adolescence

1. The period of physical and psychological development from the onset of puberty to maturity.
2. A transitional period of development between youth and maturity: the adolescence of a nation.

For more information on adolescence, visit Britannica.com.

The period of transition from childhood to adulthood. Although sometimes described as beginning in parallel with fertility or puberty and ending with maturity and independence, adolescence has a very variable and imprecise duration. The onset of adolescence cannot be pinpointed in physiological terms, although it is influenced by the same sex hormones and refers to the same general period as physical sexual development. It represents a complex and sometimes disturbing psychological transition, accompanying the requirement for the accepted social behaviour of the particular adult culture.

— Stuart Judge

See development and growth; menarche; puberty.

Adolescence, the period between childhood and adulthood, begins after secondary sexual characteristics (e.g. pubic hair) appear and continues until sexual maturity is complete. It is a period during which bones are still growing and there is a high risk of skeletal injuries. Rapid physical changes are accompanied by important psychological changes relating particularly to the way the adolescent perceives himself or herself. This can be a turbulent time. Parents and others, especially sports coaches and teachers, who work with adolescents must be very sensitive to both the physical and the psychological changes taking place during this period. It is unwise for adolescents to take part in exercises which put undue strain on the growth regions of their bones. This is one reason why they are usually excluded from taking part in long-distance running events, such as marathons.

It is not unusual for an adolescent to add more than 5 kg in body weight and to grow 10 cm in height in one year. Such rapid growth requires good nutrition. Active adolescent boys may need up to 4000 Calories a day, about twice the normal adult requirement. The protein, vitamin, and mineral requirements of adolescents of both sexes are also higher than for adults. Adequate calcium intake is especially important during adolescence to maximize bone density and reduce the risk of osteoporosis in later life. Eating habits acquired during adolescence are often retained for life. Therefore, adolescents should be encouraged to eat a well balanced diet and not to skip meals.

noun

The time of life between childhood and maturity: greenness, juvenescence, juvenility, puberty, salad days, spring, youth, youthfulness. See youth/age/maturity.

Definition: state of puberty, pre-adulthood
Antonyms: adulthood, infancy

The period of human development between the onset of puberty and adulthood. This period is generally marked by the appearance of secondary sex characteristics, usually from 11 to 13 years of age, and spans the teen years.

Definition

Sometimes referred to as teenage years, youth, or puberty, adolescence is the transitional period between childhood and maturity, occurring roughly between the ages of 10 and 20.

Description

The word adolescence is Latin in origin, derived from the verb adolescere, which means "to grow into adulthood." Adolescence is a time of moving from the immaturity of childhood into the maturity of adulthood. There is no single event or boundary line that denotes the end of childhood or the beginning of adolescence. Rather, experts think of the passage from childhood into and through adolescence as composed of a set of transitions that unfold gradually and that touch upon many aspects of the individual's behavior, development, and relationships. These transitions are biological, cognitive, social, and emotional.

Puberty

The biological transition of adolescence, or puberty, is perhaps the most observable sign that adolescence has begun. Technically, puberty refers to the period during which an individual becomes capable of sexual reproduction. More broadly speaking, however, puberty is used as a collective term to refer to all the physical changes that occur in the growing girl or boy as the individual passes from childhood into adulthood.

The timing of physical maturation varies widely. In the United States, menarche (onset of menstruation) typically occurs around age 12, although some youngsters start puberty when they are only eight or nine, others when they are well into their teens. The duration of puberty also varies greatly: 18 months to six years in girls and two to five years in boys.

The physical changes of puberty are triggered by hormones, chemical substances in the body that act on specific organs and tissues. In boys a major change incurred during puberty is the increased production of testosterone, a male sex hormone, while girls experience increased production of the female hormone estrogen. In both sexes, a rise in growth hormone produces the adolescent growth spurt, the pronounced increase in height and weight that marks the first half of puberty.

Perhaps the most dramatic changes of puberty involve sexuality. Internally, through the development of primary sexual characteristics, adolescents become capable of sexual reproduction. Externally, as secondary sexual characteristics appear, girls and boys begin to look like mature women and men. In boys primary and secondary sexual characteristics usually emerge in a predictable order, with rapid growth of the testes and scrotum, accompanied by the appearance of pubic hair. About a year later, when the growth spurt begins, the penis also grows larger, and pubic hair becomes coarser, thicker, and darker. Later still comes the growth of facial and body hair, and a gradual lowering of the voice. Around mid-adolescence internal changes begin making a boy capable of producing and ejaculating sperm.

In girls, sexual characteristics develop in a less regular sequence. Usually, the first sign of puberty is a slight elevation of the breasts, but sometimes this is preceded by the appearance of pubic hair. Pubic hair changes from sparse and downy to denser and coarser. Concurrent with these changes is further breast development. In teenage girls, internal sexual changes include maturation of the uterus, vagina, and other parts of the reproductive system. Menarche, the first menstrual period, happens relatively late in puberty. Regular ovulation and the ability to carry a baby to full term usually follow menarche by several years.

Cognitive Transition

A second element of the passage through adolescence is a cognitive transition. Compared to children, adolescents think in ways that are more advanced, more efficient, and generally more complex. This is evident in five distinct areas of cognition.

First, during adolescence individuals become better able than children to think about what is possible, instead of limiting their thought to what is real. Whereas children's thinking is oriented to the here and now (i.e., to things and events that they can observe directly), adolescents are able to consider what they observe against a backdrop of what is possible—they can think hypothetically.

Second, during the passage into adolescence, individuals become better able to think about abstract ideas. For example, adolescents find it easier than children to comprehend the sorts of higher-order, abstract logic inherent in puns, proverbs, metaphors, and analogies. The adolescent's greater facility with abstract thinking also permits the application of advanced reasoning and logical processes to social and ideological matters. This is clearly seen in the adolescent's increased facility and interest in thinking about interpersonal relationships, politics, philosophy, religion, and morality—topics that involve such abstract concepts as friendship, faith, democracy, fairness, and honesty.

Third, during adolescence individuals begin thinking more often about the process of thinking itself, or metacognition. As a result, adolescents may display increased introspection and self-consciousness. Although improvements in metacognitive abilities provide important intellectual advantages, one potentially negative byproduct of these advances is the tendency for adolescents to develop a sort of egocentrism, or intense preoccupation with the self. Acute adolescent egocentrism sometimes leads teenagers to believe that others are constantly watching and evaluating them. Psychologists refer to this as the imaginary audience.

A fourth change in cognition is that thinking tends to become multidimensional, rather than limited to a single issue. Whereas children tend to think about things one aspect at a time, adolescents describe themselves and others in more differentiated and complicated terms and find it easier to look at problems from multiple perspectives. Being able to understand that people's personalities are not one-sided, or that social situations can have different interpretations, depending on one's point of view, permits the adolescent to have far more sophisticated and complicated relationships with other people.

Finally, adolescents are more likely than children to see things as relative, rather than absolute. They are more likely to question others' assertions and less likely to accept "facts" as absolute truths. This increase in relativism can be particularly exasperating to parents, who may feel that their adolescent children question everything just for the sake of argument.

