when judging teenagers is the modern, computer and information technology-driven environment of their upbringing. As they are exposed to an increasingly information-intensive and competitive environment, the youth have to adapt to these changes. Not surprisingly, therefore, they display behavioral patterns that are misinterpreted by the largely conservative older generation as recklessness and big-headedness.
It goes without saying that each generation experiences and grows up in different social environmental from the previous one. These varying social contexts often lead to behavioral departures that result in stereotypes as each older generation views their successors as deviating from the set norms and the acceptable social values. These departures have been viewed from a biased and subjective mind of the older generation hence resulting into a fallacy that everything associated with teenagers is destructive and socially unacceptable. For instance, wearing of tight tops and miniskirts, wearing of dreadlocks and earrings among male youths is viewed negatively within the older and conservative age groups. Such dress codes are regarded as immoral, and it is common for the subjects to be labeled as homosexuals or social misfits. However, these lifestyles are increasingly becoming acceptable within mainstream institutions, and soon could be viewed as normal as the traditional dress codes.
While it is a stated fact that there exist various challenges and changes among the youth, it should also be noted that most of the changes that occur during teenage-hood are positive and beneficial teenagers. It can be determined by a degree of conviction that most youth undergo this transitionof adolescence successfully and become very productive members of the society. Some engage in new discoveries and advancement of technology through their adventurous and risk-taking tendencies that earn them the tag of recklessness. Was Bill Gate an irresponsible, reckless youth when he left college and founded Microsoft? It is not surprising that some of the most successful inventors in history were individuals who seemed to rebel against the norm during youth. In the Canadian society, it has been shown that the youth believes in their ability to make a positive contribution in society by being proactive and taking calculated risks to discover and exploit new opportunities. Indeed, there is overwhelming evidence that most young people, contrary to the stereotypical tags of social deviance, irresponsibility, and recklessness, place a high value of honesty, sense of value, education and look forward to having a brighter future (Bostrom 2000). Consequently, despite there being ample evidence that show the youth’s significant contribution to promoting a better society through participation in community development projects, social work and in health-enhancing activities, they are still regarded as failures by the older generation.
Social Attitudes associated with Teenage-hood
On many occasions, the widely held notions associated with the youth are negative in nature. Adults usually describe the youth in pejorative terms that portray them as irresponsible, lazy and generally disrespectful. On more than average probability, uncomplimentary words are usually employed in describing the Canadian youth. Some of the pejorative expressions that are commonly associated with the teenagers include wild behavior, sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, and violence (Bostrom 2000). In fact, fewer than half of adults in north America in general and Canada in particular think that that youths will have any positive impact on the future prospects of their country.
In the contemporary world, views about the youth are based on bias, shaped by the theoretical and cultural dynamics that are taken as positive values by the old generation. In the strong view embedded in the minds of the older folks, teenage-hood is regarded as a risky and delicate stage in life that marks the transition to adulthood. The process is considered as stormy and stressful (Harold, Colarossi, and Mercier 190). Such theoretical perspectives have been used, sometimes at the expense of the youth’s character, to explain the different changes that the youth undergo physically, psychologically, emotional and socially as they navigate through adolescence. These theories and development models have tried to professionally describe why youth have to undergo such pathological developments. Basically as it has been known from time immemorial, stereotypes are based on generalization which more often than not is contradic...