Adolescents, Families, and Social Development – How Teens Construct Their Worlds : How Teens Construct Their Worlds

In this book, Smetana illustrates how adolescents and parents in different contexts actively negotiate autonomy and coordinate concerns with autonomy and personal choice with their developing understanding of society and social conventions, safety and health, and moral concerns with justice, welfare and rights.

This book provides an in-depth examination of adolescents’ social development in the context of the family. Grounded in social domain theory, the book draws on the author’s research over the past 25 yearsDraws from the results of in-depth interviews with more than 700 familiesExplores adolescent-parent relationships among ethnic majority and minority youth in the United States, as well as research with adolescents in Hong Kong and ChinaDiscusses extensive research on disclosure and secrecy during adolescence, parenting, autonomy, and moral developmentConsiders both popular sources such as movies and public surveys, as well as scholarly sources drawn from anthropology, history, sociology, social psychology, and developmental psychologyExplores how different strands of development, including autonomy, rights and justice, and society and social convention, become integrated and coordinated in adolescence