Neither adult-centrism nor stigmatization: adolescents as protagonists
Pablo Vommaro y ezekiel perez
What now? May 8, 2026
The tragedy in San Cristóbal, in the Argentine province of Santa Fe, where a teenager entered a secondary school armed and fatally wounded a 13-year-old, has once again brought to the forefront the debate about the place of adolescence on the public agenda. Beyond criminological analysis, it is clear that adolescents only make headlines again when such an abhorrent event occurs. And even then, in most cases, they are portrayed through a lens of stigma and an adult-centric perspective.
If we combine the San Cristóbal incident with the law that lowered the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years in March 2026 (that is, people can be prosecuted as adults from the age of 14), the operation of criminalization and denial of capabilities is more profound.
Thus, adolescence today appears, at best, merely as a bridge connecting childhood and youth, with little specificity, blurred and diffuse. Given this, it is important to emphasize the need to think about and understand adolescence (in the plural) not only as a specific moment in people's lives, but as a situated, relational, socio-historical, and culturally situated and shaped construct. The three compilations we published under the title *Adolescence in Argentina: A Necessary Challenge* with the University Publishing Group aim toward this objective, featuring contributions from more than 50 authors from at least 10 Argentine provinces.
Currently, it seems that the importance of adolescence lies solely in this intermediate stage, in its preparatory nature, and, as is often the case with youth, in its definition by negation. They are the other NEETs. Neither children nor young people: adolescents. A labeling process based on lack that denies abilities and potential.
General Comment No. 20 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the effectiveness of children's rights during adolescence, from 2016, highlights that States parties lack reliable data on this particular social group and have not invested sufficiently to guarantee the exercise of their rights. The same comment emphasizes the importance of targeted, individualized public policies.
Inaction and lack of results have a high cost: the foundations established during adolescence in terms of emotional security, health, sexuality, education, skills, resilience and understanding of rights have profound consequences, not only for the optimal development of the person, but also for present and future social and economic development1.
Adolescence as a necessary time
In recent decades, adolescence has become a necessary stage in people's lives and in social dynamics. Therefore, we believe it is crucial to reinvent adolescence, recognizing its importance in the development and evolution of individuals and social life. It can be named in many ways: late childhood, early youth, adolescence. The key is to understand and unravel its unique characteristics, without precise, definitive, or absolute boundaries, but with visible and verifiable specificities. It is urgent to transform the societal perspective that is currently focused more on negativity than on positive or empowering experiences.
We therefore consider adolescence as a specific, pivotal moment that entails multiple transformations in subjective constructs and ways of life. Far from diminishing its uniqueness and potential, this challenges us to understand its capabilities and contributions to social life, guaranteeing rights and recognizing its diversity.
This leads us to understand the generational configuration of adolescence as a process of subjective construction, encompassing familial, social, economic, cultural, political, territorial, gender, and epochal dimensions. Therefore, we speak of adolescence situated within unique spatio-temporal dimensions.
In this regard, it is absolutely essential that social adults move away from the all-too-common stigmas, such as “they are lost,” “it’s pointless to help them,” “they are impossible to understand,” which only lead to abandonment by the institutions responsible for guaranteeing their rights and recognizing them as individuals with their own capacities. Instead, we propose an empathetic approach to their daily realities and lived experiences in order to understand them in their diversity and complexity and, if necessary, to promote changes and shifts based on this situated understanding, which acknowledges, makes visible, and listens.
The adult-centric view of adolescence that constantly reinforces these stigmas and labels is losing ground as this social group gains greater recognition in terms of rights and the ability to exercise them for themselves.
One of the significant rights recognized in recent years, specifically in 2012, was the extension of voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds. Much was said about the capacity of adolescents to decide who would legislate and govern the country, province, or municipality where they live. Even media coverage questioned their ability to make autonomous, sound, and responsible decisions. “Expansion of rights or political exploitation of adolescents?”² were some newspaper headlines. We believe that this expansion of rights implies recognizing that adolescents' decisions and discernment have value and that they can choose judiciously, as judiciously as adults, even if that judgment is constructed differently. It is a right that makes them part of society. And therein lies the true key to the concept of a subject of rights. Adolescents often face labels regarding their abilities, stigmas about their actions, and prejudices about their ideas. The adult world often longs for adolescence, but does not recognize adolescents as full subjects, with the capacity to make decisions about immediate and general public affairs.
Furthermore, the recognition of the right to vote raises other issues regarding the possibility of being not only voters but also elected officials, and exposes contradictions in terms of opportunities for participation in educational or community settings. Adolescents are beginning to demand greater levels of involvement in the socio-political decisions of their daily lives and in the various spheres where they typically construct their worlds.
In present-day Argentina, there are many diverse experiences across communities and even subnational states that are carrying out emancipatory practices and initiatives with and from adolescents (not so much for or about them), and we believe it is essential to recognize them. It is crucial to acknowledge that the articulation between the state and community/territorial dimensions is fundamental in our country and in Latin America for strengthening the public sphere. And given the critical global situation, we know that the consolidation and expansion of the public sphere is one of the paths to overcoming the crisis we are experiencing and to preventing similar situations in the future.
Indeed, the times we live in have deepened, amplified, and intensified social inequalities. This is most evident when we consider them from a multidimensional perspective. And precisely one of the dimensions of inequality that has grown the most in recent years is the generational one. Adolescents, then, unfold their lives in a situation of increasing inequality that encompasses spheres such as education, territory, employment, and gender identity, among others. In turn, adolescents are shaped by difference, by diversity. Alongside inequalities, these diversities or pluralities are epochal markers that configure their everyday lives.
Given this situation, it is essential to strengthen public policies that counteract the social dynamics that produce and reproduce inequalities, promote equality by recognizing diversity, empower adolescents by fostering active listening, and are developed in a participatory, cross-cutting, and comprehensive manner. In this way, we can contribute to building a more just, democratic, and free society in which adolescents are recognized as protagonists and are not relegated to fulfilling the roles assigned to them by adults and dominant interests.
It is necessary to address the problems that today's adolescents face, linked to the digital world, school bullying, and cycles of violence that are perpetuated and sustained even by those in positions of power and the State. Understanding 21st-century adolescents means integrating them, actively listening to them, recognizing them, and empathizing with them. It means considering them in their uniqueness, as a social group with particularities and capabilities, rather than simply a bridge between childhood and adolescence.
Pablo Vommaro He is a postdoctoral fellow in Social Sciences, childhood and youth, a university professor and Executive Director of CLACSO.
ezekiel perez, lawyer, is a teacher and member of the Network of Childhoods and Adolescences, RIA.
Notes
1 General Comment No. 20 (2016) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: on the effectiveness of the rights of the child during adolescence (CRC/C/GC/20)
2 https://www.lavoz.com.ar/opinion/ampliacion-derechos-o-uso-politico-adolescentes
