Teensview. Risorse e prospettive di preadolescenti e adolescenti: una ricerca nel contesto piacentino

The condition of youth in Italy has long been the subject of surveys that constantly monitor its demographic evolution, opinions, habits and consumption. In recent years, statistics have recorded a significant increase in the indices of distress and disorientation among preadolescents and adolescents in our country, however, in line with a trend that is also reflected internationally. Public concern about growing malaise, exacerbated by media insistence on episodes of violence or self-harm, risks generating an exclusively negative narrative and altering, in girls and boys themselves, their perception of themselves, of their efforts and of their possibilities. This research, promoted by the Center for Contexts, Affections and Educational Relationships (CARE) of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, under the scientific direction of Daniele Bruzzone and Sonia Ranieri, involved more than 700 students from first and second grade secondary schools in Piacenza and its province, in order to explore their level of psychosocial well-being and the individual, family and social resources on which it is based. The result is an image of preadolescence and adolescence as an existential transition that, while presenting elements of uncertainty and sometimes suffering, can nonetheless be faced with confidence if one cultivates the resources proper to this age (such as, for example, the search for meaning and values) and if one is adequately supported by a family, school and extracurricular context capable of listening to and valuing the enormous potential of the younger generations.