Modern society seems to have abandoned the symbolically charged events that used to guide young people’s journey through adolescence into adulthood. High school graduation, first communion, and bar and bat mitzvahs often lack their former power to meaningfully signify entry into a new adult status. What are the consequences for youth of these rituals having been deserted or stripped of their former depth of meaning? In particular, how does the existence or absence of passage rites affect young people who are experiencing difficult life circumstances?

Many writers have recently attempted to address these questions. Their collective responses were ably summarized by Delaney (1995) in the following three interconnected assertions:

1. Rites of passage are central to a successful negotiation of the transition from childhood and adolescence into adulthood.

2. The modern world does not provide adolescents with enough rites of passage or sufficiently meaningful ones.

3. Without meaningful passages, young people may evolve their own rites and rituals, often with disastrous consequences.

Rites of Passage Defined

Initiation rites—prosocial and adult-sanctioned, as well as antisocial—are understood to consist of four stages. First, the candidate is separated from society in some manner. Second, a period of preparation is undertaken, generally guided by a non-parental elder (often referred to as mentorship). Third, a transitional action or drama is enacted. This symbolic event— the vision quest, for example—tends to be highly charged with emotionally laden symbolism. Usually, the transitional drama includes special dress or body decoration, and the associated rituals are undertaken with emotional intensity. At this point, the candidate has one foot in childhood or his or her past status and one foot in the adult world or the new association. Finally, the successful candidate is brought back into society and greeted into his or her new identity (acknowledgment) (Delaney, 1995; Vizedom, 1976).

Although, as Edward Butler states later in this issue of Reaching Today’s Youth, this sequence of actions that marks the passage from youth to adulthood seems to fill a powerful psychological need, mere actions are not sufficient. Effective passages require deep, spiritual meaning: a rite of passage is a spiritual and psychological undertaking; one dance, one book cannot be expected to achieve the internal shift from childhood to adulthood. Sufficient time must be contributed by the elder, the initiate, and the community. (Delaney, 1995, p. 897)

Recognition by all parties of the importance of these adulthood rituals seems to be central to creating their meaning and ensuring their subsequent success. Without acceptance of these stages by the adult world, young people are caught in a limbo—many existing as biological adults, but lacking the lore and permission from elders to fruitfully take on satisfying, grown-up actions. They may be seen as playing at adulthood rather than thoroughly embracing healthy, sanctioned roles.

This lack of culturally significant recognition of adulthood has caused many scholars to propose the reinstitution of rites of passage. Robert Bly’s book Iron John (1992) is one example of the call for more mentoring by elders of adolescent males into adulthood. The transition movement in special education is another example of the new importance being placed on adolescence as a period of transition. The Africentric rites of passage movement exemplifies efforts to recover formalized rituals that have roots in traditional African folkways.

In This Issue

Passage rites can be viewed as both an analytic model for understanding adolescents’ problems and as an aspect of treatment programs for troubled youth. Articles in this edition of Reaching Today’s Youth tackle both aspects of ritualized passages. The authors selected for this issue explore the phenomena of such adolescent rites and investigate their uses and some potential abuses.

A first section of the journal, "Rediscovering Passages to Our Past," focuses on finding one’s adult self by looking back to one’s personal history, cultural heritage, or the rituals of past eras. In "Two Native Americans’ Journeys Home," Leah Prussia and Darla Krom relate geographical and cultural passages that became part of their professional development as youth and social welfare workers on North Dakota reservations. Both stories involve the rediscovery of Native American roots.

Paul Hill, Jr., director of East End Neighborhood House in Cleveland, Ohio, proposes healing among troubled African-American youth through authentic Africentric passage rites. He articulately advocates for replacing the sometimes "fragmented and fractured" lives of inner-city young men with "dramatic, intense, and forceful" rituals that represent a strong and whole culture.

