Adolescence; Developmental Psychology

Adolescence
Adolescents: Who are they? Adolescence* (from a Latin word meaning “to grow up”) is a transitional stage between childhood and adulthood. In some ways adolescents resemble the children they were, yet the many changes they undergo during this stage ensure that they will be different from children in many respects. Similarly, we see glimpses of the adults the adolescents will come, but more often we observe that they don’t behave like adults. As adolescents mature, we see fewer resemblances to children and more similarities to adults. Adolescents’ psychology is the study of physical, cognitive, personality, and social development in individuals beginning at puberty (the attainment of the capacity to reproduce) and continuing until the assumption of adult responsibilities in society. Typically, these changes occur between the ages of 13 and 22. Chronological age by itself, however, isn’t necessarily a valid index of the onset or termination of adolescence. For example, some 14 year olds may not have reached puberty, while others may have done so several years earlier. Similarly, some 18 year olds may be supporting themselves and living in their own homes (and therefore are considered adults), while others may still be in school and financially and emotionally dependent on their parents (and therefore are adolescents). Because this period spans a number of years, it is often divided into sub stages. For our purposes we will use the term early adolescence to describe individuals of junior high school age or 12 to 14 years, middle adolescence to describe those of high school age or 14 to 17, and late adolescence to describe those of college age or 17 to 22. While this division into sub-stages has useful, practical applications, it is important to remember that it is an over-implication. It is based on educational level (chronology) rather than on developmental criteria (puberty or identity, for example), and educational level and developmental status aren’t necessarily synonymous.

Developmental Tasks of Adolescence Adolescents can also be identified by the level of development they are have reached in the capabilities and skills needed to function effectively as adults. These developmental tasks include achieving a sense of identity, attaining emotional and financial independence from parents, relating effectively with peers, becoming a sexual person, and choosing and preparing for an occupation. Compared to children, adolescents are physically more mature, are more skilled and sophisticated in cognitive abilities, have more complex and integrated personalities, and have more effective social skills. These developmental changes mean that adolescents are capable of taking a more active role in their own development than are children.

Current issues in adolescent psychology
Defining the Boundaries of Adolescence In western cultures adolescence has traditionally been viewed as synonymous with the teenage years. Recently, however, it is has been acknowledged that adolescence spans a wider age range, and it is now often described as beginning earlier, and lasting longer than the teens. During the past 150 years the average age of onset of puberty has dropped. Moreover, pressures on preteens from preteens from parents, the media, and peers to grow up sooner and faster have increased (Elkind, 1981). For example, note the recent television advertisements which depict boys and girls (especially) in designer clothing and sexy poses. Even though most 11- and 12- year olds haven’t reached puberty, some are pushed toward and, in fact, do imitate adolescent behavior. Adolescence has been extended at the other end as increasing numbers of youth continue their education beyond high school and postpone the assumption of adult responsibilities. Kenneth Keniston (1970) has suggested that the fact that postindustrial society demands higher levels of educational attainment of its citizens has produced a new stage of development, which he calls youth. While not all individuals pass through this stage, there are a growing number of young people who have developed beyond adolescence, but who haven’t yet assumed adult responsibilities. Hence, in today’s Western cultures adolescence lasts longer than it has in the past. Moreover, there aren’t agreed upon criteria marking the transition from adolescence to adulthood. In contrast, in non- Western, nonindustrial zed cultures, the adolescent period is shorter (several weeks to several years in length). Also, formal rituals (puberty rites) are often used to signify to the adolescent and the larger society that a young person has attained adult status.

Recognizing Gender, Social Class, Ethnic and Racial Differences Because middle-class adolescents are more numerous and easier to study, they are overrepresented in research findings. This means that the experiences of lower- and upper—socioeconomic status (SES) youth are less likely to be discussed. Also literature dealing with troubled adolescents and delinquents has been unduly weighted by data drawn from youth in the lower socioeconomic statuses. Clearly, psychologists need to know more about lower-middle- SES (blue collar) youth and those in the highest socioeconomic status. In addition, much theorizing about the adolescent experience has been based on a male model of psychological development. When females have been studied and their experiences have been found to be different from male’s experiences, females have often been ignored or portrayed as deviant or deficient (Gilligan, 1982). It is becoming increasingly clear that it’s misleading to portray the adolescent experience in this culture as a homogeneous one. Moreover, using one sex, one race or one social class as a standard by which to judge the other can lead to serious misconceptions. Therefore, we’ll attempt to make distinctions among adolescents with regard to gender, class, ethic, and when research findings are available.

Need for Cross-Cultural Perspectives Western psychologists (and American ones, in particular) have rarely studied adolescents in other cultures. This makes it difficult to know to what extent adolescent experiences in other cultures are similar to those of youth with whom we are familiar. In recent years the number of cross- cultural studies by developmental psychologists has increased. These studies have compared adolescents in different cultures in gist’s has increased. These studies have compared adolescents in different cultures in areas such as parenting styles and outcomes, cognitive development, self-esteem, identity and moral development. Such cross- cultural research enables us to revise and refine generalizations which have accumulated from years of research with American adolescents; the findings also give us useful perspectives on our own culture. When we can, we’ll discuss cross-cultural findings relating to adolescent development.

The “Generalization Gap” It has been asserted that adolescence was invented by Western industrialized societies, at the beginning of the twentieth century (Kett, 1977). Also much of what was said about adolescence and many policies and programs affecting adolescents were based more on philosophical and moral assumptions about how adolescents should act than on observations of how they really behaved (Kett, 1977). Thus, our initial understandings of adolescence were often stereotypes and myths. Today, although the adolescent period has been studied extensively, there still serious problems in separating reality from myths. Joseph Adelson, a well- known adolescent psychologist, refers to this problem as the “generalization gap” of the tendency to make generalization based on research using adolescent subjects who are atypical of most youth (Adelson, 1979) Typically, researchers have limited their investigations to certain groups of adolescents: those who are similar to the researchers (white, upper-middle-SES, often male) and those who capture researchers’ attention because they are visible (delin-quents, rebellious youth, disturbed youth). This has led to misconceptions about adolescents and to a lack of information about the coping experiences of more “typical” and less visible adolescents are not in turmoil, not politically active, and not “rebellious” (Adelson, 1979, p.37). Happily, there are signs that the problem of the “generalization gap” is beginning to diminish. Still, it remains a concern for the present.

Changing American familiar and their roles in adolescent life
The loss of functions In 1840 the American family fulfilled six major functions (Sebald, 1977). Lists those functions and suggests which elements of society now perform them. Today professionals have taken over the first five functions – economic- productive, educational, religious, recreational, medical. It appears that the family productive, educational

Physical Development

Beginnings: the start of Puberty Puberty, the period of maturation during which the sexual organs mature, begins in a stealthy manner. The outward changes in the body that are the first sign of puberty—the tiny budding of breasts in females and the wispy beginnings of beard in males—often go unnoticed. However, although the initial outward physical signs of puberty are small in scale, it’s a different story inside adolescent’s bodies, where significant changes are occurring. Actually, those changes are determined at the moment of conception, when we receive our genetic makeup from our parents. The timing of puberty is encoded in a specific set of genes that determines when puberty starts and the order in which events unfold. However, as we’ll see, the timing and sequence of puberty are not only a matter of genetics; environmental events, such as the adequacy of children’s nutrition and the level of stress in their lives, also affect when and how puberty proceeds. The biological events that mark the start of puberty are triggered by the endocrine system, the system in the body that exerts a powerful influence over the course of development.

The endocrine System: Chemical Couriers
The endocrine system is a chemical communication network that sends messages throughout the body via the bloodstream. The endocrine system communicates via hormones, chemical messengers that circulate through to blood and affect the functioning or growth of other parts of the body. Hormones travel throughout the body in a manner similar to the way a radio station transmits a signal across the countryside. Just as the signal from a particular station produces a response only when a radio in tuned to that station, hormones flowing through the bloodstream activate only particular cells that are receptive and “ tuned” to that particular hormone. Pubertal development begins when the pituitary gland in the brain sends a signal via gonadotropins, specialized hormones that stimulate the sex glands, to increase the production of the sex hormones to adult levels. The pituitary gland is sometimes called the “master gland” because it controls the operation of the rest of the endocrine system. But it has important function of its own. For example, hormones secreted by the pituitary gland control growth

There are two major classes of sex hormones: androgens (the main category of male hormones) and the estrogen (the main category of female hormones). Among the major androgens is testosterone, which in males plays a particularly significant role during puberty. Greater concentrations of testosterone are related to the increase in height, weight, size of male genitals, and deepening of the voice. Similarly, a major estrogen is estradiol, which has an important role in the determining female development during puberty. Estradiol is related to enlargement of the breasts, development of the uterus, and increases in height and weight. The pituitary gland works in tandem with the hypothalamus, the structure of the brain that monitors and regulates basic drives such as eating, drinking, self-protection, and sexual behavior. Although the tiny hypothalamus, which is about the size of fingertip, plays a powerful role in regulating the steady functioning of the body throughout life, it has an especially important function during puberty as part of a complex feedback system involving the pituitary gland and the sexual organ.

