Auswahl der wissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Thema „Adolescence – juvenile fiction“

This paper presents the main findings of a research project on teen series, which are television fiction series featuring teenagers and specifically targeted at a young audience. The analysis of the portrayal of young people in television fictional series specifically targeted at a young audience has a meaningful value both for television production and for audience reception. In fact, the potential consumers of the teen series –the teenagers– find themselves at a key moment in the construction of their identities. First, the article presents a review of the background literature on young people’s portrayal in television fiction series. Secondly, it discusses the concept of teen series and their relationship with youth consumption. Finally, the article presents a case study that consisted of a content analysis of the North American teen drama Dawson’s Creek. Content analysis was conducted on a representative sample of three seasons of the show, in order to analyse two groups of variables: the variables of the characters’ personalities and those of plot and story characteristics. The article discusses the results of the second group of variables, focusing on the main characteristics of the plots and on the characters’ roles in the development and resolution of the conflicts. Acceptance of one’s personal identity, love and friendship have been identified as the most highly recurring themes. In addition, the importance of social relationships among the characters in the development of plots and conflicts has been highlighted.Se presentan los principales hallazgos de un estudio sobre las «teen series», es decir las series de ficción televisiva protagonizadas por personajes adolescentes y dirigidas expresamente a una audiencia juvenil. El análisis del retrato de los jóvenes representados en productos específicamente dirigidos a un público juvenil tiene un valor muy significativo tanto por la producción de ficción como por la recepción, ya que los consumidores potenciales se encuentran en un momento clave del proceso de construcción de sus identidades. Después de repasar los principales antecedentes en el estudio de la representación de los jóvenes en la ficción televisiva, se describe el marco conceptual relativo a las «teen series» y se discute su relación con el consumo juvenil. Sucesivamente se presenta un estudio de caso que consiste en un análisis de contenido de la serie norteamericana «Dawson’s creek», realizado sobre una muestra representativa de tres temporadas de la serie, para analizar dos grupos de variables: variables relativas a los personajes y variables relativas a las tramas y a los conflictos. Se discuten los resultados relativos al segundo grupo de variables, con particular atención a las características de las tramas y al papel de los personajes en el desarrollo y en la resolución de las mismas. La aceptación de la identidad personal, el amor y la amistad han resultado ser las temáticas más recurrentes. Además, las relaciones sociales entre los personajes han resultado ejercer un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de las tramas y de los conflictos.

When we read crime fiction, we oftentimes expect a cast dominated by adult characters. This is likely a result of decades’ worth of popular crime fiction narratives almost exclusively containing adult characters. The earliest literature in the mystery and crime genre that was targeted towards younger audiences contained teenage detectives and adult criminals because it allowed the younger audiences to read about powerful teenagers overthrowing adult authority while still only engaging in acceptable moral activities in an attempt to decrease or discourage juvenile delinquency. A newer trend among young adult crime fiction novels is the adolescent playing the part of the criminal in addition to the detective. Applying social cognitive theory explored in the study conducted by Black and Barnes to the roles of adolescents in Karen M. McManus’s young adult mystery novel One of Us Is Lying and its sequel One of Us Is Next, this paper will analyze the novels’ adolescent characters to show how adolescent characters in young adult crime fiction reflect their young audiences’ desires to subvert adult hierarchies while still displaying acceptable morals and how they possibly influence their sense of morality.

Central Stories is a series of interconnected stories about students at a fictional high school. Each story focuses on a pair or small group of students who are grappling with issues of gender identity, sexual orientation, and changing friendships. These stories explore varying aspects of the coming out processes, as well as attendant character-developments related to adolescence.

This study describes a content analysis of six contemporary young adult fiction novels. Adolescence is a time of great change, particularly for girls. It is during this time that female adolescents develop their voice and identity. As literature reflects the reader’s world, it also affects in part how female adolescents perceive their identity. Latent content analysis was used to code eight variables to determine if select contemporary young adult fiction novels appropriately describe the development of identity among adolescent females. All of the novels included in the study provided sufficient evidence of accurate portrayal of female adolescent identity development, by having examples of at least four out of eight variables, with most having examples of seven out of eight variables.

Whisper was a reject, living in a world so polluted and damaged that many humans and animals alike were born with defects. She'd grown up in an outcast camp far from any village, and those who lived in the camp were like her: disfigured. But on her sixteenth birthday, Whisper's father came to take her back to the village where she was to fill her mother's vacated spot and perform duties for the family. Her job was to cook, clean, wash the clothes, and maintain the family property. At night she was chained to the doghouse. Her uncle decided that Whisper could make far more money for the family by other means. He escorted her to the city where he brought her to the Purgatory Palace which was full of people like her, people with disfigurements who had been abandoned by their families and lived in the city for one reason only -to beg for money. Whisper refused to beg, and instead used the violin she'd received from her mother, and played songs for the money she earned. This became tolerable for a time. But Whisper missed her forest home with an ache as cold as the city and she missed the other rejects from the camp in the woods. When she was accused of attacking a store attendant, she found herself in jail. She was rescued by Solomon, a man who had heard her songs on the street corners and said that she played as only a genius could. He offered her a place at The Conservatory of Music, where she would study the violin with him. Whisper accepted this offer but even though she was warm, safe, and played music every day, she did not fit in at The University and knew that she never would. This is a young adult novel about Whisper, trying to find a place in a world that doesn't accept her. It is a story of rejection, pollution and social status. Whisper discovers that through perseverance, friends and determination, anyone can find a way to fit.

Chapter 7 engages Hong Kong queer filmmaker Yau Ching’s non-fictional works, from her earlier experimental short films made in New York to her feature-length collaborative documentary We Are Alive (2010) made with confined delinquent adolescents in Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan. The transformational and comparative project on juvenile delinquency, adolescent femininities and masculinities, and state-sanctioned social conformity offer an instructive case study of minor transnationalism through a queer lens.

This chapter argues that Clarke’s fiction falls into two categories: farcical pieces filled with adolescent humor--his juvenilia and later texts described as his “mature juvenilia”; and his professional science fiction, which manifests only occasional, and subdued, touches of humor. The young Clarke prefers parodies, puns, wordplay, and slapstick, and he displays a rather cruel sense of humor in jocularly describing various deaths and catastrophes. Yet some early works also show Clarke developing his skill in extrapolation and the development of future worlds as well as his interests in outer space and the oceans. Pieces recalling Clarke’s juvenilia surface through his career, and similar material may someday be discovered in his private journals.