Building research on youth. Review of Urteaga, Maritza (2011). La construcción juvenil de la realidad. Jóvenes mexicanos contemporáneos. Mexico: UAM/Juan Pablos Editor, 443 pp.

Abstract

The youth approach, or the approach from the youth subject, is a socio-historical approach to the construction and action of young subjects, better observed in the plural than in the singularity of psychobiological approaches (trapped in the concept of “adolescence”), which presuppose an entity in a process of growth and learning. In this respect, Maritza Urteaga is one of the researchers with the longest track record, and in this work she presents an extensive review of how young people actively intervene in reality through their contributions to and critiques of the social system, by understanding youth social spaces in which young people appear as producers of meaning in their cultural practices and productions, anchored in everyday life.