The HPG Feedback System The pituitary gland, hypothalamus, and gonads (in males the testes, and females the ovaries) form a feedback loop involving the HPG axis—short for hypothalamus, pituitary, and gonads. The hypothalamus contains the gonadostat, which operates a bit like the thermostat that regulates the furnace in a home. A home thermostat is sensitive to heat, turning the furnace on when gets too cold and off when the home reaches the proper temperature. Similar, the gonadostat is sensitive to the amount of hormones circulating through the bloodstream. The gonadostat in the hypothalamus constantly monitors sex hormone levels in an effort to maintain a consistent quantity circulating through body. If the level is too low, the gonadostat signals the pituitary to work overtime to produce more hormones. If the sex hormones shoot above the desired level, the gonadostat inhibits the pituitary, thereby reducing the level of sex hormones. During puberty, the hypothalamus calls for the release of greater quantities of hormones than it did earlier in childhood. The pituitary gland produces two hormones, known as FSH and LH that determine the levels of sex hormones. FSH stimulates sperm production in the testes of males and follicle production in the ovaries of females. LH regulates the production of testosterone in males and estrogen and egg in females. The start of puberty is not the first time that androgens and estrogens influence development in significant ways. In fact, the two classes of hormones are present in the body from the moment of conception, but at very low levels. Furthermore, although we associate androgens with males and estrogen with females, in fact both sexes produce the two types of sex hormones. It’s just the males have higher concentration of androgens and females a higher concentration of estrogens. In fact, those androgens and estrogens play a significant role in the developing fetus prior to birth, organization the brain and preparing the body to carry out functions that may not begin until adolescence. As the pituitary gland signals the body to increase its production of androgens and estrogens, it is also signals the endocrine system to produce growth hormones. The growth hormones interact with the sex hormones to cause the growth spurt and puberty.

Hormones and Emotions Hormones directly affect adolescents’ emotion. For example, high levels of certain hormones that are actively produces during puberty lead to the experience of depression or hostility. Exceptionally high levels of the male hormone testosterone are associated with antisocial behavior .There’s also a gender different: males may have feelings of anger and annoyance caused by hormone production is somewhat different: Higher levels of hormones are associates with anger and depression. It’s not just the presence of certain hormones that may influence emotions during puberty. It also seems that the rapid increase in hormones levels, independent of the specific hormone, affect mood. For instance, at the start of puberty the concentration of sec hormones rises rapidly; mood swings at this time may reflect adolescents’ efforts to adapt to significant changes that are occurring in their bodies. Later in adolescence, even though hormone concentrations are still high, adolescents have adapted to the change, and their mood is not affected. Furthermore, it may be that the ability to adjust to the changes in hormone levels is related to genetic predisposition to psychological disorders. It’s also possible that the very efficiency of the feedback loop that control the HPG (hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad) axis is the source of the emotional mood swings found at puberty. Because the feedback system produces significant fluctuations, both up and down, in the concentration of hormones, adolescents may be reacting to the constant changes that are occurring in their bodies. In short, hormones appear to play a significant role in determining the emotional reaction experienced by adolescents passing through puberty. But clearly there are several routes through which hormones (and hormonal fluctuations) affect mood. In addition, hormones do not work in isolation from environmental stressors that have an impact on adolescents’ lives. Adolescents who face significant stress in their family or school lives may be more susceptible to the effects of hormonal changes than those whose lives are more stable. In effect, changes in hormone levels become one more of several stressors that make life complicated, leading to greater emotionality and more pronounced mood swings.

Adrenarche and Gonadarche: Prelude and start of Puberty Hormones play another role in the lead-up to puberty. Even though puberty doesn’t formally start until later, adrenarche, hormonal changes in the adrenal glands, begins at around age 9 and sometimes as early as age 6. At that time, the adrenal glands start to produce adrenal androgens. The adrenal androgens continue to be manufactures throughout adolescence. Adrenarche may be the source of a surprising phenomenon: sexual attraction to other begins even before the start of puberty. The average point at which children report experiencing sexual attraction is around the age of 10, and sometimes even earlier. Gonadarche marks the actual beginning of puberty. Usually occurring about two years after adrenarche, Gonadarche involves the start of maturation of the reproductive organs. Gonadarche typically begins around the age of 9 to 10 years in Caucasian females and around 10 to 11 years in males. For African- American females, it begins even earlier. Leptin is a protein produced by fat cells. The leptin hypothesis is also consistent with research showing delays in the onset of puberty in children who have suffered from illness and inadequate nutrition. Sustained, strenuous exercise also is related to delays in puberty, as are high levels of stress; In addition, girls who are obese are more likely to begin puberty earlier than girls who are not. In addition to leptin, recent research suggests that a protein called kisspeptin also may be important in triggering puberty by sending a signal to pituitary gland to release hormones. Without the production of kisspeptin, people never enter puberty and remain in a kind of limbo. The discovery of the role of kisspeptin may help in the development of treatments for teenagers in whom puberty has been significant delayed.

The Nervous System and Brain Development
Neurons: the building Block of the Nervous System and Brain Neurons, the basic cells of the nervous system; neurons have a cells containing a nucleus. But unlike other cells, neurons have a distinctive ability: they communicate with other cells, using a cluster fiber called dendrites at one end. Dendrites receive messages from other cells. At their opposite end, neurons have a long extension called an axon, the part of the neuron that carries message destined for other neurons by means of chemical messengers, neurotransmitters, but travel across the small gaps, known as synapse, between neurons. Although estimates vary, most scientists believe that we are born with between 100 and 200 billion neurons. At birth, most neurons in the brain have relatively few connections to other neurons. During the first years of life, however, our brains establish billions of new connections between neurons. Furthermore, the network of neurons becomes increasingly complex as we age. This intricacy of neural connections continues to increase throughout life. In fact, in adulthood a single neuron is likely to have minimum of 5000 connections to other neurons or other body parts. We are actually born with many more neurons than we need, in addition, synapses are formed throughout life based on our changing experiences, but billions more are created than necessary. As unnecessary are being reduced, connections between remaining neurons are expanded or eliminated as a result of their use or disuse. If an individual’s experiences do not stimulate certain nerve connections, these, like unused neurons, are eliminated—a process called synoptic pruning. The result of synaptic pruning is to allow established neurons. Unlike most other aspects of growth, then, the development of the nervous system proceeds most effectively through the loss of cells. From infancy on, neurons continue to increase in size. In addition to growth in dendrites, the axons of neurons become coated with myelin, a fatty substance that, like the insulation on an electric wire, provides protection and speeds the transmission of nerve impulses. So, even though many neurons are lost, the increasing size and complexity of the remaining ones contribute to impressive brain growth. As they grow, the neurons also reposition themselves, becoming arranged by function. Some move into the cerebral cortex, the upper layer of the brain, while other moves to sub cortical levels, which are below the cerebral cortex. The sub-cortical levels, which regulate such fundamental activities as breathing and heart rate, are the most fully developed at birth. As time passes, however, the cells in the cerebral cortex, which are responsible for higher-order processes such as thinking and reasoning become more developed and interconnected. The brain produces an oversupply of gray matter during early adolescence, which is later pruned back at the rate 1 to 2% per year. Myelination—the process in which nerve cells are insulated by a covering of fat cells—increases and continues to make the transmission of neural message more efficient. Both the pruning process and increased myelination contribute to the growing physical and cognitive abilities of adolescents, allowing increased physical coordination and more sophisticated kinds of thinking.
Adolescent brain Maturation

Adolescent brain development also produces changes in regions involving dopamine sensitivity and production. As a result of alterations in these areas, adolescents may become less susceptible to the effects of alcohol, needing a greater number of drinks before they experience the reinforcing qualities of intoxication. This can lead them to take in more alcohol than their older peers. In addition, alterations in dopamine sensitivity may make adolescents more sensitive to stress, leading to further alcohol use. Finally, adolescence marks a period in which the brain shows unusual growth spurts that are linked to advances in cognitive abilities. One study that measured electrical activity in the brain found an unusual surge during late adolescence in the brain’s occipital and parietal lobes. The only other comparable level of activity was during the preschool years, which also are associated with significant cognitive growth.

