The changes in life courses and the elimination of firmly defined and clearly delineated stages of life courses have affected primarily young people. Young people as a social group did not melt away in a trans-generational, trans-ideological and plural society of many differences, as it initially appeared; instead, they have transformed themselves into an age group without distinctive features. Consequently, the majority society takes notice of it only when it feels threatened or when it recognises this group as potential consumers. Rather than being a period of "becoming" something or other, modernadolescence is above all a period of "being" - being a student, a consumer, a friend. The value system of individualisation carries with it the seed of new ethics that rest on "obligations to oneself". This seems to be in stark contrast to the traditional ethics based on obligations to others and tosociety as a whole. For young people in Slovenia, the shaping of everyday life and value systems is today part of their daily search for a balance between their personal wishes and expectations on the one hand, and social demands and options on the other. Yet the balance between the expectations anddemands and an individual's competences or capacities for action is conditional and exposed to a number of risks.
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