The Secret of Eternal Youth: identity, risk and learning difficulties

Post-war theories of 'youth' as a transitional phase of life are reviewed i n terms of their common assumption about the formation of a stable adult id entity. The post-modern challenge to the assumption of a stable self is out lined together with attempts by theorists of late modernity to hold structu re and agency in creative tension. People with learning difficulties, it is argued, represent an abnormal transition in a Learning Society, thus enabl ing us to understand the nature of transition and identity in such a societ y mom clearly. Ethnographic case studies of a man of 23, a man of 33 and a woman of 43, al l being Down's Syndrome, are presented. The limits of their transition to f ull adulthood are specified in terms of four key markers of adulthood. The paper concludes by reflecting on the purchase of different theories of yout h and identity, and on the politics of learning difficulties.