Abstract
This article shows how efforts to introduce experienced teachers to theories of adolescence as a construct become stymied when such re-conceptualizations of youth included views of youth as sexual. Though re-theorizations of adolescence as a cultural construct potentially affect and disrupt a wide range of traits about adolescence, the trait that posed the greatest obstacle to considering a widely different way of viewing young people was imagining them as sexual. Part of the challenge of rethinking adolescence was detangling conceptions of sexually innocent youth from promises of the happiness to come from a life lived according to social norms that include youths' sexual innocence. Data are analyzed by following teachers' ‘felt investments’ to ideas about youth, as well as affective ‘jumps’ in their reactions to note when teachers felt vulnerable due to what appeared to be contested ideas about youth and about happiness. Data from the beginning of a seven-month study focuses on how teachers respond to theory and literature that challenges adolescent stereotypes.
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