Emotional Transition

Adolescence is also a period of emotional transition, marked by changes in the way individuals view themselves and in their capacity to function independently. As adolescents mature intellectually and undergo cognitive changes, they come to perceive themselves in more sophisticated and differentiated ways. Compared with children, who tend to describe themselves in relatively simple, concrete terms, adolescents are more likely to employ complex, abstract, and psychological self-characterizations. As individuals' self-conceptions become more abstract and as they become more able to see themselves in psychological terms, they become more interested in understanding their own personalities and why they behave the way they do.

For most adolescents, establishing a sense of autonomy, or independence, is as important a part of the emotional transition out of childhood as is establishing a sense of identity. During adolescence, there is a movement away from the dependency typical of childhood toward the autonomy typical of adulthood. For example, older adolescents do not generally rush to their parents whenever they are upset, worried, or in need of assistance. They do not see their parents as all-knowing or all-powerful, and often have a great deal of emotional energy wrapped up in relationships outside the family. In addition, older adolescents are able to see and interact with their parents as people, not just as their parents. Many parents find, for example, that they can confide in their adolescent children, something that was not possible when their children were younger, or that their adolescent children can easily sympathize with them when they have had a hard day at work.

Being independent, however, means more than merely feeling independent. It also means being able to make decisions and to select a sensible course of action. This is an especially important capability in contemporary society, where many adolescents are forced to become independent decision makers at an early age. In general, researchers find that decision-making abilities improve over the course of the adolescent years, with gains continuing well into the later years of high school.

Many parents wonder about the susceptibility of adolescents to peer pressure. In general, studies that contrast parent and peer influences indicate that in some situations, peers' opinions are more influential, while in others, parents' are more influential. Specifically, adolescents are more likely to conform to their peers' opinions when it comes to short-term, day-to-day, and social matters—styles of dress, tastes in music, and choices among leisure activities. This is particularly true during junior high school and the early years of high school. When it comes to long-term questions concerning educational or occupational plans, however, or values, religious beliefs, and ethical issues, teenagers are influenced in a major way by their parents.

Susceptibility to the influence of parents and peers changes during adolescence. In general, during childhood, boys and girls are highly oriented toward their parents and less so toward their peers; peer pressure during the early elementary school years is not especially strong. As they approach adolescence, however, children become somewhat less oriented toward their parents and more oriented toward their peers, and peer pressure begins to escalate. During early adolescence, conformity to parents continues to decline and conformity to peers and peer pressure continues to rise. It is not until middle adolescence that genuine behavioral independence emerges, when conformity to parents as well as peers declines.

Social Transition

Accompanying the biological, cognitive, and emotional transitions of adolescence are important changes in the adolescent's social relationships. Developmentalists have spent considerable time charting the changes that take place with friends and with family members as the individual moves through the adolescent years.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of the social transition into adolescence is the increase in the amount of time individuals spend with their peers. Although relations with age-mates exist well before adolescence, during the teenage years they change in significance and structure. For example, there is a sharp increase during adolescence in the sheer amount of time individuals spend with their peers and in the relative time they spend in the company of peers versus adults. In the United States, well over half of the typical adolescent's waking hours are spent with peers, as opposed to only 15 percent with adults, including parents. Second, during adolescence, peer groups function much more often without adult supervision than they do during childhood, and more often involve friends of the opposite sex.

Finally, whereas children's peer relationships are limited mainly to pairs of friends and relatively small groups—three or four children at a time, for example—adolescence marks the emergence of larger groups of peers, or crowds. Crowds are large collectives of similarly stereotyped individuals who may or may not spend much time together. In contemporary American high schools, typical crowds are "jocks," "brains," "nerds," "populars," "druggies," and so on. In contrast to cliques, crowds are not settings for adolescents' intimate interactions or friendships, but instead serve to locate the adolescent (to himself and to others) within the social structure of the school. As well, the crowds themselves tend to form a sort of social hierarchy or map of the school, and different crowds are seen as having different degrees of status or importance.

The importance of peers during early adolescence coincides with changes in individuals' needs for intimacy. As children begin to share secrets with their friends, loyalty and commitment develop. During adolescence, the search for intimacy intensifies, and self-disclosure between best friends becomes an important pastime. Teenagers, especially girls, spend a good deal of time discussing their innermost thoughts and feelings, trying to understand one another. The discovery that they tend to think and feel the same as someone else becomes another important basis of friendship.

One of the most important social transitions that takes place in adolescence concerns the emergence of sexual and romantic relationships. In contemporary society, most young people begin dating sometime during early adolescence. Dating during adolescence can mean a variety of different things, from group activities that bring males and females together (without much actual contact between the sexes); to group dates, in which a group of boys and girls go out jointly (and spend part of the time as couples and part of the time in large groups); to casual dating as couples; and to serious involvement with a steady boyfriend or girlfriend. More adolescents have experience in mixed-sex group activities like parties or dances than dating, and more have experience in dating than in having a serious boyfriend or girlfriend.

Most adolescents' first experience with sex falls into the category of "autoerotic behavior," sexual behavior that is experienced alone. The most common autoerotic activities reported by adolescents are erotic fantasies and masturbation. By the time most adolescents are in high school, they have had some experience with sexual behaviors in the context of a relationship. The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), a self-reported survey of a national representative sample of high school students in grades nine to 12, indicated that in 2003, 46.7 percent of the students reported having had sex. By grade level, the rates were 32.8 percent for ninth grade, 44.1 percent for tenth grade, 53.2 percent for eleventh grade, and 61.6 percent for twelfth grade.

Common Problems

Generally speaking, most young people are able to negotiate the biological, cognitive, emotional, and social transitions of adolescence successfully. Some adolescents, however, are at risk of developing certain problems, such as:

• eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia, or obesity
• drug or alcohol use
• depression or suicidal ideation
• violent behavior
• anxiety, stress, or sleep disorders
• unsafe sexual activities

Parental Concerns

Many parents dread the onset of adolescence, fearing that their child will become hostile and rebellious and begin to reject his or family. Although it is incorrect to characterize adolescence as a time when the family ceases to be important, or as a time of inherent and inevitable family conflict, adolescence is a period of significant change and reorganization in family relationships. Family relationships change most around the time of puberty, with increasing conflict and decreasing closeness occurring in many parent-adolescent relationships. Changes in the ways adolescents view family rules and regulations may contribute to increased disagreement between them and their parents. Family conflict during this stage is more likely to take the form of bickering over day-to-day issues than outright fighting. Similarly, the diminished closeness is more likely to be manifested in increased privacy on the part of the adolescent and diminished physical affection between teenagers and parents, rather than any serious loss of love or respect between parents and children. Research suggests that this distancing is temporary, and that family relationships may become less conflicted and more intimate during late adolescence.

When to Call the Doctor

Although changes—biologically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially—are to be expected during adolescence, certain inappropriate behaviors, drastic changes in personality or physical appearance, or abnormal sexual development may warrant a phone call to a physician or counselor. These include:

• extreme changes in weight (loss or gain) or excessive dieting
• sleep disturbances
• social withdrawal or loss of interest in activities
• sudden personality changes
• signs of alcohol or drug use
• talk or threats of suicide
• violent or aggressive behavior
• atypical (early or late) onset of puberty; in girls, failure to menstruate by the age of 16

See also Puberty.

Resources

Books

Steinberg, L. Adolescence, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996.

Periodicals

Blondell, Richard D., Michael B. Foster, and Kamlesh C. Dave. "Disorders of Puberty." American Family Physician 60 (July 1999): 209-24.

Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance: United States, 2003." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 53, no. SS-2 (May 21, 2004): 12-20.

Organizations

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 3615 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016-3007. (202) 966-7300. Web site: www.aacap.org.

Society for Research on Adolescence, 3131 S. State St., Suite 302, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-1623. Web site: www.s-ra.org.

Web Sites

Paulu, Nancy. "Helping Your Child through Adolescence." U.S. Department of Education. August 2002 [cited December 31, 2004]. Available online at: www.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/adolescence/index.html.

Rutherford, Kim. "A Parent's Guide to Surviving Adolescence." KidsHealth. June 2002 [cited December 31, 2004]. Available online at: .

[Article by: Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. Stephanie Dionne Sherk]

The period between childhood and adulthood. Adolescence begins after the secondary sexual characteristics (e.g. pubic hair) appear and continues until complete sexual maturity. It is a period during which bones are still growing and there is a high risk of skeletal injuries. Physical changes are accompanied by important psychological ones relating particularly to the way the adolescent perceives himself or herself (see self-concept). Parents and others, especially sports coaches and teachers, who work with adolescents must be very sensitive to both the physical and psychological changes taking place during this period. It is unwise for adolescents to take part in exercises, which put undue strain on the growth regions of their bones. This is one reason why they are usually excluded from taking part in long-distance running events, such as the marathon.

Adolescence emerged as a concept in the 1890s, when psychologists began investigating the abilities, behaviors, problems, and attitudes of young people between the onset of puberty and marriage. G. Stanley Hall, a pioneer in the study of children and their learning processes, is credited with giving adolescence its first full definition in his text Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education, published in 1904. Hall thought that the stresses and misbehavior of young people were normal to their particular time of life, because he believed human development recapitulated that of human society. For Hall, just as the human race had evolved from "savagery" to "civilization," so too did each individual develop from a primitive to an advanced condition. Adolescence corresponded to, or recapitulated, the period of prehistory when upheaval characterized society and logical thinking began to replace instinct.

A year after Hall's book appeared, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud published an essay in which he identified adolescence as a period of emotional upheaval, inconsistent behavior, and vulnerability to deviant and criminal activity caused by psychosexual conflicts. For the past century, the qualities of anxiety and awkwardness resulting from physiological development and sexual awareness that Hall and Freud emphasized have pervaded popular as well as scientific definitions of adolescence.

Puberty had been a subject of medical and psychological discussion for centuries, but social, economic, and biological changes in late-nineteenth-century Western society focused new attention on the status and roles of young people. The development of industrial capitalism reduced the participation of children in the workforce, while advances in nutrition and the control of disease lowered the age of sexual maturation. As a result, individuals were isolated for a more extended period in a state of semidependency between childhood and adulthood. In the United States, as well as in Europe, researchers and writers in various fields began using the term "adolescence" to apply to the particular era of life when a new order of events and behavior occurred, thereby making it a formal biological, psychological, and even legal category. Terms such as "youth" and, later, "teenager" were used synonymously but less precisely to describe the status of individuals in adolescence. Because adolescence occurred when persons were presumably preparing to enter adult roles in family, work, and community, their needs and guidance assumed increasing importance. Consequently, educators, social workers, and psychologists constructed theories and institutions geared toward influencing the process of growing up.

Rise of a Youth Peer Culture

The age consciousness of American society that intensified in the early twentieth century sharpened the distinctiveness of adolescence. By the 1920s, especially, the age grading and the nearly universal experience of schooling pressed children into peer groups, creating lifestyles and institutions that were not only separate from but also occasionally in opposition to adult power. Compulsory attendance laws, which kept children in school until they were fourteen or older, had a strong impact in the United States, where by 1930 nearly half of all youths aged fourteen to twenty were high school students. Enrollment of rural youths and African Americans remained relatively low (only one-sixth of American blacks attended high school in the 1920s). But large proportions of immigrants and native-born whites of foreign parents attended high school. Educational reformers developed curricula to prepare young people for adult life, and an expanding set of extracurricular organizations and activities, such as clubs, dances, and sports, heightened the socialization of youths in peer groups. As a result, secondary school and adolescence became increasingly coincident.

As high school attendance became more common (in 1928 two-thirds of white and 40 percent of nonwhite children had completed at least one year of high school), increasing numbers of adolescents spent more time with peers than with family. This extended time away from parents, combined with new commercial entertainments such as dance halls, amusement parks, and movies, helped create a unique youth culture. Ironically—though perhaps understandably—the spread of this culture caused conflict with adults, who fretted over adolescents' independence in dress, sexual behavior, and other characteristics that eluded adult supervision. The practice of dating, which by the 1920s had replaced adult-supervised forms of courtship and which was linked to both high school and new commercial amusements, was just one obvious new type of independent adolescent behavior.

Adults expressed concern over the supposed problems of adolescents, particularly their awakening sexuality and penchant for getting into trouble. Indeed, in the adult mind, sexuality stood at the center of adolescence. Male youths especially were seen as having appetites and temptations that lured them into masturbation and homosexuality. Young women's sexuality could allegedly lead to promiscuity and prostitution. As a result, according to psychologists and physicians in the 1920s, adolescence was a time of life that necessitated control, not only by the self but also by parents, doctors, educators, social workers, and the police. Moreover, they believed that peer association—sometimes in street gangs—in combination with the stresses and rebelliousness natural to adolescence, contributed to the rise of juvenile delinquency; in this conception, adolescence made every girl and boy a potential delinquent. Thus, juvenile courts, reform schools, and other "child-saving" institutions were created to remedy the problems that adolescents allegedly experienced and caused.

Adolescence in the Depression and World War II

During the depression years of the 1930s, the potential for intergenerational conflict increased as the scarcity of jobs and low pay for those who were employed thwarted young people's personal ambitions and delayed their ability to attain adult independence. Economic pressures forced many young people to stay in school longer than had been the case in previous generations. By 1940, 49 percent of American youths were graduating from high school, up from 30 percent in 1930. Although adolescents in the 1930s had less disposable income than those in the 1920s, they still influenced popular culture with their tastes in music, dance, and movies.

The expanding economy during World War II brought three million youths between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, about one-third of the people in this age category, into full or part-time employment by 1945. The incomes that adolescents earned helped support a renewed youth culture, one that idolized musical stars such as Glenn Miller and Frank Sinatra and created new clothing styles such as that of the bobby-soxer. Their roles in the national economy and mass culture complicated the status of adolescents, trapping them between the personal independence that war responsibilities provided them and the dependence on family and adult restrictions that the larger society still imposed on them.

Postwar Teen Culture

After the war, the proportion of adolescents in the population in Western countries temporarily declined. Children reaching teen years just after World War II had been born during the depression, when a brief fall in the birth rate resulted in a smaller cohort of people reaching adolescence. Furthermore, a marriage boom followed the war, drastically reducing the age at which young people were entering wedlock; in the United States, the median age at marriage for women declined from twenty-three to twenty-one. By 1960, 40 percent of American nineteen-year-olds were already married.

The marriage boom soon translated into the baby boom, which eventually combined with material prosperity to foster a more extensive teen culture. By 1960, the first cohort of baby boomers was reaching teen age, and goods such as soft drinks, clothing, cars, sports equipment, recorded music, magazines, and toiletries, all heavily and specifically promoted by advertisers to young people with expanding personal incomes, comprised a flourishing youth market that soon spread overseas. At the same time, radio, television, movies, and mass-market publications directed much of their content to this segment of the population. Marketing experts utilized longstanding theories about the insecurities of adolescence, along with surveys that showed adolescents tending toward conformist attitudes, to sell goods that catered to teenagers' desires to dress, buy, and act like their peers.

