Adolescent Vulnerabilities and Opportunities
Developmental and Constructivist Perspectives

Explores the importance of considering how adolescents coordinate different types of activities in their interactions and in development.

Eric Amsel (Edited by), Judith Smetana (Edited by)

9780521768467, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 September 2011

228 pages, 21 b/w illus. 4 tables
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

"...Overall, the book highlights adolescents' coordinating activities in support of their own development as a constructivist process worthy of continued research.... Highly recommended..."
--L. E. Barnes-Young, American Military University, CHOICE

This book explores the central importance of adolescents' own activities in their development. This focus harkens back to Jean Piaget's genetic epistemology and provides a theoretically coherent vision of what makes adolescence a distinctive period of development, with unique opportunities and vulnerabilities. An interdisciplinary and international group of contributors explore how adolescents integrate neurological, cognitive, personal, interpersonal and social systems aspects of development into more organized systems.

1. Constructivist processes in adolescent development Eric Amsel and Judith Smetana
Part I. Biological and Cognitive Perspective: 2. Structural brain magnetic resonance imaging of typically developing children and adolescents Jay N. Giedd, Armin Raznahan, Nancy R. Lee, Catherine Weddle, Maria Liverpool, Michael Stockman, Elizabeth Malloy, Liv Clasen, Jonathan Blumenthal, Rhoshel K. Lenroot and Francois Lalonde
3. Adolescent risk-taking: a social neuroscience perspective Laurence Steinberg
4. What are the cognitive skills adolescents need for life in the 21st century? Deanna Kuhn and Amanda Holman
5. Hypothetical thinking in adolescence: its nature, development, and applications Eric Amsel
Part II. Social and Contextual Perspective: 6. Testing, Testing: everyday storytelling and the construction of adolescent identity Avril Thorne and Lauren Shapiro
7. Adolescents' social reasoning and relationships with parents: conflicts and coordinations within and across domains Judith G. Smetana
8. Representations, process and development: a new look at friendship in early adolescence William M. Bukowski, Melissa Simard, Marie Eve Dubois and Luz Stella Lopez
9. Schools, peers, and the big picture of adolescent development Robert Crosnoe.

Subject Areas: Human growth & development [MFKH], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Sociology [JHB], Age groups: adolescents [JFSP2]