When is one adult?

Am I an adult now? This question has probably been asked by everyone at least once in their lives. In order to be able to answer this question adequately, either for others or for oneself, it is necessary to determine what it means to be an adult in the first place.
There is an overwhelming number of approaches and definitions, depending on whether one approaches the question from a biological, psychological, sociological, philosophical or legal perspective. Possible answers, none of which can be described as factually incorrect, would be, for example, that an adult is someone who is fully grown physically and capable of reproducing, or that an adult is someone who has the necessary maturity to master his or her life independently and to question his or her actions critically. Or perhaps you are an adult if you are able to ask yourself whether you are? Alternatively, of course, you could say that an adult is someone who has reached the age of 18. Or the 21st year of life. Or the 27th year of life.

Why is one an adult?

Perhaps one should take a step back and consider in what way it is important, indeed whether it can be important at all, to raise a question to which there can obviously be no uniformly convincing answer. To exaggerate: why should anyone care whether any person can legitimately be considered an adult or not?

In everyday life, it is not necessary to be interested in how other people are perceived by their environment, nor in how other people see themselves. As a general rule, one also need not care whether others consider one to be an adult or not. Exceptions to this rule would be, for example, the dealer who does not want to sell you a car because he does not believe that you are an adult (or legally competent) or the judge who considers you mature enough to be sentenced under adult criminal law and not under juvenile criminal law, even if you have not yet reached the age of 21. However, in these cases the issue is not, in the strict sense, whether one is an adult or not, but whether or not certain rights and duties attached to adult status by society are accorded and imposed upon one.

Adulthood at this point is an indicator, almost just a means to an end, to regulate and structure certain aspects of human coexistence. If one is honest, the coupling of adulthood to other factors is purely arbitrary: one week before the 18th birthday one is not allowed to drive a car, one week after the 18th birthday (provided one has a driver's license) one is allowed to. It is highly doubtful that one should have acquired exactly the required maturity and competence in these few days, if this was actually lacking before. It becomes even clearer when comparing different countries and thus cultures: in some countries, 16-year-olds are considered to have sufficient sense of responsibility to be allowed to operate a machine weighing several tons and thus abstractly endanger the lives of other people. In other countries, people are not allowed to drink alcohol at the age of 21 because the legislator believes that these people are not mature enough to be responsible for their own physical well-being, even if this does not involve endangering others.

These examples should not be taken as criticism of the system, because they are not meant that way. They merely illustrate the system’s weaknesses, which result in the fact that there is not or cannot be a universally valid definition of what constitutes an adult that is equally convincing in all areas of life. These weaknesses are caused by embarrassment, for any limit would necessarily be as arbitrary as any other, and yet, for practical reasons alone, there must be some limit. In this sense, it may be of interest to other people whether a particular person is grown-up/of age/mature, even if any formula underlying that assessment is flawed, or at least not entirely convincing.

Why is one an adult in adult education?

But why is the question of when a person is an adult relevant to adult education? Well, to put it bluntly, because adult education has adults in its name. Or, in more detail: because adults are the target group of adult education and in this respect, it is necessary to define this target group in order to make it determinable. Adult education is aimed at people who - at least in theory - should have a certain amount of general education, maturity and sense of responsibility. It should be self-explanatory that in this respect, for example, no pedagogical concepts from kindergarten can be applied to make adult education lessons appealing and effective.
The more precisely a target audience can be outlined, the more precisely and effectively the lessons can be tailored. Young adults have different needs than seniors, even though both groups are identifiable as target audiences for adult education. It is perhaps the young adult group that deserves special attention in this context.

Between the stages of life – young adults

Young adults play a key role in society. Young adults are at the beginning of their working lives, have just completed their school education, are certainly asking themselves the question formulated at the beginning, "Am I an adult now?" and are looking for their place in society. In quantitative terms, they are "more important" for the labour market than older workers, because they will be available for longer. In the course of demographic change, more people will leave working life than will enter it; in this respect, people entering the working life, typically young adults, will have to take on more work than was previously the case. With this comes potentially greater pressure on young adults at a time when, as noted above, they are trying to orient and position themselves in the professional world for the first time anyway. An ever more rapidly changing, digitizing world, in which it is not possible to predict today which job profiles will continue or no longer exist in five- or ten-years’ time, may exacerbate the feeling of insecurity and being lost.

From the point of view of adult education, there is a danger of overlooking precisely this stage of life between "child" and "adult" to some extent: those who have just come out of school, vocational school or university have just completed between 15 and 25 years of education, the need to continue in adult education may not be immediately apparent - neither from the point of view of the young adult, who may not feel like wanting to sit down directly in evening classes, when he has just escaped the dusty lecture halls and libraries, nor from the point of view of the adult educator, who may have a different - older - generalized picture of his average target audience in mind, who may also find it easier to address and motivate an older audience. However, it seems all the more important to also and especially address young adults and offer them assistance.

The European Commission designated 2022 as European Year of Youth. The corresponding legal basis states, among other things: "The European Year should promote the successful implementation of the first principle of the European Pillar of Social Rights, according to which every person has the right to education, training and lifelong learning of high quality and in an inclusive manner." It is important not to think in pigeonholes:

Youth does not stop where adulthood or coming of age begins. Young adults are at the crossroads between two stages of life, and they have the potential, opportunity, and chance to be profitably involved in both stages, for younger people by sharing experiences and serving as role models, and for (older) adults by bringing new impulses, new perspectives, and approaches. The flip side of the coin is that it is precisely this age range that runs the risk of being forgotten by both camps, if you want to call them that, or of being assigned to the other category.

It is up to the young adults themselves but just as much up to every institution, organization, voice and agency involved to make sure that young adults are also seen and heard, that they are supported and allowed to support. Young adults are young. Young adults are adults, too. And it is at this point that youth and adult education can find each other. It's not about what separates us, it's about what connects us.

Career path

I have been working at the National Agency for the European funding programs Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps (located at the Youth Office of the German-speaking Community of Belgium) since November 2018.

Initially, I was responsible there for the evaluation and processing of applications and projects in the areas of school education, vocational training and higher education. Since January 2021, I have also been coordinating the Youth Wiki in the German-speaking Community, the online encyclopedia on the various youth policies in Europe. In January 2022, I handed over the education areas and took over the youth area (both Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps) instead.

Before joining the Youth Office, I studied law at the University of Trier with a focus on international legal systems. Outside of work, I am active in trade unions and other interests include languages, literature, culture and society.

Other publications

• Cornered by Corona, Turning the Tide
• Active democracy in East Belgium: the Citizen Dialogue
• About the rumour of human equality: Access to education
• Media literacy – Limits and opportunities
• What people need for life …
• The communication between teacher and learner