The body changes: the physical Transformations of Puberty
Growth during Adolescence: The Rapid Pace of Physical and Sexual Maturation In only a few months, adolescents can grow several inches and require a virtually new wardrobe as they are transformed, at least in physical appearance, from children to young adults. One aspect of this transformation is the adolescent growth spurt, a period of very rapid growth in height and weight. On average, males grow 4.1 inches a year and females 3.5 inches a year. Some adolescents grow as much as 5 inches in single year. This sudden spurt represents the most rapid period of physical growth since infancy and toddlerhood. Boys’ and girls’ adolescent growth spurts begin at different times. Girls begin their spurts around age 10, while boys start at about age 12. During the 2-year period starting at age 11, girls tend to be taller than boys. But by the age of 13, boys, on average, are taller than girls—a state of affairs that persists for the remainder of life span. Weight gain follows a similar path. Weight begins to increase rapidly at the start of puberty. At the time of their greatest weight gain at around the age of 12, girls gain an average of 112 pound a month ( or 18 pounds per year). Boys gain slightly more (around 20 pound per year) during their peak growing year, which typically occurs between the ages of 13 and 14. For both boys and girls, the weight they attain represents half of their adult weight. As height and weight increase, the bones of the body become denser and stronger, but at the same time more brittle. Greater bone strength is related to the increased levels of physical activity in adolescents. The shape and configuration of the body also change during the growth spurt. Girls’ hips become wider (making it easier for them to give birth), and boys’ shoulder width increases. Boys’ legs also become proportionally longer. Even facial appearance changes, with the faces of boys becoming more angular and the faces of girls becoming softer and rounder. The greater proportion of fat in girls produces two outcomes. First, it makes it more difficult for girls to compete athletically with boys because of natural strength differences. (Prior to adolescence there is little difference in strength between boys and girls.) Second, it may contribute to girls’ susceptibility to societal messages regarding slimness. Even girls of normal weight may consider themselves fat and begin to diet unnecessarily.

Coming of Age: Sexual Maturation
Sexual Maturation in Female: In most girls, the first sign of sexual maturation is the start of breast development in the form of breast buds, small swelling around the nipple area due to an increase in fatty and connective tissue. This occurs around 7 to 13 years of age. However, for about one third of girls, the first indication of puberty is the development of pubic hair around the age of 11. Underarm hair appears about 2 years later. At around the age of 12 to 13 years, girls typically experience menarche, the onset of menstruation, although adolescents and parents often consider menstruation as the start of puberty, puberty actually has begun earlier with breast development and the growth of public hair. Still, menarche is a significant moment in most girls’ lives because they must react to it occurrence. Consequently, it appears that girls who are better nourished and healthier are more apt to start menstruation at an earlier age than those who suffer from malnutrition or chronic disease. In fact, some studies have suggested that weight or the proportion of fat to muscle in the body plays a role in the timing of menarche. For example, athletes with low percentage of body fat may start menstruating later than less-active girls. And other factors can affect the timing of menarche. For instance, environmental stress due to such issue as parental divorce or high levels of family conflict can bring about an early onset.

Sexual Maturation in Males: Boys’ sexual maturation follows a somewhat different course. The penis and scrotum begin to grow at an accelerated rate around the age of 12, and they reach adult size about 3 or 4 years later. As boys’ penises enlarge, other primary sex characteristics are also developing, such as the enlargement of the prostate gland and seminal vesicles, which produce semen (the fluid that carries sperm). A boy’s first ejaculation, known as spermarche, usually occur around the age of 13, more than a year after the body has begun producing sperm. At first, the semen contains relatively few sperm, but the amount of sperm increase significantly with age, secondary sex characteristics are also developing. Pubic hair begins to grow around the age of 12, followed by the growth if underarm and facial hair. Finally, boy’s voices deepen as the vocal cords become longer and the larynx larger.

Body Image: Reactions to the Physical Changes of Puberty Some of the changes of adolescence do not show up as physical changes, but carry psychological weight. In the past, girls tended to react to menarche with anxiety because Western society tended to emphasize the more negative aspects of menstruation, such as the potential of cramps and messiness. Today, however, society’s view of menstruation tends to be more positive, in part because menstruation has been demystified and is now discusses more openly. For instance, upbeat television commercials for tampons are common place. As a consequence, menarche is typically accompanied by an increase in self-esteem, a rise in status, and grater self-awareness, as adolescent girls see themselves becoming adults. Menstruation and ejaculations occur privately, but changes in body shape and size are quite public. Consequently, teenagers entering puberty frequency are embarrassed by the changes they are experiencing. Girls, in particular, are often unhappy with their new bodies. As we noted earlier, ideals of beauty in many Western countries call for an unrealistic thinness that is quite different from the actual shape of most women. Puberty brings a considerable increase in the amount of fatty tissue, as well as enlargement if the hip and buttocks—a far cry from the slenderness that society seems to demand.

Summary
Physical development in adolescence Rapid changes in body size and shape are the most obvious signs of approaching adolescence. These changes begin before puberty and differ for boys and girls and from one person to another. Girls begin growing rapidly from about the ages of 10 to 12, about two years earlier than the boys. Girls may begin to develop breast buds as early as 8 years old. Breasts develop fully between ages 12 and 18. Pubic hair, armpit and leg hair usually begin to grow at about age 9 or 10, and reach adult patterns at about 13 to 14 years. Menarche (the beginning of menstrual periods) typically occurs about 2 years after early breast and pubic hair appear. It may occur as early as age 10, or as late as age 15. Girls have a rapid growth in height between ages 9.5 and 14.5, peaking at around age 12. Boys may begin to notice that their testicles and scrotum grow as early as age 9. Soon, the penis begins to lengthen. By age 16 or 17, their genitals are usually at their adult size and shape. Pubic hair growth -- as well as armpit, leg, chest, and facial hair -- begins in boys at about age 12, and reaches adult patterns at about 15 to 16 years. Boys do not start puberty with a sudden incident, like the beginning of menstrual periods in girls. Having regular nocturnal emissions (wet dreams) marks the beginning of puberty in boys. Wet dreams typically start between ages 13 and 17, with the average at about 14.5 years. Boys ' voices change at the same time as the penis grows. These changes are caused by the flow of sex hormones—estrogens in girls, androgens in boys—and are controlled by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. Differences in the times and rates of growth and sexual maturity are caused by a combination of inherited tendencies, nutrition, and the environment . Along with increasing sexual maturity comes a growing interest in the opposite sex. Adolescents frequently are embarrassed and self-conscious if their development timetable is different from those of their friends, but by the end of their adolescence most young people have become comfortable with their development.

Cognitive Development
Piaget’s Stage of Formal Operations According to Piaget, adolescents enter the highest level of cognitive development—formal operations—when they develop the capacity for abstract thought. This development, usually around age 11, gives them a new, more flexible way to manipulate information. No longer limited to the here or now, they can understand historical time and extraterrestrial space. They can use symbols for symbols and thus can learn algebra and calculus. They can better appreciate metaphor and allegory and thus find richer meaning in literature. They can think in term of what might be, not just what richer meaning possibilities and can form and test hypotheses. The ability to think abstractly has emotional implications, too. Earlier, a child could love a parent or hate a classmate. Now “adolescent can love freedom or hate exploitation…. The possible and the ideal captivate both mind and feeling”.
Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning : Piaget attributed it to a combination of brain maturation and expanding environmental opportunities. Both are essential: Even if young people’s neurological development has advanced enough to permit formal reasoning, they can attain it only with appropriate stimulation. One way this can happen is through cooperative effort. When college students were told to set up their own experiments to solve a chemistry problem, students randomly assigned to work in pairs solved more problems than those who work alone. The more the partners challenged each other’s reasoning, the greater were their advances in thinking. As with the development of concrete operations, culture and schooling seems play a role—as Piaget ultimately recognized. When adolescents in New Guinea and Rwanda were tested on the pendulum problem, none were able to solve it. On the other hand, Chinese children in Hong Kong, who had been to British schools, did as well as U.S. or European children. Schoolchildren in Central Java and New South Wales also showed some formal operational abilities. Apparently, this kind of thinking is a learned ability that is not equally necessary or equally values in all culture.
Evaluating Piaget’s Theory: Although adolescents do tend to think to think more abstractly than younger children. There is debate about the precise age at which this advance emerges. Piaget’s own writing provides many examples of children displaying aspects of scientific thinking well before adolescence. At the same time, Piaget seems to have overestimated some older children’s abilities. Many late adolescents and adults—perhaps one third to one half – seem incapable of abstract thought as Piaget defined it and even those who are capable of this kind of thinking do not always use it. Piaget, in most of his early writings, paid little attention to individual differences, to variations in the same child’s performance on different kinds of tasks, or to social and cultural influences. Finally, Piaget’s theory does not adequately consider such cognitive advance gains in information-processing capacity, accumulation of knowledge and expertise in specific fields and the role of metacognition, the awareness and monitoring one’s own mental processes and strategies.

