TEXTBOOKS
Dr. Arnett is the author of the popular textbook Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (2007, Prentice Hall). The distinctive features of Dr. Arnett’s textbook are the inclusion of emerging adulthood as well as adolescence, and the cultural approach:
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach
(2007, Prentice Hall)
Emerging Adulthood
“It is a distinguishing feature of adolescence in our time that it begins far earlier than it did a century ago, because puberty begins for most people in industrialized countries at a much earlier age. Yet, if we measure the end of adolescence in terms of taking on adult roles such as marriage, parenthood, and stable full-time work, adolescence also ends much later than it has in the past, because these transitions are now postponed for many people into at least the mid-twenties. My own research over the past few years has focused on development among young Americans from their late teens through their mid-twenties, including Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, and Whites. I have concluded, on the basis of this research, that this period is not really adolescence, but it is not really adulthood either, even “young adulthood.” In my view, the transition to adulthood has become so prolonged that by now it constitutes a separate period of the life course in industrialized societies, lasting about as long as adolescence.
“Thus a distinguishing feature of the conception guiding this textbook is that the age period covered includes not only adolescence but also “emerging adulthood,” extending from the late teens through the mid-twenties. In theoretical papers, research papers, and a forthcoming book, I have presented a theory of emerging adulthood, conceptualizing it the age of identity explorations, the age of instability, the self-focused, the age of feeling in-between, and the age of possibilities. I describe this theory in some detail in the first chapter, and use it as the framework for discussing emerging adulthood in the chapters that follow. There is not as much research on the age period covered by emerging adulthood as there is on adolescence, so the balance of material in each chapter is tilted quite strongly toward adolescence. However, each chapter contains material that pertains to emerging adulthood.”
— From the Preface
The Cultural Approach
“In teaching courses on adolescence, from large lecture classes to small seminars, I have always brought into the classroom a considerable amount of research from other cultures. My education as a postdoctoral student at the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago included a substantial amount of anthropology. Learning to take a cultural approach to development greatly expanded and deepened my own understanding of adolescence, and I have seen the cultural approach work this way for my students as well. Through an awareness of the diversity of cultural practices, customs, and beliefs about adolescence, we expand our conception of the range of developmental possibilities. We also gain a greater understanding of adolescent development in our own culture, by learning to see it as only one of many possible paths.
“Taking a cultural approach to development means infusing discussion of every aspect of development with a cultural perspective. I present the essentials of the cultural approach in the first chapter, and it then serves as a theme that runs through every chapter. Every chapter also includes a Cultural Focus box in which an aspect of development in a specific culture is explored in-depth, for example adolescents’ family relationships in India, Japan’s high schools, and media use among young people in Nepal.
“My hope is that students will learn not only that adolescent development can be different depending on the culture, but how to think culturally, that is, how to analyze all aspects of adolescent development for their cultural basis. This includes learning how to critique research for the extent to which it does or does not take the cultural basis of development into account. I provide this kind of critique at numerous points throughout the book.
— From the Preface
Read the Preface
Table of Contents
For more information or to order a desk copy, visit the Prentice Hall website at www.prenticehall.com.
Readings on Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood
Dr. Arnett has compiled a book of readings, entitled Readings on Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood (Prentice Hall, 2002) that is intended to serve as a companion to the textbook on adolescence. Like the textbook, the book of readings emphasizes culture as the context for development. Furthermore, as in the textbook, the book of readings covers not only adolescence but also emerging adulthood.
Read the Preface
Table of Contents
Order Readings on Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood from Amazon.com
For more information or to order a desk copy, visit the Prentice Hall website at www.prenticehall.com.