As in earlier years, parents and other adults fretted over children who they believed were maturing too rapidly, as adolescents began manifesting independent behavior in their tastes and buying habits. Even before the baby boomers entered their teen years, social scientists, educators, and government officials were reaching a near-panic state over premarital pregnancy and juvenile delinquency. The U.S. rate of premarital pregnancy among white women aged fifteen to nineteen doubled from under 10 percent in the 1940s to 19 percent in the 1950s. The rock-and-roll generation signified a type of rebellion that often included antisocial behavior that in turn garnered heavy media attention. Newspapers eagerly publicized gang wars and other sensational cases of juvenile crime, and police departments created juvenile units to deal with a presumed teenage crime wave.

While many of the postwar trends in adolescence, especially their influence on the consumer economy, continued past the twentieth century, by the late 1960s and early 1970s new attitudes about gender equality and birth control, stimulated in part by increased access to automobiles and generally higher material well-being, helped fashion new sexual values among adolescents. Increasingly, peer groups in high schools and colleges (in 1970, three-fourths of Americans were graduating from high school and one-third were enrolled in college) replaced dating with informal, mixed-gender "going out" and "parties." In addition, looser attitudes toward marriage, for which a date was seen as a first step, and greater acceptance (among adults as well as youths) of nonmarital sex, arose among adolescents and heightened concern over society's ability to control adolescents' sexual behavior.

By 1976, U.S. surveys showed that nearly one-fourth of sixteen-year-old white females and one-half of sixteen-year-old black females had had premarital intercourse; there were also nearly twenty-five illegitimate births for every thousand white females aged fifteen to nineteen and more than ninety such births for black females in that age group. By 1990, 55 percent of women aged fifteen to nineteen had experienced intercourse. Although this figure declined to slightly below half by century's end, the seeming sexual abandon practiced by many young people prompted some analysts to conclude that marriage was losing its special meaning. A sharp rise in average age of marriage, for men from twenty-three to over twenty-six and for women from twenty-one to over twenty-three between 1970 and 1990, reinforced such a conclusion.

In the 1960s a well-publicized and vocal minority of youths began to infuse adolescence with a new brand of political consciousness that seemed to widen the "generation gap." Much of the youth activism flourished on college campuses but enough of it filtered down to high schools that educators and other public authorities faced challenges they had not previously encountered. The civil rights movement and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy caused American teenagers to question the values of adult society, but the Vietnam War ignited them. Although the majority of youths did not oppose the war, a number of them participated in protests that upset traditional assumptions about the nonpolitical quality of high school life. In 1969, the Supreme Court declared in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School System that the right of free speech applied to high school students who wished to wear black armbands in protest of the war.

After the Vietnam War ended, the alienation of adolescents from society—as well as, in adolescent minds, the alienation of society from adolescents—seemed to intensify rather than abate. Anger over the deployment of nuclear weapons and dangers to the ecosystem worldwide sparked student protests on both sides of the Atlantic. Moreover, a spreading drug culture, the attraction by teens to the intentionally provocative lyrics of punk rock and rap music, the rise of body art and piercing, the increase in single-(and no-) parent households, and the high number of families with two parents employed and out of the home for most of the day all further elevated the power of adolescent peer associations.

Juvenile crime continued to capture attention, as surveys in the 1980s estimated that between 12 and 18 percent of American males and 3 to 4 percent of females had been arrested prior to age twenty-one. To the frustration of public officials, crime-prevention programs ranging from incarceration to aversion to job placement and counseling failed to stem teen violence and recidivism.

As identity politics pervaded adult society, youths also sought havens within groups that expressed themselves through some behavioral or visual (although only occasionally ideological) manner. American high school populations contained dizzying varieties of identity groups such as "Goths," "jocks," "nerds," "Jesus freaks," "preppies," "druggies," and many more. All the while, commercial interests in the new global economy, from sneaker and sportswear manufacturers to music producers and snack-food makers, stayed hot on the teenage trail.

Questions About Adolescence As a Universal Concept

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, multiple models of American adolescence brought into question whether or not the historical concept had as much uniformity as some twentieth-century experts implied it had. Certainly almost all adolescents, regardless of race or class, undergo similar biological changes, though characteristics such as the age of menarche have shifted over time. But the social and psychological parameters appeared to have become increasingly complex and diverse. Although the most common images of adolescents set them inside the youth-oriented consumer culture of clothes, music, and movies, the darker side of growing up had captured increasing attention. Poverty, sexual abuse, substance abuse, learning disabilities, depression, eating disorders, and violence had come to characterize youthful experiences as much as the qualities of fun-and freedom-seeking depicted by the media and marketers. Popular theory still accepted that almost all adolescents confront similar psychological challenges of stress and anxiety, but the processes involved in growing up display complexities that confound attempts to characterize them. A continuing rise in age at marriage, which approached the late twenties for males and mid-twenties for females, made family formation less of an end point for adolescence, and the assumption by preteens of qualities and habits once exclusive to teenagers challenged the cultural definition of the age at which adolescence begins. The trend of young people assuming adult sexual, family, social, and economic behavior—and their attendant problems—blurred many of the qualities that previously gave adolescence its distinctiveness.

Bibliography

Aries, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood. New York: Knopf, 1962.

Bailey, Beth L. From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Chudacoff, Howard P. How Old Are You?: Age Consciousness in American Culture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Coleman, James S. The Adolescent Society. New York: Free Press, 1961.

Fass, Paul F., and Mary Ann Mason, eds. Childhood in America. New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Graff, Harvey J., ed. Growing Up in America: Historical Experiences. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1987.

Hine, Thomas. The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager. New York: Avon Books, 1999.

Jones, Kathleen W. Taming the Troublesome Child: American Families, Child Guidance, and the Limits of Psychiatric Authority. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Kett, Joseph F. Rites of Passage: Adolescence in America, 1790 to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 1977.

Modell, John. Into One's Own: From Youth to Adulthood in the United States, 1920–1975. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

—Howard P. Chudacoff

In psychoanalysis, adolescence is a developmental stage, a key moment during which three transformations occur: the disengagement from parental ties that have been interiorized since infancy; the sexual impulse discovering object love under the primacy of genital and orgasmic organizations; and identification, the impetus for topographic readjustment and the affirmation of identity and subjectivity. These transformations begin with the onset of adolescence, concluding when infantile sexual activity has reached its final form. Adolescence is, therefore, a completion of the process of ego maturation. It is characterized by the conflict that these transformations bring about and the ensuing crisis resulting from the wish for adult sexual activity and the fear of giving up infantile pleasure.

There is little discussion of the concept of adolescence in Freud's own writing. However, the term "puberty" is frequently found. More than two hundred and fifty references to the concept have been found in his work, even outside of the Minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Referring to the Standard Edition, the majority of entries catalogued for the word "adolescence" are found in the Studies on Hysteria (1895d) and half of them are by Joseph Breuer. However, the references do not fully take into account linguistic issues and the associated problems of translation. For example, in the majority of French translations of Freud's work, there is frequent reference to the term "adolescence."