Elkind: Immature Characteristics of Adolescent Thought
According to the psychologist David Elkind, such behavior stems from adolescent’s inexperienced ventures into formal operational thought. This new way of thinking, which fundamentally transforms the way they look at themselves and their world, is as unfamiliar to them as their reshaped bodies, and they sometime feel just as awkward in its use. As they try out their new powers, they may sometimes stumble, like an infant learning to walk. This immaturity of thinking manifests itself in at least six characteristic ways, according to Elkind: 1. Idealism and criticalness: As adolescents envision and ideal world, they realize how far the real world, for which they hold adults responsible, falls short. They become super-conscious of hypocrisy; with their sharpened verbal reasoning, they relish magazines and entertainers that attack public figures with satire and parody, convince that they know better than adults how to run the world, they frequently find fault with their parents. 2. Argumentativeness: Adolescents are constantly looking for opportunities to try out and show off their reasoning abilities. They often become argumentative as they marshal facts and logic to build a case for, say, staying out later than their parents think they should. 3. Indecisiveness: Adolescents can keep many alternatives in mind at the same time yet may lack effective strategies for choosing among them. They may have trouble making up their mind even about such simple things ad whether to go to the mall with friends or to the computer to work on school assignment. 4. Apparent hypocrisy: Young adolescents often do not recognize the difference between expressing an ideal, such as conserving energy, and making the sacrifices necessary to live up to it, such as driving less often. 5. Self- consciousness: Adolescents in the stage of formal operations can think about thinking—their own and other people’s. However, in their preoccupation with their own mental state, adolescents often assume that everyone else is thinking about the same thing they are thinking about themselves. Elkind refers to this self-consciousness as the imaginary audience, a conceptualized “observer” who is as concerned with a young person’s thoughts and behavior as he or she is. The imaginary audience fantasy is especially strong in the early teens but persist to lesser degree into adult life. 6. Specialness and invulnerability: Elkind uses the term personal fable to denote a belief by adolescents that they are special, that their experience is unique and those they are not subject to the rules that govern the rest of the world. According to Elkind, this social form of egocentrism underlies much risky, self-destructive behavior. Like the imaginary audience, the personal fable continues in adulthood. It is the personal fable, says Elkind that persuades people to take such everyday risks as driving a car despite statistics on highway death.
Changes in information processing in Adolescence
Structure change: include (1) changes in information-processing capacity and (2) the increasing amount of knowledge stored in long-term memory. The capacity of working memory, which enlarges rapidly in middle childhood, continues to increase during adolescence. The expansion of working memory may enable older adolescents to deal with complex problems or decisions involving multiple pieces of information.
Functional change: Processes for obtaining, handling, and retaining information are functional aspects of cognition. Among these are learning, remembering, reasoning, and decision making. Mathematical, spatial, and scientific reasoning are few of functional processes that typically improve during adolescences.
Language Development Adolescents also become more skilled in social perspective-taking, the ability to understand another person’s point of view and level of knowledge and to speak accordingly. This ability is essential in order to persuade or just to engage in conversation. Conscious of their audience, adolescents speak a different language with peers than with adults. Teenage slang is part of the process of developing an independent identify separate from parents and the adult world.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development Kohlberg developed his theory of moral development in the 1950s. Like Piaget, he proposed three levels of moral development. The first level, which he called Pre conventional, is where moral reasoning is based solely on a person’s own needs and perceptions. The second level, Conventional is where the expectations of society and law are taken into account. The last level, Post Conventional is where judgments are based on abstract, more personal principles that are not necessarily defined by society rules. Each of these levels is then divided into two stages. Kohlberg used moral dilemmas which required difficult ethical choices to assess the levels of reasoning in children at different ages. He was not especially interested in the specific choices children or adults made but their underlying moral reasoning in those choices.
Level 1: Pre conventional morality
Children think in terms of external authority. Rules are absolute; acts are wrong because they are punished or right because they are rewarded.
Stage 1
The punishment obedience orientation * Punishment and obedience are an individual’s main concerns. * The main motivation for obeying a rule is to avoid punishment and achieve gratification. * Being right means obeying authority.
Stage 2
The instrumental-relativist orientation/ Personal reward * The individual adopts an orientation of individualism and exchange. * Rules are followed if they are in the individual’s best interest. * Deals and compromises with others are sometimes used to solve problems. * Revealing a hedonistic orientation, morally right behavior depends on what satisfies one’s own desires. * In both stages in level1- the child is egoistic/ a hedonist. * Everyone has the right to do what he wants with himself and his possessions, even though his behavior conflicts with the rights of others.
Level 2: Conventional Morality
Judgments at this stage are based on the conventions of friends, family and society and on their approval.
Stage 3
The interpersonal-concordance orientation/Good boy or Good girl orientation * Moral reasoning is guided by mutual interpersonal expectations and conformity. * People try to do what is expected of them. * The concern is to meet external social expectation. * Concept of ‘right’ is there but nobody has the right to do evil. * Intentions become more important in judging a person’s behavior.
Stage 4
Authority and social order-maintaining orientation/Law and order orientation * Individuals place importance on the social system, including laws, and on fulfilling obligations. * There is strong belief in law, order, duty and legitimate authority. * The observance of the golden rule—do unto others as you would have others do unto you—is often the criterion in making moral judgments.
· Maintaining the established order for its own sake.
Level 3: Post conventional morality
Moral thinking involves working out a personal code of ethics or self accepted moral principle. Acceptance of rules is less rigid----one might not comply with some of the society’s rules if they conflict with personal ethics.
Stage 5
The social-contract legalistic orientation * People recognize and try to balance the importance of both social contracts and individual rights. * Moral behavior reflects a concern for the welfare of the larger community and a desire for community respect. * More flexible understanding that we obey rules because they are necessary for social order but the rules could be changed if there were better alternatives.
Stage 6
The universal-ethical principle orientation/Morality of individual principle and conscience * Behaviors conform to internal principles [justice and equality] to avoid self-condemnation and sometimes may violate society’s rules—motivation is feeling right with oneself. * Individuals adopt an orientation towards universal principles of justice, which exist regardless of a particular society’s rules. * Reasoning assumes a conscience that is based on self chosen ethical principles that place the highest value on human life, equality and dignity. * Civil disobedience is not out of disrespect for law and order, but out of respect for a morality higher than the existing law. * Visionaries or moral leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther displayed this form of morality.
Evaluating Kohlberg’s theory Kohlberg’s theory has generated enormous interest. It is the most nearly complete theory of moral development and psychologists have found that moral development in many situations seems to proceed roughly along the lines Kohlberg suggested even in other cultures such as Turkey and Israel. But the theory has not gone without any criticism. First, the scoring of scenarios is somewhat subjective and can lead to errors of interpretation. Kohlberg used moral dilemmas or scenarios and respondents were categorized into a moral level or stage according to their response to the scenario or moral dilemma. There was no objectivity in such a criteria due to the fact that classifications depended on the researcher’s perceptions of the response. Second, stages of moral development seem to be fewer domains general than Kohlberg’s theory suggests [Kurtines & Greif, 1974]. The level of people’s responses may vary, depending on the particular scenario to which they respond. In essence given different scenarios or dilemmas, people’s responses may render them classified into different stages which may rather compromise the reliability and validity of the theory. Further, evidence indicates that, contrary to the assumption of stage theories, people may regress to earlier stages of moral reasoning under certain circumstances such as under stress. Third, Kohlberg’s own finding that people can regress in their behavior points out the weak link that often exists between thought/ reasoning and action/ behavior. [Kurtines & Greif]. The link between moral thought and moral behavior is often weak –thought/reasoning does not necessarily translate into behavior. Kohlberg needless to say put too much emphasis on moral thought than on moral behavior. Moral judgment/reasoning/thought refers to the intellectual or reasoning ability to evaluate the ‘goodness’ or ‘rightness’ of a course of action in a hypothetical situation. Moral behavior refers to the individual’s ability in a real – life situation to resist the temptation to commit immoral acts. Someone may indeed nurture a higher level of moral development, but not act in ways consistent with that understanding. This inconsistency is an element of cognitive dissonance in social psychology reflecting a discrepancy often existing between attitude/thought/reasoning and subsequent behavior. The implication here is therefore that people in essence often ‘preach what they themselves do not practice’. Forth, the theory was originally validated on a relatively small sample of white, middle-class American males less than 17 years of age. Thus the theory is androgenic or centered on males. Although some investigators have found cross-cultural support for Kohlberg’s theory, others have found that in certain circumstances, such as the lifestyle of the communal Israeli kibbutz what is viewed as a higher level of morality differs from the value systems Kohlberg suggested. Apart from that the theory is ethnocentric [perspective biased towards one’s culture and judging others basing there of andeurocentric [that is biased towards the west] where people are generally individualistic hence lacking a cosmopolitan perspective. It may therefore not apply in communal or collective societies because of its parochial nature. It is also argued that the scenario or dilemma responses were somewhat based on intuition that is instinctive knowledge or insight without conscious reasoning. Fifth Kohlberg emphasized on cognitive reasoning about morality but overlooked other aspects of moral maturity such as character and virtue that operate to solve moral problems in everyday life [Walker and Pitts, 1998; Woolfolk, 2000]. The theory does not differentiate between social convention and moral issues in which an example of a convention may be- receive things with both hands and examples of a moral issue maybe- do not steal. Finally Kohlberg also fails to adequately reflect the connectedness with and concern for others in individuals. Carol Gilligan [1982, 1985] argues that Kohlberg’s theory emphasizes a justice perspective that is a focus on the rights of the individual rather than a care perspective that sees people in terms of their connectedness.

