When Cultural Professionals Question Their Approaches to Adolescents

An interprofessional day organized by the Réseau Jeune Public au Centre at Équinoxe, Scène nationale de Châteauroux on November 19, 2025, which I co-designed and co-facilitated, brought together one hundred and fifty professionals. Here is an account of what took place, complementing the presentation text that outlined the stakes of this gathering.

An institutional opening under the banner of cultural rights

The morning began with a series of institutional speeches that immediately established the political and philosophical framework for the day. Agnès Rabaté, cultural action coordinator at Équinoxe, opened the session by thanking the Ligue de l’enseignement for the co-organization work carried out over more than a year. She also acknowledged the existence of the Réseau Culture de Châteauroux, an informal collective of artists, educators and facilitators working together on audience engagement with the arts.

Jean-François Mémin, deputy mayor for culture and historical heritage of Châteauroux, emphasized that the perception of culture during adolescence constitutes a central journey in identity construction. He noted the gap between what young people experience as culture and what he called “the legitimate culture dispensed by schools or museums,” pointing to the influence of media in this configuration. In a world marked by crises and cultural fractures, he called for reflection on how to take youth into account in their aspirations for expression and encounter.

Delphine Bénassy, vice-president for culture at the Centre-Val de Loire Regional Council, then developed the regional commitment. She recalled that the Region has adopted a “youth impact clause” stemming from the youth general assembly, which requires evaluating the effect of each public policy on 15-25 year-olds. She emphasized that the regional cultural roadmap, entitled “Culture en partage” (Shared Culture), prioritizes creating the conditions for exercising cultural rights across the territory. She also mentioned a direct challenge from young people during a plenary session of the Permanent Conference for Cultural Cooperation: they had asked that institutions not merely invite them to performances, but also take an interest in their own practices and support their initiatives. She mentioned the recommendations of the Regional Youth Council calling for better access to information about funding, a “cultural laboratory” to experiment with their projects, and networking of young creators at the regional level.

Christine Dinon, Regional Director of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) Centre-Val de Loire, continued by situating this day within the Ministry of Culture’s support for the Réseau Jeune Public au Centre, and in continuity with the work carried out with Scènes d’enfance and ASSITEJ France which, for sixty years, has placed children and young people at the heart of cultural rights. She described adolescence as “a fragile, blazing moment of transformation and search for balance,” where one becomes autonomous through relationships while remaining materially dependent on one’s environment. Emphasizing that “if adolescence is a quest for one’s place, it is up to us to facilitate access to spaces where this quest can be fully lived,” she called for creating spaces where young people’s voices are recognized, where their cultures are not merely tolerated but truly accepted. Her closing phrase left a lasting impression: “In a society that is becoming fragile, culture remains that space where we can still learn to make room for the other and to recognize their rightful place.”

The Réseau Jeune Public au Centre, through its representatives, then traced the genesis of this day: creation of an “adolescence” commission during the December 2023 plenary, a year of collective reflection, shared readings, imagining modes of action. The network established two founding observations: on the one hand, adolescence greatly interests artists who wish to speak to this age group through their creations, but what real place is given to them in these projects? On the other hand, despite the proactive policies of cultural structures, efforts are not always successful, and even when they are, we don’t know if these young people will return. The stated ambition was clear: to move from prescription to listening, to abandon the position of expert in favor of a posture of curiosity.

A conceptual introduction that repositioned paradigms

I spoke for about twenty minutes of introduction, with the aim of proposing common reference points for participants from varied professional backgrounds. I stated from the outset that the day was designed as a space for mutual enrichment, where no one knows better than others, and where methodological disagreements are just as valuable as convergences, because “we are in a democracy, and democracy means debate.”

I drew on several disciplinary fields. In sociology, the work of Camille Peugny shows that there is no homogeneity in youth tastes: the teenager passionate about Pink Floyd today will probably have the same tastes at 35, just like the one who appreciates Maître Gims. This persistence of individual tastes, observable up to age 65, makes futile any attempt to “create a project that will appeal to young people” as a homogeneous category.

