Schrödinger’s Cat, Charlie, and the Youth Worker: Superpositionality and the State of Being Young

The concept of superpositionality was developed in the first half of last century in quantum physics. Superpositionality describes a condition in which an object can be in two (or more) different and apparently inconsistent states at the same time. According to quantum theory, the state of superposition holds until observation and measurement establishes one state or the other, and the superposition ‘collapses’. The process of observation, description or representation and the instruments used to do these things are implicated in the final state of the object. The theory was famously illustrated through a parable posed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, now known as Schrödinger’s cat. Alongside their adoption in real-world technologies such as quantum computing, quantum concepts are increasingly being applied to problems in psychology and the social sciences. The concept of superpositionality offers a perspective on the state of being a young person: young people occupy adult and non-adult, child and non-child, worker and non-worker, citizen and non-citizen, independent and non-independent positions at the same time. The essay explores the process of youth work, the exercise of observation, assessment and measurement that youth work involves, and the impact on both the young person and the youth worker from a quantum perspective.