I'm Adult! Aren't I!

Essential reading for policy makers and practitioners alike Seeks to address juvenile delinquency by advocating new government policies regarding youth socialization. Takes the youth crime debate further by looking for answers in societies other than our own and argues for rites of passage for young people Im Adult! Arent I! is a book with a mission: to create adults out of children. Other societies manage this well, theres no reason why ours should not. In the matter of socializing unruly youth, we find success in societies some poor, some not so poor that are highly ritualised. In Im Adult! Arent I!, Geoffrey Ben-Nathan applies lessons to be learned from these societies to the difficulties of young people in our own communities. The book asserts that juvenile delinquency and anti-social behaviour are childrens own impromptu substitutes for rites of passage. All too often we have crimes of passage that might have been pre-empted by a rite of passage. Only by the process of rite and ritual, Ben-Nathan argues, can people, children included, be translated quickly and successfully from one social status to another. Having analysed the role of ritual and myth in such transitions, Im Adult! Arent I! concludes with an imaginative but viable rite of passage suited to the conditions of our own society. This book represents a break-through in understanding anti-social youth behaviour and identifying the real cause of youth crime. In doing so, it offers us the heady prospect of a practical means of transforming our youth into young citizens of whom we can all be justly proud.