Abstract
After China''s reform and opening up, the individual’s life course once again experienced a new standardization process. Specifically, the contents, tasks and challenges over the course of childhood, youth, and old-age have been changed according to the economic rearrangements. As powerful consumers, the main group of migrants and indicators of social changes, youth and adolescents are especially prominent and worthy of attention. This article analyzes the situation of young migrant workers and the ways in which they dream and make decisions about their future in a Taiwanese-owned factory in Shenzhen. It explores how the changing concept of adolescents has become a social mechanism for justifying the marginalization process which has taken place among contemporary Chinese rural youth and their in-between, belong-no-where situations. At first glance, ''marketized adolescents'' encourages Chinese youth to become more and more individualistic, emphasizing individual freedom and individuality. But in fact, it is less about the individual’s development and more about the way in which state, society and market justify its change after marketization and obscure the resulting social inequality and discrimination.