Although adolescents appear among the first cases of clinical psychoanalysis, such as that of Katharina, who was eighteen at the time, and especially that of Dora, most references to the role of puberty from the perspective of development appear in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d). In Some Reflections on Schoolboy Psychology, (1914f), a text that is often mentioned in connection with adolescence, the problem of growing up is presented by Freud as an extension of the oedipal complex. The schoolboys see their teachers as substitute parents. They transfer to them the ambivalence of the feelings they once had for their father. From this point of view, adolescence works toward a separation from the father.

Although adolescence in Freud and in subsequent psychoanalytic thought is often presented as an infantile screen-memory, that is, as the formation of a compromise between the repressed elements of infantile sexuality and the defenses typical of adolescence, it is also, through the theory of deferred action, an opportunity for new psychic activity, a kind of rebirth in which the past can only be understood in light of the present. Human history is understood in terms of its past, but its past is illuminated in terms of its present, and, in the case of adolescence, in terms of the traumatic present.

In fact, psychoanalysts have always had, whether manifestly or latently, a bipolar idea of adolescence. First, as the occasion of two instinctual currents through which the adolescent, burdened by the re-emergence of infantile impulses on the one hand and the discovery of orgasm (arising in adolescence) on the other, must confront oedipal conflicts, the now realizable threat of incest, and the parricidal and matricidal feelings as condensations in fantasy of the aggression associated with all growth: "growing up is by nature an aggressive act" (Donald Winnicott). Second, as an expression of the bipolarity of the ties between impulse and defense (Anna Freud), between identification and identity (Evelyne Kestemberg), between object libido and narcissistic libido (Philippe Jeammet), and between the "pubertary," which reflects the powerful sensual current that no longer recognizes its goals, and "adolescens," which reflects the category of the ideal (Philippe Gutton). This leads contemporary psychoanalysts to consider that the capacity of the psychic apparatus to perform the work of binding can be seen as a fundamental indicator of the fact that the process of adolescence has been harmoniously completed. Dreams and action represent the creative activities of this capacity (François Ladame) whereas unbinding (Raymond Cahn) is the source of serious psychic pathology. The enigmatic discrepancy between the bipolarity of the impulse and the transformational object (Alain Braconnier) constantly underlies the analysis of transference and counter-transference during adolescence.

There are other theorizations as well: Adolescence as a "crisis" (Pierre Mâle, Evelyne Kestemberg) or breakdown (Moses Laufer), as an impasse in the process of development, that is, in the integration of the sexualized body into the psychic apparatus. These approaches reveal the difficulties and resistances the subject experiences in giving up the forms of libidinal satisfaction in which his infantile body was engaged, difficulties and resistances that are manifest in the transference through the representation and acting out of the "central masturbation fantasy."

Although it is no longer psychoanalytically possible to consider adolescence in terms of a traditional genetic psychoanalytic psychology, that is, as the final stage of development that makes it possible to access an adult stage, it is still difficult to provide a comprehensive interpretation centered on any given aspect of adolescence. The psychic impact of puberty determines the remodeling of identification, the expression of fantasies, and self and object representations. The psychic impacts of the social and the cultural determine the alterations of these same intrapsychic elements, as well as presenting psychoanalysts with the problem of addressing the contradiction between a focus on external objects versus a focus on internal objects. From the point of view of psychoanalytic practice, the attention given to mental functioning, and to affects in particular, enables psychoanalysts to understand many of the disturbances found in adolescence in a way that broadens and extends the notion of crisis or the process of individuation, as well as their relationship to anxiety and, especially, depression. The concepts of "depressive threat" and "self-sabotage" help describe, clinically and theoretically, the process of change specific to the adolescent, whose pathology reveals the failures and avatars that are so magnificently exemplified in our culture through the heroic figures of Narcissus, Oedipus, Hamlet and Ophelia, Electra and Orestes, and, of course, Romeo and Juliet.

Bibliography

Blos, Peter. (1987). L'insoumission au père ou l'effort adolescent pour être masculin. Adolescence, 6 (21), 19-31.

Cahn, Raymond. (1998). L'Adolescent dans la psychanalyse: l'aventure de la subjectivation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Freud, Sigmund. (1905d). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 130-243.

Freud, Sigmund, and Breuer, Josef. (1895d). Studies on hysteria. SE, 2: 48-106.

Jeammet, Philippe. (1994). Adolescence et processus de changement. In D. Widlöcher (Ed.) Traité de psychopathologie (pp. 687-726). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Laufer, Moses. (1989). Adolescence et rupture du développement: une perspective psychanalytique, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Further Reading

Blos, Peter. (1962). On adolescence. a psychoanalytic interpretation, New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.

——. (1979). The adolescent passage: developmental issues, New York: International Universities Press.

Emde, Robert. (1985). From adolescence to midlife: remodeling the structure of adult development. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 33(S), 59-112.

Esman, Aaron. (ed.) (1975). The psychology of adolescence, essential readings, New York: International Universities Press.

Hauser, Stuart T. and Smith, Henry F. (1991). The development and experience of affect in adolescence. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 39(S), 131-168.

Novick, Kerry Kelly and Novick, Jack. (1994). Postoedipal transformations: latency, adolescence, pathogenesis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 42,143-170.

Sarnoff, Charles. (1987). Psychotherapeutic strategies in late latency through early adolescence, Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

—ALAIN BRACONNIER

Tutor's tip: "Adolescence" (developmental stage between childhood and adulthood) can be a very difficult time for "adolescents" (teenagers) and their parents.

Quotes:

"What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around." - Georges Bernanos

"So much alarmed that she is quite alarming, All Giggle, Blush, half Pertness, and half Pout." - Lord Byron

"The big mistake that men make is that when they turn thirteen or fourteen and all of a sudden they've reached puberty, they believe that they like women. Actually, you're just horny. It doesn't mean you like women any more at twenty-one than you did at ten." - Jules Feiffer

"They mustn't know my despair, I can't let them see the wounds which they have caused, I couldn't bear their sympathy and their kind-hearted jokes, it would only make me want to scream all the more. If I talk, everyone thinks I'm showing off; when I'm silent they think I'm ridiculous; rude if I answer, sly if I get a good idea, lazy if I'm tired, selfish if I eat a mouthful more than I should, stupid, cowardly, crafty, etc. etc." - Anne Frank

"In the life of children there are two very clear-cut phases, before and after puberty. Before puberty the child's personality has not yet formed and it is easier to guide its life and make it acquire specific habits of order, discipline, and work: after puberty the personality develops impetuously and all extraneous intervention becomes odious, tyrannical, insufferable. Now it so happens that parents feel the responsibility towards their children precisely during this second period, when it is too late: then of course the stick and violence enter the scene and yield very few results indeed. Why not instead take an interest in the child during the first period?" - Antonio Gramsci

"Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn't matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls." - Anthony Hope Hawkins

See more famous quotes about Adolescence

"Teen" and "teenagers" redirect here. For other uses, see Teen (disambiguation).

For the 1966 French documentary, see Adolescence (film).

