Adolescence is to be regarded as an element of a semantics of crisis, circulating around modern individuality. Literature concentrates on biographies, particularly with liminal phases, orientation insecurity and institutional frameworks. In this volume Rainer Kolk demonstrates that empathic future hopes in the Age of Metternich, were replaced by standardised presentations in the 2nd half of the 19th century. After 1900 adolescence was regarded as a period of transition and lability: adolescent identity is created through a process of crisis. If this corresponds to the impulse set by the New Education Movement accentuating the endangerment of adolescents, then youth concepts derived from different cultural-philosophical perspectives mark a difference in parallel. Adolescence is not only addressee for programs of social and cultural renewal, but also a haven for deviant lifestyles that require disciplining.