Adolescents, Families, and Social Development

How Teens Construct Their Worlds

This book provides an in-depth examination of adolescents’ social development in the context of the family.

• Grounded in social domain theory, the book draws on the author’s research over the past 25 years
• Draws from the results of in-depth interviews with more than 700 families
• Explores adolescent-parent relationships among ethnic majority and minority youth in the United States, as well as research with adolescents in Hong Kong and China
• Discusses extensive research on disclosure and secrecy during adolescence, parenting, autonomy, and moral development
• Considers both popular sources such as movies and public surveys, as well as scholarly sources drawn from anthropology, history, sociology, social psychology, and developmental psychology
• Explores how different strands of development, including autonomy, rights and justice, and society and social convention, become integrated and coordinated in adolescence