Look up adolescence in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)

Japanese teenagers in Fukushima, Japan

Adolescence (lat adolescere, (to grow) is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development that occurs between childhood and adulthood. This transition involves biological (i.e. pubertal), social, and psychological changes, though the biological or physiological ones are the easiest to measure objectively. Historically, puberty has been heavily associated with teenagers and the onset of adolescent development.^[1][2] In recent years, however, the start of puberty has had somewhat of an increase in preadolescence (particularly females), and adolescence has had an occasional extension beyond the teenage years (typically males). This has made adolescence less simple to discern.^[3][4][5]

The teenage years are from ages 13 to 19. However, the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood varies by country and by function, and furthermore even within a single nation-state or culture there can be different ages at which an individual is considered to be (chronologically and legally) mature enough to be entrusted by society with certain tasks. Such milestones include, but are not limited to, driving a vehicle, having legal sexual relations, serving in the armed forces or on a jury, purchasing and drinking alcohol, voting, entering into contracts, completing certain levels of education, and marrying.

Adolescence is usually accompanied by an increased independence allowed by the parents or legal guardians and less supervision, contrary to the preadolescence stage.

Contents 1 Puberty 2 Psychology 3 Sexuality 4 Culture 5 Legal issues, rights and privileges 6 See also 6.1 Human development and psychology 6.1.1 Compare with 6.2 Literature 7 References

Puberty

Upper body of teenage boy. The structure has changed to resemble an adult form.

Main article: Puberty

Puberty is a period of several years in which rapid physical growth and psychological changes occur, culminating in sexual maturity. The average onset of puberty is at 10 for girls and age 12 for boys.^[6] Every person's individual timetable for puberty is influenced primarily by heredity, although environmental factors, such as diet and exercise, also exert some influence.^[6]

Puberty begins with a surge in hormone production, which in turn, causes a number of physical changes.^[6] It is also the stage of the lifespan in which a child develops secondary sex characteristics (for example, a deeper voice and larger adam's apple in boys, and development of breasts and more curved and prominent hips in girls) as his or her hormonal balance shifts strongly towards an adult state. This is triggered by the pituitary gland, which secretes a surge of hormones, such as testosterone (boys) or estrogen and progesterone (girls) into the blood stream and begins the rapid maturation of the gonads: the girl's ovaries and the boy's testicles. Some boys may develop gynecomastia due to an imbalance of sex hormones, tissue responsiveness or obesity.^[7][8] Put simply, puberty is the time when a child's body starts changing into an adult's body.^[6]

Facial hair in males normally appears in a specific order during puberty: The first facial hair to appear tends to grow at the corners of the upper lip, typically between 14 to 16 years of age.^[9][10] It then spreads to form a moustache over the entire upper lip. This is followed by the appearance of hair on the upper part of the cheeks, and the area under the lower lip.^[9] The hair eventually spreads to the sides and lower border of the chin, and the rest of the lower face to form a full beard.^[9] As with most human biological processes, this specific order may vary among some individuals. Facial hair is often present in late adolescence, around ages 17 and 18, but may not appear until significantly later.^[10][11] Some men do not develop full facial hair for 10 years after puberty.^[10] Facial hair will continue to get coarser, darker and thicker for another 2–4 years after puberty.^[10]

The major landmark of puberty for males is the first ejaculation, which occurs, on average, at age 13.^[12] For females, it is menarche, the onset of menstruation, which occurs, on average, between ages 12 and 13.^[13] The age of menarche is influenced by heredity, but a girl's diet and lifestyle contribute as well.^[13] Regardless of genes, a girl must have certain proportion of body fat to attain menarche.^[13] Consequently, girls who have a high-fat diet and who are not physically active begin menstruating earlier, on average, than girls whose diet contains less fat and whose activities involve fat reducing exercise (e.g. ballet and gymnastics).^[13] Girls who experience malnutrition or are in societies in which children are expected to perform physical labor also begin menstruating at later ages.^[13]

The timing of puberty can have important psychological and social consequences. Early maturing boys are usually taller and stronger than their friends.^[14] They have the advantage in capturing the attention of potential partners and in becoming hand-picked for sports. Pubescent boys often tend to have a good body image, are more confident, secure, and more independent.^[15] Late maturing boys can be less confident because of poor body image when comparing themselves to already developed friends and peers. However, early puberty is not always positive for boys; early sexual maturation in boys can be accompanied by increased aggressiveness due to the surge of hormones that affect them.^[15] Because they appear older than their peers, pubescent boys may face increased social pressure to conform to adult norms; society may view them as more emotionally advanced, despite the fact that their cognitive and social development may lag behind their appearance.^[15] Studies have shown that early maturing boys are more likely to be sexually active and are more likely to participate in risky behaviors.^[16]

For girls, early maturation can sometimes lead to increased self-consciousness, though a typical aspect in maturing females.^[17] Because of their bodies developing in advance, pubescent girls can become more insecure.^[17] Consequently, girls that reach sexual maturation early are more likely than their peers to develop eating disorders. Nearly half of all American high school girls diet to lose weight.^[17] In addition, girls may have to deal with sexual advances from older boys before they are emotionally and mentally mature.^[18] In addition to having earlier sexual experiences and more unwanted pregnancies than late maturing girls, early maturing girls are more exposed to alcohol and drug abuse.^[19] Those who have had such experiences tend to perform less well in school than their "inexperienced" age mates.^[20]

By age 16, girls have usually reached full physical development.^[17] At this age, boys are close to completing their physical growth, which is usually attained by age 17 or 18.^[17] Teenage and early adult males may continue to gain natural muscle growth even after puberty.^[15]

Approximate outline of development periods in child and teenager development. Adolescence is marked in red at top right.

Psychology

Main article: Adolescent psychology

Adolescent psychology is associated with notable changes in mood sometimes known as mood swings. Cognitive, emotional and attitudinal changes which are characteristic of adolescence, often take place during this period, and this can be a cause of conflict on one hand and positive personality development on the other.

Because the adolescents are experiencing various strong cognitive and physical changes, for the first time in their lives they may start to view their friends, their peer group, as more important and influential than their parents/guardians. Because of peer pressure, they may sometimes indulge in activities not deemed socially acceptable, although this may be more of a social phenomenon than a psychological one.^[21] This overlap is addressed within the study of psychosociology.

The home is an important aspect of adolescent psychology: home environment and family have a substantial impact on the developing minds of teenagers, and these developments may reach a climax during adolescence. For example, abusive parents may lead a child to "poke fun" at other classmates when he/she is seven years old or so, but during adolescence it may become progressively worse. If the concepts and theory behind right or wrong were not established early on in a child's life, the lack of this knowledge may impair a teenager's ability to make beneficial decisions as well as allowing his/her impulses to control his/her decisions.

