Dissecting the achievement generation: how different groups of early adolescents experience and navigate contemporary achievement demands

The notion of the achievement society and the achievement generation has, in recent years, become an influential way of explaining the increase in mental health and psychosomatic complaints among Scandinavian youth. However, the theories produced about the social pathologies of twenty-first-century teenage life have been less inclined to empirically investigate the relevance of achievement among contemporary youth. We conducted focus groups and individual interviews with 80 early adolescents from four socioeconomically and geographically distinct schools in Denmark. Our results indicate that the notion of an achievement society and an achievement generation is more present and internalised among adolescents, particularly girls, in the schools located in resourceful areas. Adolescents, and in particular boys, in the schools located within less resourceful areas expressed fewer achievement demands across a number of areas and felt their social status among peers was less intertwined with their ability to perform simultaneously in school, sports, social media, etc. Based on our findings, we conclude that further studies of achievement demands among present-day youth should show more sensitivity towards class, gender and other social categories, in order to reflect on how young people’s standards of self-conduct, and the influence of broader societal imperatives, are intersectionally structured.