The modern conception of youth as well as the contemporary treatment of young people are socially conditioned as much as they are determined by biological fact.
Although not generally understood as a structure of oppression and exploitation, young people in most societies of the world are compelled to work for less money, sometimes no money, or confined to menial jobs and increasingly irrelevant educations. In the United States, there are more young people working for fast food industry then there are coal miners.

Idealization of European forms of civil society has prevented Western comprehension of social and political development in other societies. Conceptions of superiority and universal applicability fuel the West’s appetite to universalize its form of “democracy” and “freedom.”