In the search for a unique social identity for themselves, adolescents are frequently confused about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong.' G. Stanley Hall denoted this period as one of "Storm and Stress" and, according to him, conflict at this developmental stage is normal and not unusual. Margaret Mead, on the other hand, attributed the behavior of adolescents to their culture and upbringing.^[22] However, Piaget, attributed this stage in development with greatly increased cognitive abilities; at this stage of life the individual's thoughts start taking more of an abstract form and the egocentric thoughts decrease, hence the individual is able to think and reason in a wider perspective.^[23]

Positive psychology is sometimes brought up when addressing adolescent psychology as well. This approach towards adolescents refers to providing them with motivation to become socially acceptable and notable individuals, since many adolescents find themselves bored, indecisive and/or unmotivated.^[24]

Adolescents may be subject to peer pressure within their adolescent time span, consisting of the need to have sex, consume alcoholic beverages, use drugs, defy their parental figures, or commit any activity in which the person who is subjected to may not deem appropriate, among other things. Peer pressure is a common experience between adolescents and may result briefly or on a larger scale. If it results on a larger scale, the adolescent needs medical advice or treatment.^[25]

It should also be noted that adolescence is the stage of a psychological breakthrough in a person's life when the cognitive development is rapid^[26] and the thoughts, ideas and concepts developed at this period of life greatly influence one's future life, playing a major role in character and personality formation.^[27]

Struggles with adolescent identity and depression usually set in when an adolescent experiences a loss. The most important loss in their lives is the changing relationship between the adolescent and their parents. Adolescents may also experience strife in their relationships with friends. This may be due to the activities their friends take part in, such as smoking, which causes adolescents to feel as though participating in such activities themselves is likely essential to maintaining these friendships. Teen depression can be extremely intense at times because of physical and hormonal changes but emotional instability is part of adolescence. Their changing mind, body and relationships often present themselves as stressful and that change, they assume, is something to be feared.^[28]

Views of family relationships during adolescence are changing. The old view of family relationships during adolescence put an emphasis on conflict and disengagement and thought storm and stress was normal and even inevitable. However, the new view puts emphasis on transformation or relationships and maintenance of connectedness.

Sexuality

Main article: Adolescent sexuality

Adolescent sexuality refers to sexual feelings, behavior and development in adolescents and is a stage of human sexuality. Sexuality and sexual desire usually begins to intensify along with the onset of puberty. The expression of sexual desire among adolescents (or anyone, for that matter), might be influenced by family values and the culture and religion they have grown up in (or as a backlash to such), social engineering, social control, taboos, and other kinds of social mores.

Teenage couples at a fair in the American West.

In contemporary society, adolescents also face some risks as their sexuality begins to transform. Whilst some of these such as emotional distress (fear of abuse or exploitation) and sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV/AIDS) may not necessarily be inherent to adolescence, others such as pregnancy (through failure or non-use of contraceptives) are seen as social problems in most western societies. In terms of sexual identity, all sexual orientations found in adults are also represented among adolescents.

According to anthropologist Margaret Mead and psychologist Albert Bandura, the turmoil found in adolescence in Western society has a cultural rather than a physical cause; they reported that societies where young women engaged in free sexual activity had no such adolescent turmoil.

In a 2008 study conducted by YouGov for Channel 4, 20% of 14−17-year-olds surveyed revealed that they had their first sexual experience at 13 or under.^[29]

The age of consent to sexual activity varies widely between international jurisdictions, ranging from 12 to 21 years.

Culture

Main article: Youth subculture

In commerce, this generation is seen as an important target. Mobile phones, contemporary popular music, movies, television programs, websites, sports, video games and clothes are heavily marketed and often popular amongst adolescents.

In the past (and still in some cultures) there were ceremonies that celebrated adulthood, typically occurring during adolescence. Seijin shiki (literally "adult ceremony") is a Japanese example of this. Upanayanam is a coming of age ceremony for males in the Hindu world. In Judaism, 13-year-old boys and girls become Bar or Bat Mitzvah, respectively, and often have a celebration to mark this coming of age. Among some denominations of Christianity, the rite or sacrament of Confirmation is received by adolescents and may be considered the time at which adolescents become members of the church in their own right (there is also a Confirmation ceremony in some Reform Jewish temples, although the bar or bat mitzvah ceremony appears to have precedence). In United States, girls will often have a "sweet sixteen" party to celebrate turning the aforementioned age, a tradition similar to the quinceañera in Latin culture. In modern western society, events such as getting your first driver's license, high school and later on college graduation and first career related job are thought of as being more significant markers in transition to adulthood.

Adolescents have also been an important factor in many movements for positive social change around the world. The popular history of adolescents participating in these movements may perhaps start with Joan of Arc, and extend to present times with popular youth activism, student activism, and other efforts to make the youth voice heard.

Legal issues, rights and privileges

Internationally, those who reach a certain age (often 18, though this varies) are legally considered to have reached the age of majority and are regarded as adults and are held to be responsible for their actions. People below this age are considered minors or children. A person below the age of majority may gain adult rights through legal emancipation.

Those who are under the age of consent, or legal responsibility, may be considered too young to be held accountable for criminal action. This is called doli incapax or the defense of infancy. The age of criminal responsibility varies from 7 in India to 18 in Belgium. After reaching the initial age, there may be levels of responsibility dictated by age and type of offense, and crimes committed by minors may be tried in a juvenile court.

The legal working age in Western countries is usually 14 to 16, depending on the number of hours and type of employment. In the United Kingdom and Canada, for example, young people between 14 and 16 can work at certain types of light work with some restrictions to allow for schooling; while youths over 16 can work full-time (excluding night work). Many countries also specify a minimum school leaving age, ranging from 10 to 18, at which a person is legally allowed to leave compulsory education.

The age of consent to sexual activity varies widely between jurisdictions, ranging from 13 to 21 years, although 14 to 16 years is more usual. In a 2008 study of 14 to 17-year-olds conducted by YouGov for Channel 4, it was revealed that one in three 15-year-olds were sexually active.^[29]

Sexual intercourse with a person below the local age of consent is usually treated as the crime of statutory rape. Some jurisdictions allow an exemption where both partners are close in age; for example, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old. The age at which people are allowed to marry also varies, from 17 in Yemen to 22 for males and 20 for females in China. In Western countries, people are typically allowed to marry at 18, although they are sometimes allowed to marry at a younger age with parental or court consent. In developing countries, the legal marriageable age does not always correspond with the age at which people actually marry; for example, the legal age for marriage in Ethiopia is 18 for both males and females, but in rural areas most girls are married by age 16.

In most democratic countries, a citizen is eligible to vote at 18. For example, in the United States, the Twenty-sixth amendment decreased the voting age from 21 to 18. In a minority of countries, the voting age is 17 (for example, Indonesia) or 16 (for example, Brazil). By contrast, some countries have a minimum voting age of 21 (for example, Singapore) whereas the minimum age in Uzbekistan is 25. Age of candidacy is the minimum age at which a person can legally qualify to hold certain elected government offices. In most countries, a person must be 18 or over to stand for elected office, but some countries such as the United States and Italy have further restrictions depending on the type of office.

A sign outside a sex shop reads "Must Be 18 To Enter" in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The sale of selected items such as cigarettes, alcohol, and videos with violent or pornographic content is also restricted by age in most countries. In the U.S, the minimum age to buy an R-rated movie, M-rated game or an album with a parental advisory label is 17 (in some states 18 or even 21). In practice, it is common that young people engage in underage smoking or drinking, and in some cultures this is tolerated to a certain degree. In the United States, teenagers are allowed to drive between 14-18 (each state sets its own minimum driving age of which a curfew may be imposed), in the US, adolescents 17 years of age can serve in the military. In Europe it is more common for the driving age to be higher (usually 18) while the drinking age is lower than that of the US (usually 16 or 18). In Canada, the drinking age is 18 in some areas and 19 in other areas. In Australia, universally the minimum drinking age is 18, unless a person is in a private residence or is under parental supervision in a licensed premises. The driving age varies from state to state but the more common system is a graduated system of "L plates" (a learning license that requires supervision from a licensed driver) from age 16, red "P plates" (probationary license) at 17, green "P plates" at 18 and finally a full license, i.e. for most people around the age of 20.