Summary
Cognitive development in adolescence People in Piaget 's stage of formal operations can engage in hypothetical-deductive reasoning. They can think in terms of possibilities, deal flexibly with problems, and test hypotheses or what we called “adolescence is the age of abstract thinking” Not all people become capable of formal operations; and those who are capable do not always use it. Vocabulary and other aspects of language development, especially those related to abstract thought. According to Elkind, immature thought patterns can result from adolescents ' inexperience with formal thinking. These thought patterns include idealism and criticalness, argumentativeness, indecisiveness, apparent hypocrisy, self-consciousness, and an assumption of specialness and invulnerability. According to Kohlberg, moral reasoning is based on a developing sense of justice and growing cognitive abilities. Kohlberg proposed that moral development progresses from external control to internalized societal standards to personal, principled moral codes. Kohlberg 's theory has been criticized on several grounds, including failure to credit the roles of emotion, socialization, and parental guidance.

Psychosocial Development
The search for identity Adolescence is the period of transition between childhood and adulthood. Developmentalists have traditionally viewed adolescence as a time of psychosocial storm and stress—of bearing the burdens of wanting to be an adult long before becoming one. Developmentalists today are more likely to view adolescence as a positive time of opportunities and growth, as most adolescents make it through this transition without serious problems or rifts with parents. Freud termed the period of psychosexual development beginning with puberty as the genital stage. During this stage, sexual development reaches adult maturity, resulting in a healthy ability to love and work if the individual has successfully progressed through previous stages. Because early pioneers in development were interested only in childhood, Freud explained that the genital stage encompasses all of adulthood, and he described no special difference between adolescent and adult years. In contrast, Erikson noted that the chief conflict facing adolescents at this stage is one of identity versus identity confusion. Hence, the psychosocial task for adolescents is to develop individuality. To form an identity, adolescents must define a personal role in society and integrate the various dimensions of their personality into a sensible whole. They must wrestle with such issues as selecting a career, college, religious system, and political party.
Researchers Carol Gilligan and Deborah Tannen have found differences in the ways in which males and females achieve identity. Gilligan has noted that females seek intimate relationships, while males pursue independence and achievement. Deborah Tannen has explained these differences as being due, at least in part, to the dissimilar ways in which males and females are socialized. The hormonal changes of puberty affect the emotions of adolescents. Along with emotional and sexual fluctuations comes the need for adolescents to question authority and societal values, as well as test limits within existing relationships. This is readily apparent within the family system, where adolescents ' need for independence from the parents and siblings can cause a great deal of conflict and tension at home. Societal mores and expectations during adolescence now restrain the curiosity so characteristic of young children, even though peer pressure to try new things and behave in certain ways is also very powerful. Added to this tug-of-war are teenagers ' increasing desires for personal responsibility and independence from their parents, along with an ever-growing, irresistible interest in sexuality.
Marcia: Identity Status – crisis and commitment Based on Erik Erikson’s groundbreaking work on identity and psychosocial development in the 1960s, Canadian developmental psychologist James Marcia refined and extended Erikson’s model, primarily focusing on adolescent development. Addressing Erikson’s notion of identity crisis, Marcia posited that the adolescent stage consists neither of identity resolution nor identity confusion, but rather the degree to which one has explored and committed to an identity in a variety of life domains from vocation, religion, relational choices, gender roles, and so on. Marcia’s theory of identity achievement argues that two distinct parts form an adolescent’s identity: crisis (i.e. a time when one’s values and choices are being reevaluated) and commitment. He defined a crisis as a time of upheaval where old values or choices are being reexamined. The end outcome of a crisis leads to a commitment made to a certain role or value. Upon developing a semi-structured interview for identity research, Marcia proposed Identity Status of psychological identity development: * Identity Diffusion – the status in which the adolescent does not have a sense of having choices; he or she has not yet made (nor is attempting/willing to make) a commitment * Identity Foreclosure – the status in which the adolescent seems willing to commit to some relevant roles, values, or goals for the future. Adolescents in this stage have not experienced an identity crisis. They tend to conform to the expectations of others regarding their future (e. g. allowing a parent to determine a career direction) As such; these individuals have not explored a range of options. * Identity Moratorium – the status in which the adolescent is currently in a crisis, exploring various commitments and is ready to make choices, but has not made a commitment to these choices yet. * Identity Achievement - the status in which adolescent has gone through a identity crisis and has made a commitment to a sense of identity (i.e. certain role or value) that he or she has chosen *Note that the above statuses are not stages and should not view as a sequential process. The core idea is that one’s sense of identity is determined largely by the choices and commitments made regarding certain personal and social traits. The work done in this paradigm considers how much one has made certain choices, and how much he or she displays a commitment to those choices. Identity involves the adoption of 1) a sexual orientation, 2) a set of values and ideals and 3) a vocational direction. A well-developed identity gives on a sense of one’s strengths, weaknesses, and individual uniqueness. A person with a less well-developed identity is not able to define his or her personal strengths and weaknesses, and does not have a well articulated sense of self. To better understand the identity formation process, Marcia conducted interviews with young people. He asked whether the participants in his study (1) had established a commitment to an occupation and ideology and (2) had experienced, or were presently experiencing, a decision making period (adolescent identity crisis). Marcia developed a framework for thinking about identity in terms of four identity statuses.
Gender differences in identity formation
Gender Differences in Identity Formation: Research finds few gender differences in identity development. When gender differences emerge, they most frequently show interpersonal concerns to figure more centrally in females’ than males’ identities, as well as differences in timing. For instance, issues of identity and intimacy are more apt to be resolved concurrently in females than in males.
Ethnic Factors in identity formation
Contributions of Ethnicity to Identity Development: For adolescents who are members of an ethnic minority, the process of identity formation includes an additional step, one of resolving issues related to their ethnic identity. Ethnic identity is a way of understanding oneself in terms of the values and traditions of one’s group, and its development progresses through several stages that correlate with ego identity statuses.
Sexuality
As adolescents struggle to understand their emerging sexualities within the context of their complex social environments, the challenge for health care providers is to provide adolescents with the necessary anticipatory guidance to maintain optimal sexual health and to help adolescents avoid behaviors and expression that place them at risk for negative consequences. Understanding sexuality as a normal and necessary part of adolescent development can help providers use a strength-based approach when counseling adolescents. Appropriate screening, education, and support can empower and encourage teens to make healthy safer sexual decisions.
Biologic, anatomic, or natal sex — Genetic, hormonal, and anatomic characteristics determine whether a person is a biologic female or male. Biologic sex typically is defined by medical assessment of genitalia during infancy. Children then are reared according to their biologically or anatomically assigned sex, with little additional thought given to the individual 's psychological or behavioral self-identification. Anatomic sex usually is viewed as a binary concept, male or female. Rare individuals harbor both male and female gonadal tissue (ovotesticular disorder of sexual development). Patients with disorders of sexual development may have subtle or obvious genital abnormalities that present during the newborn period, childhood, or adolescence. Disorders of sexual development are discussed separately.
Gender — Gender, gender identity, gender role, and gender expression are personal, psychological, and cultural constructs referring to various aspects of maleness and femaleness. * Gender identity is an individual 's innate sense of being male, female, or somewhere in between. * Gender role is society’s expectations of attitudes, behaviors, and personality traits typically based on biologic sex. Masculinity and femininity are main concepts conveying these cultural associations. * Gender expression is how gender is presented to the outside world but does not necessarily correlate with gender identity.
An individual 's gender identity is generally established at some point during early childhood. Rather than a binary concept with fixed opposites (male/female), gender may also be viewed along a continuum, depending upon individual or social interpretation. Current models of gender theory move beyond two dimensions and include variations of self identification and terminology such as: gender variance, gender queer, gender fluid, two spirits, or transgender. In general, transgender refers to individuals whose gender role or gender identity is not congruent with their biologic or anatomically assigned sex.
