The Changing Adolescent Experience: Societal Trends and the Transition to Adulthood

Cambridge University Press
Edition: First Edition, 9/5/2002
EAN 9780521891998, ISBN10: 052189199X

Paperback, 294 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English

The path adolescents take from childhood to adulthood is a product of social, economic, political, and technological forces. These forces may facilitate youth's preparation to become healthy adults, or they may leave youth unprepared for adulthood. Knowledgeable projections are vital in shaping the agenda for research; for alerting educators, policy makers, and practitioners to new issues; and for formulating thoughtful responses to emerging dilemmas. This book focuses upon the future of adolescence in postindustrial societies. The authors identify some ominous societal changes that will affect youth: unstable job markets, competition for public resources due to an aging population, and widening income gaps between 'information workers' and low-skill workers. But they also observe opportunities created by information technology, innovations in health service delivery and criminal-justice rehabilitation, and the resourcefulness of a new generation. This volume examines these and other macro-structural changes that will impact adolescents' lives and their futures as adults.

1. Macrostructural trends and the reshaping of adolescence Jeylan T. Mortimer and Reed Larson
2. Youth in aging societies Elizabeth Fussell
3. The transition from school to work Alan C. Kerckhoff
4. Criminal justice in the lives of American adolescents
choosing the future Frank T. Cullen and John P. Wright
5. Adolescent health care in the US
implications and projections for the new millennium Elizabeth M. Ozer, Tracy MacDonald and Charles E. Irwin, Jr
6. Youth and information technology Ronald E. Anderson
7. Social space, the final frontier
adolescents on the Internet Kate Hellenga
8. Approaching policy for adolescent development in the twenty-first century James Youniss and Allison J. Ruth.