TEENAGER ART: CREATING THE SELF

In Hungary, where fine arts and high culture in general were in the focus of educational efforts of art teachers for more than 150 years, educational reforms begun as a result of political changes in 1989 represent an overwhelming challenge. Art teachers of teenagers ready to modify their curricula need insights into the emerging teenage subcultures their students are part of in order to understand their visual world and incorporate in art education. The authors of this paper have collected case studies of symbolization processes of young people between 14-18 years of age and undertook two large questionnaire surveys on the visual environment of adolescents. This paper contrast international youth styles as recorded by T. Polemus in Great Britain and P.-A. Maset et al. in Germany with Eastern European trends , summarise results of the Hungarian surveys and outlines teaching efforts that acommodate the visual language of youth subcultures in order to help adoloescents further on the road of the creation of self.