Sexual orientation — Sexual orientation refers to an individual 's pattern of physical and emotional arousal (including fantasies, activities, and behaviors) and the gender(s) of persons to whom an individual is physically or sexually attracted. An individual person’s assessment of her or his sexual orientation is termed sexual identity. Sexual behavior alone is neither a sensitive nor a specific predictor of adolescent gender identification, sexual orientation, or sexual identity. In the 2005-2007 New York City Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, 39 percent of adolescents with only same or both sex partners self-identified as heterosexual or straight. Formation of sexual identity among youth often is fluid, and experimentation with same-gender sexual contacts can be part of healthy adolescent development. Heterosexual youth may experiment with same-gender sexual partners. Homosexual youth may have opposite-gender sexual partners. Either group may abstain from sexual activity altogether.
In the 1950s, Kinsey maintained that, though commonly dichotomized into heterosexual or homosexual, many individuals ' sexual orientation lies somewhere in between, not absolutely one or the other. Considerable debate persists about Kinsey 's hypothesis with increasing sophistication about the specific elements of "nature" versus "nurture" determinants of gender identity and sexual orientation. Prenatal exposure to androgens, neurologic structures and functions, and other neurophysiologic theories are currently linked to both gender development and sexual orientation, though in ways that are not entirely clear. Genetics, male birth order, and immunology are among biologic factors additionally being studied.
SEXUALITY AND SOCIETY — Understanding distinctions between gender, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior is a critical concept in adolescent health and is influenced greatly by the culture in which one lives. An individual 's impression of gender or sexuality often is conveyed first to him or her by parents during early childhood. Parents or other immediate family members help children define what is male and female and how they express themselves as members of their gender. Some authors argue that social environments after birth may have little or no impact on gender identity or sexual orientation, with prenatal hormones having major effects on organizing developing sexuality As children become adolescents, influences broaden with peer, media, and community norms of gender and sexuality impacting their individual value systems. Media exerts a powerful influence on adolescents and their perception of gender roles and sexual behavior. American adolescents are exposed to several hours of media (television, radio, Internet) each day, during which they experience significant exposure to sexual content, which often contains implicit and explicit references to intercourse. Electronic media and social networking provide adolescents with even more ways to explore their burgeoning sexuality. Online social networking sites for adolescents frequently mention or feature sex and sexual behaviors. In a national survey of US teenagers (ages 13 to 19), 20 percent self-reported sending and 48 percent reported receiving sexual messages. Longitudinal research consistently links degree of exposure to sexuality in the media to increased sexual risk taking and adverse outcomes. Adolescent sexuality occurs in the context of many other aspects of adolescent development and is more complicated for sexual minorities or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (LGBTQQ) youth. Regardless of the acronyms and current issues in terminology, the individual youth is the person best suited to describe and define identity and behaviors. Many youth refuse categorization, preferring more diffuse terminology such as gender queer, queer, pansexual, or fluid regarding gender and sexuality. What matters for most youth is that the provider asks about their personal perspective, experience, and what terminology best suits their needs. Problems may arise for adolescents who encounter conflict between their emerging sexuality and the approach to sexuality they experience from families, peers, culture, and society as a whole. Role modeling, sex education, and other information for developing adolescents often has a solely heterosexual focus, with homosexuality considered a social or religious taboo. Family connectedness, social support at school, community support for its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning members, as well as a strong caring adult mentor seem to provide some resiliency and protectedness for sexual minority youth.
ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT — General adolescent development is frequently divided into three stages based loosely on chronologic age and level of functioning: early, middle, and late adolescence. One of the tasks for healthy adolescent development is the acquisition of a mature and responsible sexual identity including both an expression of sexual behaviors and the capacity for meaningful intimate relationships.
Early adolescence —Early adolescence (ages 10 to 14) coincides with the onset of puberty and typically involves concrete thinking, preoccupations and insecurities surrounding the physical changes of the body, and an egocentric approach to sexuality. Sexual curiosity and exploration may lead to initiating sexual experimentation with masturbation, or early sexual activity with same- or opposite-gender sexual partners.
Middle adolescence — Middle adolescents (ages 15 to 18) complete the physical changes of puberty and begin to have more romantic relationships typically characterized by serial monogamy or having several partners at once and over brief periods of time. Middle teens can begin to imagine the consequences of their actions but still may not fully understand them and, because of this, engage in risk-taking behaviors such as substance use and unprotected sexual activity.
Late adolescence — Late adolescents (ages 18 and up) have more mature social skills, empathy, and an understanding of risks and consequences that help them develop more intimate and serious relationships. They have a mature understanding and enjoyment of their physical self, gender role, sexual orientation, and sexual behaviors. They can participate in a variety of intimate and social relationships (romantic partners, friends, family, professional colleagues) with a broader sense of connection and purpose in the community.
Adolescents or young adults who are mature and healthy in their sexuality are able to. * Identify and live according to one’s own values; take responsibility for one’s own behavior * Practice effective decision-making; develop critical-thinking skills * Affirm that human development includes sexual development, which may or may not include reproduction or sexual experience * Seek further information about sexuality and reproduction as needed and make informed choices about family options and relationships * Interact with all genders in respectful and appropriate ways * Affirm one’s own gender identity and sexual orientation and respect the gender identities and sexual orientations of others * Appreciate one’s body and enjoy one’s sexuality throughout life, expressing one’s sexuality in ways that are congruent with one’s values * Express love and intimacy in appropriate ways * Develop and maintain meaningful relationships, avoiding exploitative or manipulative relationships * Exhibit skills and communication that enhance personal relationships with family, peers, and romantic partners
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are diseases spread by sexual contact.
About 1 in 4 new cases of STDs in the United States occurs in 15 to 19 year olds. The chief reasons for the prevalence of STDs among teenagers are early sexual activity, which increases the likelihood of having multiple high-risk partners, failure to use condoms or to use them regularly and correctly, and, for woman, the tendency to have sex with older partners. STDs are most likely to develop undetected in adolescent girls.
The most prevalent STD, according to some estimates, is human papilloma virus (HPV), which sometimes produces warts on the genitals. Also common among young people is trichomoniasis, a parasitic infection.
Genital herpes simplex is a chronic, recurring, often painful, and highly contagious disease caused by a virus. This condition can be fatal to a person with a deficiency of the immune system or to the newborn infant of a mother who has an outbreak at the time of delivery. These are no cure, but the antiviral drug acyclovir can prevent active outbreaks. The incidence of genital herpes has increased dramatically during the past three decades. Hepatitis B remains a prominent STD despite the availability of a preventive vaccine for than 20 years.
The most common curable STD are Chlamydia and gonorrhea. These diseases, if undetected and untreated, can lead to server health problems, including, in women, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), a serious abdominal infection. Forty percent of Chlamydia cases are reported among 15 to 19 year olds; more than 1 n 10 teenager girls and 1 in 5 boys are affected.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, is transmitted through bodily fluids (mainly blood and semen), usually by sharing of intravenous drug needle or by sexual contact with an infected partner. The virus attacks the body’s immune system, leaving a person vulnerable to a variety of fatal diseases. Symptom of AIDS, which include extreme fatigue, fever, swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, diarrhea, and night sweats, may not appear until six months to 10 or more years after initial HIV infection. In the United States, more than 1 out of 4 persons living with HIV or AIDS were infected in r=their teens.
As of now, AIDS is incurable, but increasingly the related infections that kill people are being stopped with antiviral therapy. Including protease inhibitors. Many HIV infected people lead active lives for years Because symptoms may not appear until a disease has progressed to the point of causing serious long-term complications, early detection is important. Regular, school-based screening and treatment, together with programs that promote abstention from or postponement of sexual activity, responsible decision making, and ready availability of condoms for those who are sexually active may have some effect in controlling the spread of STDs.
