The paper discusses what we find is becoming a diagnosis of the modern youth. In our view, this diagnosis is about to establish itself as a foundation, not only for theory, but also for educational policy. The diagnosis gives credit to the idea that contemporary youth is in fact individualised, and that educational policy ought to organise institutions in ways that facilitates the individual youth's free choice rather than his or her adaptation to the traditional institutions of mass- education The diagnosis and its followers are inspired by Thomas Ziehe, Anthony Giddens and other theorists of modernity. The followers draw upon their "grand diagnoses" of modern society, and characterises the "general youth" as freed from tradition and culture, and constantly occupied with the creation of their personal identity. It is argued that in this situation, educational institutions must individualise their offerings. Work and education does not occupy a privileged place in the process of identities in the making. Young people nowadays occupy themselves with "navigation" in what is seen as the chaotic society of the late modernity. In order to attract young people, various educations are reformed in ways supposed to meet young peoples alleged need for activities able to play a part in the individual making of identities. Otherwise, educational institutions will not be able to hold on to young people. We ask the following questions. 1. What are the theoretical and methodological implications of the way in which the "new youth" is constructed as an object of scientific investigation? What is brought to the attention of the scientist, and what is left un-illuminated? 2. Does the concept of culturally freed and identity- working youth account for "real youth" behaviour in ways that can act as a scientific foundation for educational and other policies, or rather: What kind of consequences does such a conceptualisation have for the ability to be sensitive to "youth problems" other than those that can be ascribed to individualisation? And, what are the consequences for educational policies? Our empirical focus is on Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Denmark. An educational area that through history has been subjected to numerous reforms. The latest reform of the VET-system (January 1. 2001, known as Reform 2000) is characterized by a complete individualisation of the educations and an ambition of adaptation to each individual student. The students are supposed - in collaboration with her or his contact teacher - to create their own individual education choosing between different modules in order to match their personal "learning style". One of our main theses guiding our research projects is that young people in general are much more differentiated than the proponents of "presumed youth" would have it. It might be the case that concepts like those of individualisation cultural freeing is able to explain nearly all youth behaviour, but our claim is that this exactly what renders those concepts problematic. Towards the end we will discuss other ways of turning student behaviour into an object of scientific understanding. Ways that we would claim is more sensitive to the actual content of the questions and challenges posed to young students in the VET-area. The empirical work we are referring to includes a questionnaire involving 1200 students as well as qualitative interviews. References Bachelard Gaston (1940): La philosophie du non: essai d'une philosophie du nouvel esprit scientifique Paris. Presses universitaires de France, Bourdieu, Pierre; Chamboredon, Jean-Claude; Passeron, Jean-Claude (1991/1968): The Craft of Sociology. Epistemological preliminaires. Berlin, New York. DeGryter. Giddens, Anthony (1991): Modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age Cambridge : Polity. Ziehe, Thomas; Stubenrauch, Herbert (1982): Plädoyer für ungewöhnliches Lernen : Ideen zur Jugendsituation. Reinbek Rowohlt.