In neuroscience, I presented Olivier Houdé’s research on cognitive resistance: if a person feels insecure or afraid, their brain switches to reflex-thinking mode and it becomes neurologically impossible for them to learn anything. Creating a climate of trust is therefore not just a matter of benevolence, it is a scientifically established condition for learning. I also mentioned Marshall Rosenberg and nonviolent communication, which invites us not to assign a role to the other person, not to claim to know what they did or what their intention was—in other words, to consider them as a subject and not as an object.

It was on the definition of cultural rights that several participants told me afterward that my remarks had “repositioned their thinking paradigm.” I proposed a formulation that I hope is clear: in cultural rights, culture is understood in the anthropological sense—what constitutes us, what we love, where we come from, what we think and feel, our tastes. Respecting a person’s cultural rights means recognizing that their culture is legitimate. When a professional judges that a young person’s musical or cinematic tastes “really aren’t great,” they adopt a top-down posture, consider the other as an object rather than as a subject, and in doing so, the young person internalizes that their culture is not legitimate. Not feeling legitimate, they cannot contribute to civic life.

I anticipated the objection of relativism: respecting the other’s culture does not mean that everything is equal, nor that we give up on artistic standards. It simply means taking an interest in the other without questioning our own culture. It means setting up more horizontal relational frameworks, without implying that all cultures are identical. And it is precisely because the other does not feel threatened, not looked down upon, that they become capable of receiving the culture being presented to them.

I cited John Dewey and his conception of art as lived experience rather than as an external object, a philosophy that runs through the new pedagogies from Célestin Freinet to Paulo Freire and that informs the deconstruction of systems of domination by contemporary feminisms. I mentioned Michel Serres and his analysis of the anthropological change linked to digital technology, inviting us to move beyond the imaginary of “screen time” to take an interest in what young people actually do with their digital tools, because judging the other without seeking to understand them means separating ourselves from them and breaking dialogue.

I concluded on the notion of “symbolic third”: the shared cultural project allows us to step out of the dual relationship where one gives instructions that the other must execute. Around this common object, each person can shift position rather than being assigned to a role. And faced with the paradoxical injunction that artists experience—giving young people their place while producing a “quality” result—I proposed a path: documenting the process as much as the result. Telling the story of the journey, what happened, the transformations experienced, which allows us to work on an aesthetics of relationship and not just on an aesthetics of the artistic object.

The circulating forum: five exchange hubs in small groups

The heart of the morning consisted of a circulating forum, a format I had helped design during the preparatory meetings. Rather than a succession of plenary presentations, participants moved freely between five thematic hubs set up in the main hall of Équinoxe, each bringing together several project leaders around a single issue. Three thirty-minute slots allowed visiting three different hubs.

• The first hub focused on adolescent involvement in artistic creation processes, with Ensemble Tout Contre and Compagnie Point Virgule, both from Eure-et-Loir.
• The second concerned support for adolescent projects, represented by Compagnie La Tarbasse and the Maison des Jeunes, de la Culture et des Savoirs de La Châtre; a group of young people was present to testify directly about their experience.
• The third hub dealt with projects in school settings, with Équinoxe, Compagnie La Clef for the Culture & Diversité Improv Trophies, and Compagnie L’Intruse.
• The fourth presented youth cultural committees, with Scène O Centre and the town of Le Poinçonnet.
• The fifth offered an overview of facilitating mechanisms, with the Centre-Val de Loire Region for YEP’s and “Aux Arts, Lycéens et Apprentis!” (To the Arts, High Schoolers and Apprentices!), and the Junior Cultural Associations of the Ligue de l’enseignement.

