Youth Development lecturer Pat Bullen from the University of Auckland says all too often young people are stereotyped, stigmitised and discriminated against. Her ongoing research debunks the myth that adolescents are rude, lazy, self-entitled risk-takers who need fixing.

All too often young people are stereotyped, stigmatised and discriminated against by blanket acceptance that adolescents are rude, lazy, self-entitled risk-takers who need fixing, a youth development lecturer says.

Pat Bullen from the University of Auckland says her ongoing research is painting a different picture.

Irrespective of which generation, she says often people think about the challenges adolescents face in very negative ways, without having it based on any evidence or facts.

However, adolescent Millennials and Gen Z in general are not apathetic as stereotypes might show, she says. In fact they seem to be reflecting on their view of the world, for example in terms of climate change, and the future that awaits them, she says.

Listen to the full interview with Pat Bullen

"There have been others that have looked at this and conducted research in this space, and are really perhaps suggesting that many of our young people maybe are looking to a better world, a better future, and maybe questioning the way things have been going, and is that necessarily a bad thing?

"The ways in which our young people engaged and really stood up and against what we experienced in Christchurch was phenomenal and it was wonderful to see that representation in the media because that is the true representation of our young people - is how they are deeply caring, how they really do reflect and they really do want to make the world a better place."

Another myth on adolescents is that people sometimes believe that they're bound to face turmoil as part of their growth, Bullen says.

"What we know is that 80 percent of people don't experience challenges, that they're actually doing okay.

"A second myth is that we tend to think about these challenges as being based in biology, that young people have raging hormones, that they're driven by their hormones and as a result they have no ability to control or direct their lives in a sensible way.

"The research is clear around this that there isn't in fact raging hormones in adolescence, certainly they're experiencing things for the first time, but again it goes back to the fact that their contexts are changing, they're changing in terms of their school, in terms of their intimate relationships, peers, they maybe experiencing challenges in terms of their family relationships."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details