Adolescents In The Search For Meaning

As is painfully evident from the reports of school shootings, gang violence, dysfunctional family life, and from statistics on adolescent suicide, many teens live troubled lives. Even those who live a normal life still face the challenges adults face, but teens are also engaged in establishing independence and finding their identity. However, few adolescents have the same resources as adults for surviving life challenges. Building from the idea that story is a powerful source of meaning, particularly those stories that resonate with our own lives, this book suggests that the stories of other young adults offer a resource yet to be fully tapped. Adolescents in the Search for Meaning begins from the perspective of young adults by sharing the results of a survey of over 1400 teens and also includes the insights of authors of Young Adult Literature. The book presents over 120 novels that teens have identified as meaningful as well as books recommended by YA authors and experts in the field of YA literature. For any teacher, librarian, parent or counselor wanting to reach young adults, this book is ideal.

The teenage years are the most formative years, and in this day and age where reports of school shootings, gang violence, dysfunctional family life, and adolescent suicide are seen all too often, resources designed to help young adults survive life challe

So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Man’s Search for Meaning tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Viktor E. Frankl’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl includes: Historical context Chapter-by-chapter summaries Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl: Written just after World War II, Viktor Frankl’s international bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning is both a heartbreaking memoir and a source of inspiration for millions of readers. Dr. Frankl’s description of his time in a string of Nazi concentration camps is a fascinating, mandatory read for anyone wanting a better understanding of the Holocaust. A highly respected psychotherapist, his ideas on human emotion, the mind, mental health, tragic optimism, and the day-to-day neuroses of common people in the modern world provide spiritual guidance as each of us searches for meaning in our own lives. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.

The first edition of The Human Quest for Meaning was a major publication on the empirical research of meaning in life and its vital role in well-being, resilience, and psychotherapy. This new edition continues that quest and seeks to answer the questions, what is the meaning of life? How do we explain what constitutes meaningful relationships, work, and living? The answers, as the eminent scholars and practitioners who contributed to this text find, are neither simple nor straightforward. While seeking to clarify subjective vs. objective meaning in 21 new and 7 revised chapters, the authors also address the differences in cultural contexts, and identify 8 different sources of meaning, as well as at least 6 different stages in the process of the search for meaning. They also address different perspectives, including positive psychology, self-determination, integrative, narrative, and relational perspectives, to ensure that readers obtain the most thorough information possible. Mental health practitioners will find the numerous meaning-centered interventions, such as the PURE and ABCDE methods, highly useful in their own work with facilitating healing and personal growth in their clients. The Human Quest for Meaning represents a bold new vision for the future of meaning-oriented research and applications. No one seeking to truly understand the human condition should be without it.

The Encyclopedia of Adolescence breaks new ground as an important central resource for the study of adolescence. Comprehensive in breath and textbook in depth, the Encyclopedia of Adolescence – with entries presented in easy-to-access A to Z format – serves as a reference repository of knowledge in the field as well as a frequently updated conduit of new knowledge long before such information trickles down from research to standard textbooks. By making full use of Springer’s print and online flexibility, the Encyclopedia is at the forefront of efforts to advance the field by pushing and creating new boundaries and areas of study that further our understanding of adolescents and their place in society. Substantively, the Encyclopedia draws from four major areas of research relating to adolescence. The first broad area includes research relating to "Self, Identity and Development in Adolescence". This area covers research relating to identity, from early adolescence through emerging adulthood; basic aspects of development (e.g., biological, cognitive, social); and foundational developmental theories. In addition, this area focuses on various types of identity: gender, sexual, civic, moral, political, racial, spiritual, religious, and so forth. The second broad area centers on "Adolescents’ Social and Personal Relationships". This area of research examines the nature and influence of a variety of important relationships, including family, peer, friends, sexual and romantic as well as significant nonparental adults. The third area examines "Adolescents in Social Institutions". This area of research centers on the influence and nature of important institutions that serve as the socializing contexts for adolescents. These major institutions include schools, religious groups, justice systems, medical fields, cultural contexts, media, legal systems, economic structures, and youth organizations. "Adolescent Mental Health" constitutes the last major area of research. This broad area of research focuses on the wide variety of human thoughts, actions, and behaviors relating to mental health, from psychopathology to thriving. Major topic examples include deviance, violence, crime, pathology (DSM), normalcy, risk, victimization, disabilities, flow, and positive youth development.

From award-winning author Tara L. Kuther comes Adolescence in Context, a topically oriented text that connects learners to the science that shapes our understanding of today′s teenagers and young adults. The book is organized around three core themes: the centrality of context, the importance of research, and the applied value of developmental science. The text presents classic research, current research, and foundational theories, which Kuther frames in real-life contexts such as gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Students will come away with an understanding of the book’s themes and material that they will immediately be able to apply to their own lives and future careers.

Is the world better off because your school is in it? Do you believe schooling has a higher purpose? In Inspiring Purpose in High-Performance Schooling, Mary Anne Heng questions modern-day schooling with its dominant focus on what is efficient and effective in good education and how this is measured. This book critically analyses what really matters in high-performance schooling contexts using Singapore as an example and makes a case for putting purpose at the heart of teaching. Going beyond good education built on evidence-based and reflective practice and the instrumental questions of the “What” and “How” of education, she argues for a view of education as transformation with a deeper purpose that probes the “Why”. Using Singapore as a case example and Israel as a counterpoint, she moves past the rhetoric of developing passion, curiosity, creativity and other 21st-century competencies in high-performance schooling to uncover children’s real experiences of school. Based on research using multiple sources, she analyses surveys with Singapore and Israeli adolescents and in-depth individual student interviews, as well as provides insights from rich discussions and extended field-testing with practicing teachers and educational leaders to inform an urgent call for a new vision in education for the future of education and society—one that celebrates achievement with larger purpose for the wider world. A valuable academic and resource text for teachers, school leaders, policymakers and graduate students in education programmes, as well as education researchers in the fields of educational leadership and change, curriculum, teaching and learning, and youth purpose.

The church is struggling with the gap between the church and adolescents. Over the last decades, the problem of ‘bridging the gap’ was often outsourced to youth ministry in different forms, such as special youth workers, faith-learning programs, local activities, national events, holidays, and education of youth leaders. However, the overall conclusion is that over the last ten years, traditional youth ministry forms cannot function as the bridge they should be; the gap is too deep and too wide, or perhaps the metaphor of the gap is no longer appropriate to describe the current situation regarding the church and adolescents. This book aims to provide a creative and innovative contribution to the search for new paradigms in youth ministry. This book shows that small groups are very important for adolescents. The natural social environment greatly influences adolescents in their process of transformation from childhood to adulthood, including faith socialization. The emphasis on the natural social environment can be defined as follows: “Being goes before organizing, and the individual cannot ‘be’ without others.” Briefly, “being together as a basic given.” The conclusion of this book is that youth ministry needs a twofold turn: a turn from the individual to the communal, and a turn from an organized environment to a natural environment.