A preparatory video conference had brought together the speakers a few days before the event, allowing them to calibrate their presentations around methodological questions rather than simple promotional narratives. This format fostered in-depth exchanges in small groups, where participants could ask questions, share their own difficulties, and create direct connections between professionals. A QR code system I had set up allowed everyone to document these exchanges by sharing photos and notes.

A collective creation workshop to live the experience

After lunch, I offered participants a collective creation workshop lasting about thirty minutes. The aim was not to “do an activity” but to live a shared experience before the roundtable, based on the principle that we don’t think the same way after having created something together. This experiential dimension directly connects to John Dewey’s thought mentioned in the morning.

Participants formed teams of five to six people and left the room to create together a staged photograph, a collective creation. The image had to reflect their understanding of the issues discussed during the morning and be identified by the first names of its authors. This last point is not trivial: in terms of cultural rights, putting one’s first name on a collective production means seeing one’s existence recognized in the shared space.

The photos were shared via the QR code and then collectively projected on a large screen. I proposed an unusual viewing method: those who had taken the photo were not allowed to speak, but the others had to reflect back to them what they received from the image. Thus, instead of justifying what we did, the gaze of others allows us to better understand what we did and to legitimize our work. The images produced proved rich and inventive, testifying to the participants’ engagement and the artistic capacities present in each person. The principle of this workshop is documented in detail here.

The roundtable: six perspectives crossing on practices

The roundtable I facilitated brought together speakers with highly complementary profiles:

• Émilie Paris-Robin, psychologist at the Maison des Adolescents de l’Indre, brought the mental health perspective.
• Marion Davy, departmental coordinator for arts and cultural education for the Orléans-Tours Academy, represented the Ministry of Education and notably discussed the culture ambassadors program, volunteer high school students who become cultural liaisons in their schools. She shared a text written by these ambassadors for the high school students’ rights charter, stating that “every student has the right to education and training in the cultural field, as well as to information about their local resources.”
• Irène Bastard, head of the Studies & Research department at Pass Culture, recalled that the application is now used by 90% of young people in an age cohort, constituting an unprecedented observation post on cultural practices. She emphasized the importance of the comprehensive approach inherited from sociologist Dominique Pasquier: individuals always have a good reason for doing things the way they do, and understanding these reasons as expressed by the actors themselves constitutes an essential prerequisite.
• Alban Cozler, project manager at CEMEA France, carried the voice of popular education.
• Margot Bareyt and Nanou Goguel-Gross, from the Labo des cultures at Bordeaux-Montaigne University, presented the results of a study covering five participatory projects, including that of SMAC L’Inconnu in Talence, which created a youth cultural committee around a music project. This project modified the structure’s governance since a young person subsequently joined the board of directors.

The discussions highlighted the question of sociabilities: at adolescent age, cultural practices are linked to peer groups, serving as a space for working on one’s relationship to the world. I emphasized the need to move beyond the opposition between “real” and “virtual”: for generations born with the Internet, the digital realm is not a separate space but a living environment. Social networks, despite their real problems, also constitute spaces of cultural democracy where young people invent languages, practice interactions, and develop knowledge that adults struggle to understand.

A first step that calls for continuation

In closing, the organizers recalled that this day constituted only a first milestone. The question of adolescent participation is vast and constantly evolving. Those most concerned, the young people themselves, were only partially represented, which moreover constitutes a paradox of this type of professional gathering: we talk about young people without them, while seeking precisely to make room for them.

The Réseau Jeune Public au Centre intends to continue this work, in connection with the national project of Scènes d’enfance. Proceedings from this meeting will be produced to keep a record of the exchanges. For my part, several participants came to tell me that the conceptual introduction had transformed their way of thinking about these questions, which touched me. I remain convinced that it is by transforming our own professional practices, the only truly accessible lever for action, that we can move things forward. And this transformation happens through breaking down sectoral silos, shared experience, and recognizing the legitimacy of adolescent cultures as a prerequisite for any authentic encounter.