The legal gambling age also depends on the jurisdiction, although it is typically 18.

The minimum age for donating blood in the U.S is 17 although it may be 16 with parental permission in some states such as New York and Pennsylvania.^{[citation needed]}

A number of social scientists, including anthropologist Margaret Mead and sociologist Mike Males, have noted the contradictory treatment of laws affecting adolescents in the United States. As Males has noted, the US Supreme Court has, "explicitly ruled that policy-makers may impose adult responsibilities and punishments on individual youths as if they were adults at the same time laws and policies abrogate adolescents’ rights en masse as if they were children."

The issue of youth activism affecting political, social, educational, and moral circumstances is of growing significance around the world. Youth-led organizations around the world have fought for social justice, the youth vote seeking to gain teenagers the right to vote, to secure more youth rights, and demanding better schools through student activism.

Since the advent of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 (children defined as under 18), almost every country (except the U.S. & Somalia) in the world has become voluntarily legally committed to advancing an anti-discriminatory stance towards young people of all ages. This is a legally binding document which secures youth participation throughout society while acting against unchecked child labor, child soldiers, child prostitution, and pornography.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Adolescence

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Guide to Growing Up

Look up adolescence in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Precocious puberty
• Delayed puberty
• Juvenile Delinquency
• Adolescent medicine
• Fear of youth
• Images of young people
• Rite of passage
• Sex education
• Student voice
• Teen Dating Violence
• Teen drama - (List of teen dramas)
• Teen film - (List of teen films)
• Teen idol
• Teen magazine
• Teen pop
• Youth
• Youth culture
• Youth voice
• Young worker safety and health
• Ephebophilia - a sexual preference in which an adult is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to mid to late adolescents
• Timeline of children's rights in the United Kingdom
• Timeline of children's rights in the United States

Human development and psychology

• Educational psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Human development
• Erikson's stages of psychosocial development particularly stages 5 & 6
• Kohlberg's stages of moral development particularly stage 3

Compare with

• Adult
• Aging
• Child
• Peter Pan syndrome
• Young adult

Literature

• Tennessee Williams - a description of the emotional impact of puberty and adolescence is to be found in The Resemblance Between a Violin and a Coffin
• Jon Savage - a (pre)history of the development of the teenager is to be found in Teenage (Chatto and Windus, 2007)

References

1. ^ Christie, Deborah. "Clinical review: ABC of adolescence Adolescent development". www.bmj.com. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7486/301. Retrieved 2008-03-09. 
2. ^ Hill, Mark. "UNSW Embryology Normal Development - Puberty". embryology.med.unsw.edu.au. http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Child/puberty.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-09. 
3. ^ "Onset of Breast and Pubic Hair Development in 1231 Preadolescent Lithuanian Schoolgirls". adc.bmj.com. http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/adc.2004.057612v1. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
4. ^ "American Boys Are Reaching Puberty Early". VRP Staff. http://www.vrp.com/articles.aspx?ProdID=art677&zTYPE=2. Retrieved 2009-02-21. 
5. ^ Ritter, Jim (2000-08-02). "Parents worried by girls' earlier start of puberty". Chicago Sun-Times. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d} (Chumlea, 1982).
7. ^ Slap, Gail B.. "Breast Enlargement in Adolescent Boys". M.D. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2602/is_0001/ai_2602000106. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
8. ^ "Gynecomastia in adolescent boys". ncbi. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14480779. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
9. ^ ^{a b c} "Puberty -- Changes for Males". pamf.org. http://www.pamf.org/teen/health/puberty/physicalchanges.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
10. ^ ^{a b c d} "Getting The Facts: Puberty". ppwr. http://www.ppwr.on.ca/03_07.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
11. ^ "The No-Hair Scare". PBS. http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/body/puberty/article7.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
12. ^ (Jorgensen & Keiding 1991).
13. ^ ^{a b c d e} (Tanner, 1990).
14. ^ Abbassi V (1998). "Growth and normal puberty". Pediatrics 102 (2 Pt 3): 507–11. PMID 9685454. 
15. ^ ^{a b c d} Garn, SM. Physical growth and development. In: Friedman SB, Fisher M, Schonberg SK. , editors. Comprehensive Adolescent Health Care. St Louis: Quality Medical Publishing; 1992. Retrieved on 2009-02-20
16. ^ Susman, EJ; Dorn, LD; Schiefelbein, VL. Puberty, sexuality, and health. In: Lerner MA, Easterbrooks MA, Mistry J. , editors. Comprehensive Handbook of Psychology. New York: Wiley; 2003. Retrieved on 2009-02-20
17. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Teenage Growth & Development: 15 to 17 Years". pamf.org. http://www.pamf.org/teen/parents/health/growth-15-17.html. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
18. ^ (Peterson, 1987).
19. ^ (Caspi et al.1993: Lanza and Collins, 2002)
20. ^ (Stattin & Magnussion, 1990).
21. ^ Adolescence: Change and Continuity: Peer Groups
22. ^ "Margaret Mead (1901-1978, The United States)". Mnsu.edu. http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/anthropology/Mead.html. Retrieved 2008-11-22. 
23. ^ ReCAPP: Theories & Approaches: Adolescent Development
24. ^ Thomas Kelly, Positive psychology and adolescent mental health: false promise or true breakthrough?, 2004
25. ^ Teens: Addressing Substance Abuse
26. ^ Do Long-Term Memories Survive Cognitive Transition
27. ^ [1]
28. ^ Adolescent Identity and Depression: Why and What To Do
29. ^ ^{a b} "Teen Sex Survey". Channel 4. 2008. http://sexperienceuk.channel4.com/teen-sex-survey. Retrieved 2008-09-11. 

Preceded by Preadolescence

Stages of human development Adolescence

Succeeded by Young adult

v • d • e Human Development: Biological  • Psychological Pre- and perinatal Biological Prenatal development Psychological Pre- and perinatal psychology Infancy Biological Infant Psychological Infant and child psychology Childhood Biological Child development · Child development stages · Toddler Psychological Infant and child psychology · Preadolescence Adolescence Biological Puberty Psychological Youth development Young adulthood Psychological Young adult (psychology) Middle adulthood Biological Middle age Maturity Biological Ageing · Senescence Psychological Old age Legal and general definitions Minor (law) · Infancy · Child · Childhood · Adolescence · Age of majority · Adult Theorists-theories John Bowlby-attachment · Urie Bronfenbrenner-ecological systems · Erik Erikson-psychosocial · Sigmund Freud-psychosexual · Lawrence Kohlberg-moral · Jean Piaget-cognitive · Lev Vygotsky-cultural-historical

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n. - pubertet, tidlig ungdom

Nederlands (Dutch)
puberteit

Français (French)
n. - adolescence

Deutsch (German)
n. - Zeit des Erwachsenwerdens, Adoleszenz

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εφηβεία, εφηβική ηλικία

Italiano (Italian)
adolescenza

Português (Portuguese)
n. - adolescência (f)

Русский (Russian)
юность

Español (Spanish)
n. - adolescencia

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - uppväxttid, tonår

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
青春期, 青少年时期, 发育成形阶段

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 青春期, 青少年時期, 發育成形階段

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 청년기, 사춘기, 청춘

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 青年期, 思春期, 青春期

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) سن المراهقه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮התבגרות, בחרות‬

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