Mary Ruth Laycock addresses the need for passage rites that transcend traditional, limited gender roles. She paints a gentle and beautiful picture of her own mentoring by one of the six individuals—the "white-haired wise women"—who guided her during her own transition to adulthood.

A second set of articles, "Modern Rites, Destructive Ends," explores the idea that non-sanctioned rites of passage, developed by youth in the absence of sanctioned ones, can be destructive and even deadly. For example, from taking that first sip of alcohol to the binge party, substance use among youth has the intensity and repetitiveness that characterize ritualistic behavior. Edward Butler develops this thesis in his paper "Alcohol Use and Abuse as a Rite of Passage."

"Where do kids get their myths today?" asked Joseph Campbell (1988) in The Power of Myth. "They make them up themselves. This is why we have graffiti all over the city. These kids have their own gangs and their own initiations and their own morality, and they’re doing the best they can." Alan Meredith Blankstein and Gilbert "Sandy" Sandoval explore this concept of gang initiation as a rite of passage in their article, "In Gangs We Trust: A Close-Up of the New Induction."

Rituals marking passage from one life stage or role to another necessarily produce insiders and outsiders. One important aspect of such rituals is to produce group cohesion. By taking initiations seriously, members of a group in effect communicate, "You are now ‘in.’ " Of course, these initiates are in contrast with others who supposedly are "out." In developing a taxonomy of the bullying behaviors that mark young people with such outsider status, we noticed that many such nasty behavior patterns recapitulated social rites (such as ritual shunning and excommunication) among adults. One article included in this section deals with such "Rituals of Humiliation and Exclusion" and their potential problems.

Lastly, Ron Garrison traces the developmental pathways of delinquent behavior and how each successive step along the path is often connected to a difficult or traumatic transition or passage. He also describes how these pathways can be turned toward prosocial behavior through appropriate passage rites.

The final section, "Restoring Positive Rituals," includes articles dealing with the effective use of rites and rituals in helping youth find their way successfully to adult life. Ambrose Panico describes how community service projects can become a positive initiation for troubled youth. Tom Harris and John Wilbur’s thoughtful piece on the ritual use of African drumming in a residential treatment program for adjudicated youth provides a concrete example of an Africentric rite of passage as described by Paul Hill earlier in the issue.

This issue of RTY continues with two regular features: "Advocating for Youth" by Sherry Kolbe, which focuses on the 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and "Personal and Professional Development" by Lyndal Bullock and Ann Fitzsimons-Lovett, which focuses on peer mediation.

A theme that runs throughout this special issue of RTY is storytelling. After all, passage rituals are a crucial part of the lore that a culture passes along to its members. Positive rituals allow adolescents the space to re-write, re-tell, or re-cast their life stories as full-fledged adults. Passage rites come most alive in these stories of what it is to be an adult, and they are most powerful as effective dramas. So we close with a poignant true story by Kathleen Van Antwerp, "Hey, That’s Sarah’s Song!" that describes a very special rite of passage shared between two young children in need.

We hope these varied perspectives will stimulate your thinking about how to create or revitalize the signs and signals on the road to adulthood in the lives of the youth you serve.

REFERENCES

Bly, R. (1992). Iron John. New York: vintage Books.
Campbell, J. (1988). The power of myth. New York: Doubleday.
Belaney, C. H. (i995). Rites of passage in adolescence. Adolescence, 30, 891—897
Vizedom, M. (1976). Rites and relationships: Rites of passage and contemporary, anthropology. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

About the Guest Editor

John Hoover is an editorial board member of Reaching Today ‘s Youth and an associate professor of education in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of North Dakota. He is director of the Bureau of Educational Services and Applied Research at the same institution. His research interests include bullying and child-on-child aggression and their prevention, transition to adult life in persons with disabilities, and rural special education. He can be reached at the University of North Dakota, Box 7189, Teaching and Learning, Grand Forks, ND 58202-7 189, telephone 701-777-3239, e-mail hoover@badlands.nodak.edu