Teenage Pregnancy and Childbearing A dramatic drop in teenage pregnancy and birthrates has accompanied the steady decreases in early intercourse and in sex with multiple partners and the increases in contraceptive use. Birthrates for U.S. 15 to 19 year old girls by one-third between 1991 and 2003 to 41.7 births per 1,000 girls in that age group, the lowest rate in more than 60 years. Teen pregnancy rates fell almost as rapidly 27 percent between 1990 and 2000, to 84.5 pregnancies per 1,000 girls, the lowest reported rate since 1976. Birthrates for unmarried teenagers, who bear about 81 percent of all babies born to adolescent mothers, also have declined since 1994, especially among younger teens. The vast majority to births to teenagers ages 17 and younger result from unintended pregnancies. More than half of pregnant teenagers have their babies, and most of these girls plan to raise them themselves. Some miscarry or choose to about. A small proportion places their infants for adoption. Although declines in teenage childbearing have occurred among all population groups, birthrates have fallen most sharply among black teenagers. Still, black and Hispanic girls are more likely to have babies than white, American Indian, or Asian American girls. And U.S. teens are more likely to become pregnant and give birth than teenagers in most other industrialized countries. Many of these girls are sexually inexperienced. Among 9,159 women at a California primary care clinic, those who had become pregnant in adolescence were likely, as children, to have been physically, emotionally, or sexually abused and/or exposed to parental divorce or separation , domestic violence, substance abuse, or a household member who was mentally ill or engaged in criminal behavior. Teenager pregnancies often have poor outcomes Many of the mothers are impoverished and poorly educated, and some are drug users. Many do not eat properly, do not gain enough weight, and get inadequate premature or dangerously small and are at heightened risk to late fetal, neonatal, or infant death; health and academic problems; abuse and neglect; and developmental disabilities that may be at risk. Among more than 134,000 white, largely middle-class girls and women, 13 to 19 year olds were more likely than 20 to 24 year olds to have low-birth weight babies, even when the mothers were married and well educated and had adequate prenatal care. Prenatal care apparently cannot always overcome the biological disadvantage inherent in being born to a still-growing girl whose own body may be competing for vital nutrients with the developing fetus. Teenager unwed mothers and their families are likely to suffer financial hardship, Child support laws are spottily enforced, court-ordered payments are often inadequate, and many young fathers cannot afford them . In the past, many teenage mothers went on public assistance, but under the 1996 federal welfare reform law such assistance is severely limited. Unmarried parents under age 18 are now eligible only if they live with their parents and go to school. Teenage mothers are likely to drop put of school and to have repeated pregnancies. They and their partners may lack the maturity, skills, and social support to be good parents. Their children, in turn, are likely to drop out of school, to be depressed, to get in trouble with the law, and to become adolescent parents themselves. However, these outcomes are far from inevitable. In a 20 years study of more than 400 teenage mothers in Baltimore, two –thirds of daughters did not become teenage mothers themselves, and most graduated from high school.
Relationships with Family Peers, and Adult Society Age becomes a powerfully bounding agent in adolescence. Adolescents spend damental values remain closer to their parents’ than is generally realized. Even as adolescents turn peers for role models, companionship, and intimacy, they much like toddlers beginning to explore a winder world look to parents for a “secure base” from which they can try their wings. The most secure adolescence have strong, supportive relationship with parents who are attuned to the way the young people see themselves, permit and encourage their strivings for independence, and provide a safe haven in times of emotional stress.
Changing Time Use and Changing Relationships One way to measure changes in adolescents’ relationship with the important people in their lives is to see how they spend their discretionary time. The amount of time U.S. adolescents spend with their families declines dramatically between ages 10 and 18 from 35 percent to 14 percent of waking hours. Disengagement is not a rejection of the family, but a response to developmental needs Early adolescents often retreat to their rooms; they seem to need time alone to step back from the demands of social relationship, regain emotional stability, and reflect on identity issues. Cultural variations in time use reflect varying cultural needs, values, and practices. Young people in tribal or peasant societies spend most of their time producing bare necessities of life and have much less time for socializing than adolescents in technologically advanced societies. In some postindustrial societies such as Korea and Japan, where the pressures of schoolwork and family obligations are strong, adolescents have relatively little free time. To relieve their stress, they spend it mainly in passive pursuits, such as watching television and “doing nothing”. By comparison, U.S. adolescence has a good deal of discretionary tome,, most of which they spend with peers, increasing of the other sex. Weekend partying, Sometimes in friends’ homes without direct adult supervision, is frequent among older adolescents. Without appropriate parental monitoring, such activities can lead to substance use and deviant behavior. African and American teenagers, who may look upon their families as haven in hostile world, tend to maintain more intimate family relationship and less intense peer relations than white teenagers,. Mexican American boys, but not girls, tend to become closer to their parents during puberty. This may reflect the unusually close-knit nature of Mexican American families, the need to adapt to U.S. society often conflicts with the pull of traditional family obligations. With such cultural variations in mild, let’s look more closely at relationships with parents, and then with siblings and peers
Adolescents and Parents Just as adolescents feel tension between dependency on their parents and the need to break away, parents often have mixed feeling. They want their children to be independent, yet they find it hard to let go. Parents have to walk a fine line between giving adolescents enough independence and protecting them from immature lapses in judgment. These tensions often lead to family conflict, and parenting styles can influence its shape and outcome. Also, as with younger children, teenagers’ relationships with their parents are affected by the parents life situation their work and marital and socioeconomic status.
Family Conflict Family conflict may arise over the pace of adolescents’ growth toward independence. Most arguments concern day to day matters chores, schoolwork, dress, money, curfews, dating, and friends rather than fundamental values. However, some of these minor issues may be proxies for more serious ones, such as substance use, safe driving, and sex. An accumulation of frequent “hassles” can add up to a stressful family atmosphere. The level of family discord seems to hinge primarily on adolescents’ personalities and on parents’ treatment of them. In a study of 335 two-parent rural Midwestern families with teenagers, conflict declined during early to middle adolescence in warm, supportive families but worsened in a hostile coercive, or critical family atmosphere. Family conflict is most frequent during early adolescence but most intense in midadolescence. The frequency of strife in early adolescence may be related to the strains of puberty and the need to assert autonomy. The more highly charged arguments in midadolescence and, to a lesser extent, in late adolescence may reflect the emotional stress that occurs as adolescents try their wings. The reduced frequency of conflict in late adolescence may signify adjustment to the momentous changes of the teenage years and a renegotiation of the balance of power between parent and child.
Parenting Styles As with cognitive development, authoritative parenting seems to foster adolescents’ character development. Authoritative parents insist on important rules, norms, and values but are willing to listen, explain, and negotiate. They exercise appropriate control over a child’s conduct but not over the child’s sense of self. Parents who show behave responsibly than parents who punish them harshly. Authoritative parenting may parenting may bolster an adolescent’s self-image. A questionnaire survey of 8,700 U.S. high school students concluded that “the more involvement, autonomy granting, and structure that adolescents perceive from their parents, the more positively teens evaluate their own general conduct, psychosocial development, and mental health”. When adolescents thought their parents were trying to dominate their psychological experience, their emotional health suffered more than when parents tried to control their behavior. Teens whose parents were firm in enforcing behavioral rules had more self-discipline and fewer behavior problems than those with more permissive parents. Those whose parents gave them psychological autonomy tended to become self-confident and competent in both the academic and social realms. They wanted to achieve and believed they could do what they set out to do.
Family Structure, Mothers’ Employment, and Economic Stress Many adolescents today live in families that are very different from families a few decades ago . Many households’ like Jackie Robinson’s, are fatherless, many parents are cohabiting, and many mothers, like his, work outside the home. How do these family situations affect adolescents? A multiethnic study of 12 and 13 year olds children of single mothers – first assessed when the children were 6 and 7 year olds –found no negative effects of single parenting on school performance and no greater risk of problem behavior. What mattered most, as other studies have found, were the mother’s educational level and ability, family income, and the quality of the home environment. In another longitudinal study, adolescent boys and girls whose parents later divorced showed more academic, psychological, and behavioral problems before the breakup than peers whose parents did not divorce.

