The Changing Adolescent Experience

This book examines changes that are likely to impact adolescents' lives and their futures as adults.

Adolescenceâ€"beginning with the onset of puberty and ending in the mid-20sâ€"is a critical period of development during which key areas of the brain mature and develop. These changes in brain structure, function, and connectivity mark adolescence as a period of opportunity to discover new vistas, to form relationships with peers and adults, and to explore one's developing identity. It is also a period of resilience that can ameliorate childhood setbacks and set the stage for a thriving trajectory over the life course. Because adolescents comprise nearly one-fourth of the entire U.S. population, the nation needs policies and practices that will better leverage these developmental opportunities to harness the promise of adolescenceâ€"rather than focusing myopically on containing its risks. This report examines the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development and outlines how this knowledge can be applied, both to promote adolescent well-being, resilience, and development, and to rectify structural barriers and inequalities in opportunity, enabling all adolescents to flourish.

The Adolescent Experience places the college student at the very heart of the book. The authors engage in a dialogue with the reader that is warm, caring, and often humorous as they write and share material about this time of life. The authors emphasize the role that development and society play in the lives of young people. The book has a solid research basis with a historical and multicultural focus. But most important, the book is practical and applied with the strongest prevention/health promotion material available in any basic undergraduate adolescent psychology text currently on the market. Key Features * Focuses on health promotion and illness prevention * Provides not only a U.S. but also a much needed Canadian perspective to this life stage * Involves students as participants in a long-standing inquiry into the nature of adolescence as they are introduced to the latest research in the field * Provides students with the latest practical information in subject areas like sexuality, drugs and alcohol, suicide and depression, eating disorders, crime, delinquency, and violent behavior * List server links student and/or instructor to authors * Explores the uniqueness of North America's multi-culturalism * Illustrates important concepts using literature and social history to make them tangible to students

Adolescence is one of the most fascinating and complex transitions in the human life span. Its breathtaking pace of growth and change is second only to that of infancy. Over the last two decades, the research base in the field of adolescence has had its own growth spurt. New studies have provided fresh insights while theoretical assumptions have changed and matured. This summary of an important 1998 workshop reviews key findings and addresses the most pressing research challenges.

The opening of the borders to Eastern Europe has expanded our view on European diversities and offered new opportunities to examine the effects of the heterogeneity in European cultural backgrounds and political systems on personality and social development. This book is a first step in utilizing the rich cultural resource offered by the large number of cultural units represented in Europe and--at least in part--in the United States. One way to understand the life conditions of adolescents in different countries is to study what they actually do in everyday life and how much time they spend on what types of activities. This book also provides essential and new information about individual and societal priorities and values. Toward this end, the "Euronet" scientists set up a postdoctoral training workshop on adolescent psychology for 10 selected American and 10 selected European participants. The Euronet project comprises 13 different samples--six stemming from Middle and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, the Czechoslovakian Federal Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Romania), six from Western European countries (Finland, France, Germany, Norway, French, and German Switzerland), and one from the United States (Michigan). This book reports the results of this large, cross-national, longitudinal study of adolescents and the world(s) in which they live, and is offered to all those who have an interest in adolescence and/or the diversity of Europe. Readers will learn about hundreds of features of adolescence which are more or less characteristic of the cultures, ages, and genders.

This volume contains pioneering work on the relation between adolescent experiences and adult work outcomes. It assembles evidence of the effects of adolescent work experiences on adult work experiences in a single volume highlighting the demand for research on this important topic.

Scholars analyze the emergence of youth culture in music and powerful trends in gender and ethnic-racial representation, sexuality, substance use, and violence in the media in this text. It shows the evolution of teen portrayal, the potential consequences, and the ways policy-makers and parents can respond.