Puberty in Crisis
The Sociology of Early Sexual Development

Combines feminist and social theories on the body, biology and sex to examine the sociological and cultural issues surrounding puberty.

Celia Roberts (Author)

9781107104723, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 August 2015

300 pages, 11 b/w illus.
23.7 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.6 kg

'Puberty in Crisis is an important book which deftly navigates the complexities of sexed embodiment as situated, temporal and produced through notions of class, race, ethnicity and gender. The analytical matrix of 'findings, feelings and figurations' keeps multiple narratives of the 'crisis' of puberty in play, and urges an approach which can embrace diversity in sexual development. Exhaustively researched, engagingly written and brilliant in insight, it surely establishes Celia Roberts as one of feminist science studies' brightest stars.' Barbara L. Marshall, Trent University

Puberty has long been recognised as a difficult and upsetting process for individuals and families, but it is now also being widely described as in crisis. Reportedly occurring earlier and earlier as each decade of the twenty-first century passes, sexual development now heralds new forms of temporal trouble in which sexuality, sex/gender and reproduction are all at stake. Many believe that children are growing up too fast and becoming sexual too early. Clinicians, parents and teachers all demand something must be done. Does this out-of-time development indicate that children's futures are at risk or that we are entering a new era of environmental and social perturbation? Engaging with a diverse range of contemporary feminist and social theories on the body, biology and sex, Celia Roberts urges us to refuse a discourse of crisis and to rethink puberty as a combination of biological, psychological and social forces.

1. Puberty in crisis? Sex, reproduction and the loss of future
2. Articulating findings, feelings and figurations: methods and approaches
3. Telling histories: the scientific study of puberty
4. Defining early onset puberty: troubling findings about sexual development
5. Causes and explanations: genes, fat, toxins and families
6. Consequences of early development: sex, drugs and shortness
7. Treatments: pharmaceuticals, sex and suffering
Conclusion: folding puberty differently: changing findings, feeling and figurations.

Subject Areas: Medical sociology [MBS], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Psychology of gender [JMG], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Sociology: sexual relations [JHBK5], Social theory [JHBA], Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ], Feminism & feminist theory [JFFK], Social issues & processes [JFF], Cultural studies [JFC]