Psychosocial Development during Adolescence : Progress in Developmental Contexualism

Taking a developmental contextualist perspective, and with a focus on social class, ethnicity and gender, this impressive collection explores how research on adolescent psychosocial development has unfolded from the 1970s to the present.

John Hill used four classes of variables and their interrelations to conceptualize the phenomena of adolescence. Can these variables provide a context for conceptualizing, investigating, and understanding adolescent psychosocial development today? Taking a developmental contextualist perspective, this impressive collection of scholars explores how research on adolescent psychosocial development has unfolded from the 1970s to the present. Focusing on the issues of social class, ethnicity, and gender, they examine such topics as autonomy in adolescence and the detachment debate; sexuality from trends in gender sexual scripts to sexual offenses, such as date rape; intimacy from individual differences to interpersonal situations; achievement from school/workplace to social settings; identity, including the role of culture; cognitive behaviors, including education for and constraints on critical thinking; and the interplay of biological and psychological processes. Readers of this stimulating volume will gain a new perspective on the role of biopsychosocial factors and the contextual influences of gender, race/ethnicity, and social class in understanding adolescent behavior and development. Psychosocial Development During Adolescence contains information vital to the research and work of professionals in developmental psychology, adolescent studies, psychology, family studies, and drug/substance abuse studies.