The hybridisation of adolescents’ worlds as a source of developmental tensions: A study of discursive manifestations of contradictions

The article explores developmental tensions in Finnish adolescents' accounts of their different worlds. By understanding tensions experienced by students, educators can develop their pedagogical practices to address those tensions. Building on cultural-historical activity theory, we analysed 12 interviews of 8th graders, focusing on their experiences in six worlds: family, school, peers, digital, civic, and future activity. The adolescents experienced their worlds as mutually penetrating hybridised configurations. Hybridisation is a source of tensions. Using the method of analysing discursive manifestations of contradictions, we identified tensions ranging from dilemmas to conflicts, critical conflicts and double binds. These represented all the six worlds, with school being the host of the largest number of tensions. The school emerged as a site of conflicts, civic involvement as a source of hesitation and doubt, and future as a source of some degree of desperation. About half of the manifestations were hybrid, involving more than one world. The world of school was most highly hybridised, and the most hybridised was the relationship between school and peer activity. For these adolescents, the challenge is not just moving from one world to another; dwelling in one single setting such as the school means facing tensions generated by hybridisation. Tensions stemming from the intrusion into the school of other worlds cannot be suppressed but should be turned into drivers of expansive learning and development. Our findings are an invitation for the school to become involved in collaborative efforts to address the sources of tensions and transform the practices of schooling accordingly.