Adolescents and Siblings Adolescents are less close to siblings than to either parents or friends, are less influenced by them, and become even more distant as they move through adolescence. Changes in sibling relationships may well precede similar changes in the part of the younger person and less authority exerted by the older person. As children approach high school, their relationships with their siblings become progressively more equal. Older siblings exercise less power over younger ones, and younger siblings no longer need as much supervision. As relative age differences shrink, so do differences in competence and independence. Older and younger siblings tend to have different feeling about their changing relationship. As the younger sibling grow up, the older one may look on newly assertive younger brother or sister as a pesky annoyance. Younger siblings still tend to look up to older ones –as Jackie Robinson did to his brother Mack –and try to feel more “grow up’ by identifying with and emulating them.
Adolescents and Peers As Jackie Robinson found, an important source of emotional support during the complex transition of adolescence, as well as a source of pressure for behavior that parents may deplore, is a young person’s growing involvement with peers. The peer group is a source of attention; and a setting for achieving autonomy and independence from parents. It is a place to form intimate relationships that serve as “rehearsals” for adult intimacy. The influence of peers is strongest in early adolescence; it normally peaks at ages 12 to 13 and declines during middle and late adolescence, as relationships with parents are renegotiated. Attachment to peers in early adolescence does not forecast trouble unless the attachment is so strong that the young person is willing to give up obeying household rules, doing schoolwork, and developing his or her own talents in order to win peer approval and popularity. In childhood, most peer interactions are dyadic, or one to one, though somewhat larger groupings do begin to form in middle childhood. As children move into adolescence, the peer social system becomes more elaborate and diverse. Although adolescents continue to have one to one friendships, cliques structured groups of friends who do things together become more important. A third, and larger, type of grouping, crowds, which does not normally exist before adolescence, is based not on neighborhood, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and some may overlap in membership, which may change over time. Friendships Friendships have been more extensively studied than other peer relationships. The intensity and importance of friendships and the amount of time spent with friends are probably greater in adolescence than at any other time in the life span. Friendships, on the whole, tend to become more reciprocal, more equal, and more stable; those that are less satisfying in these respects may lose importance or be abandoned. Adolescence tend to choose friends who are like them in gender, race/ethnicity, and other respects. Friends also influence each other, particularly toward risky or problem behavior; a young person is more likely to start smoking if a friend is already going it. Friends tend to have similar academic attitudes and performance and, especially, similar levels of drug use correlations may overestimate the influence of friends on risky behavior; the qualities that lead friend to choose each other may propel their development in independent but parallel ways. By controlling for these selection effects, a one year longitudinal study of 1,700 adolescent friendship pairs found that peer influence on binge drinking and sexual activity was fairly weak. A stress on intimacy, loyalty, and sharing marks a transition toward adult like friendships. Adolescents begin to rely more on friends than on parents for intimacy and support, and they share confidences more than younger friends do. Girls friendships tend to intimate than boys, with frequent sharing of confidences. Intimacy with same-sex friends increases during early to midadolescence, after which it typically declines as intimacy with the other sex grows. The increased intimacy of adolescent friendship reflects cognitive as well as emotional developmental. Adolescents are now better able to express their private thoughts and feelings. They can more readily consider another person’s point of view, and feelings. Increased intimacy reflects early adolescents’ concern with getting to know themselves. Confiding in a friend helps young people explore their own feelings, define their identity, and validate their self-worth. Friendship provides a safe place to venture opinions, admit weaknesses, and get help with problem.
Cliques Cliques may exist among preadolescent children but are a more prominent feature of early adolescence. As expanded circles of friends, they usually consist of young people of the same age, gender, and ethnicity. However, membership in cliques tends to be based not only on personal affinity but also on popularity, or social status. A person may belong to more than one clique or to no clique, and the membership of a clique may be stable or shifting. At any given time, an adolescent can be a member of a clique, whose ties are almost entirely within that group; a liaison, who has ties to move than one clique and serves to link them, or an isolate, who is not have enough ties to any recognitized clique to be a part of it. As young people move through adolescence, the number of isolates and liaisons increases, creating a more fluid, loosely knit structure.
Crowds Leonard Bernstein’s musical West Side Story vividly illustrates the power of adolescent crowds. Crowd labels are cognitive designations for a feature that members of the crowd have in common, such as neighborhood, ethnic background, peer status, or abilities, interests, or lifestyle. The specific categories by which adolescents describe their social landscape may vary from one community to another.
Romantic Relationship Romantic Relationships are a central part of most adolescence social worlds. These relationships arouse strong emotions, both positive and negative. They contribute to the development of both intimacy and identity. Unfortunately, because they are likely to involve sexual contact, they also entail risks of pregnancy, STDs, and sometimes of sexual victimization. Breakups with romantic partners are among the strongest predictors of depression and suicide.
The onset of puberty, most heterosexual boys and girls begin to think about and interact more with members of he other sex. Typically they move from mixed groups or group dates to one on one romantic relationships that, unlike other-sex friendships, they describe as involving passion and a sense of commitment. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth who are unable to establish groups that share attracted to.
Romantic relationships tend to become more intense and more intimate across adolescence. This development can be described on the basis of the changing roles a partner may play. Romantic partners can be attachment figures, to be sought out in times of distress;; companions and friends who engage in intimacy, affection , mutual cooperation, help care, and nurturance; and sources of sexual fulfillment. A romantic partner may fill one or more of these roles, and the relative importance of particular roles may change with age or as a relationship develops.
Adolescent in Trouble: Anti social Behavior and Juvenile Delinquency
Becoming a Delinquent: How parental, Peer, and Community Influence Interact As Bronfenbrenner’s theory would suggest, antisocial behavior seems to be influenced by multileveled, interacting factors ranging from Microsystems influences, such as parenting practices and peer deviance, to macro system influences, such as community structure and neighborhood social support. This network of interacting influences begins to be woven early in childhood.
Parents begin to shape prop social or antisocial behavior through their responses to children’s basic emotional needs. Parents childhood and were harsh or inconsistent 0r both in punishing misbehavior. Through tended to believe that their children purposely misbehaved. Through the years these parents may not have been closely and positively involved in their children’s lives. The children may get payoffs for antisocial behavior: When they act up, they may gain attention or get their own for antisocial behavior.
Genetic studies have found that choice of antisocial peers is affected mainly by environmental factors. Young people gravitate to others brought u like themselves who are similar in school achievement, adjustment, and prosocial or antisocial tendencies. Children with behavior problems tend to do early in school and do not get along with well-behaved classmates, Unpopular, low-achieving, and highly aggressive children gravitate toward each other and egg each other on to further misconduct. As in children childhood, antisocial adolescents tend to have antisocial friends, and their antisocial behavior increases when they associate with each other. The way antisocial teenagers talk, laugh, or smirk about rule breaking and nod knowingly among themselves constitutes a sort of “deviancy training”. These “problem children” continue to elicit inflective parenting, which predicts delinquent behavior and association with deviant peer groups or gangs.
Authoritive parenting can help young people internalize standards that may insulate them against negative peer influences and open them to positive ones. Improved parenting during adolescence can reduce delinquency by discoursing association with deviant peers. As we have discussed, adolescents whose parents know where they are and what they are doing are less likely to engage in delinquent acts or to associate with deviant peers.
Family circumstances may influence the development of antisocial behavior. Persistent economic deprivation can undermine sound parenting by depriving the family of social capital. Poor children are more likely than other children to commit antisocial acts, and those whose families are continuously poor tend to become more antisocial with time. When families rise from poverty while a child is still young, the child is no more likely to develop behavior problems than a child whose family was never poor.
Long-Term Prospects Many, if not most, adolescents, like Jackie Robinson and his friends, at some point engage in antisocial behavior or even in violence. The vast majority of those young people do not become adult criminals but rather tame their urges to sow “wild oats”.
Delinquency peaks at about age 15 and then declines as most adolescents and their families come to terms with young people’s need to assert independence. However, teenagers who do not see positive alternatives are more likely to adopt a permanently antisocial lifestyle. Those most likely to persist in violence are boys who had early antisocial influence. Least likely to persist are boys and girls who were early school achievers and girls who showed early prosocial development. Because adolescents’ character is still in flex. Many developmental psychologists deplore the current trend toward transferring juvenile offenders from the juvenile court system, which is aimed at rehabilitation, to criminal courts where they are tried and sentenced as adults.
Preventing and Treating Delinquency Because juvenile delinquency has roots early in childhood, so should preventive efforts that attack the multiple factors that can lead to delinquency. Adolescents who have taken part in certain early childhood intervention programs are less likely-risk urban children and lasted at least two years during the child’s first five years of life. They influenced children directly, through high-quality day care or education, and at the same time indirectly, by offering families assistance and support geared to their needs. These programs operated on Bronfenbrenner’s mesosystem by affecting interactions between the home and the school or child care center. The programs and linking parents with such community services as parental and postnatal care and educational and vocational counseling their multipronged approach, these interventions had an impact on several early risk factors for delinquency. Once children reach adolescence, especially in poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods, interventions need to focus on spotting troubled adolescents and preventing gang recruitment by bolstering parenting skills and neighborhood social support. Adult-monitored activities after school, on weekend evenings, and in summer, when adolescents are most likely to be idle and to get in trouble, can reduce their exposure to high-risk setting that encourage antisocial behavior. As Jackie Robinson’s experience shows, getting teenagers involved in constructive activities during their free time can pay long-range dividends. Participation in extracurricular school activities tend to cut down on dropout and criminal arrest rates among high-risk boys and girls.

Summary
Psychosocial development in adolescence Emotional maturity is closely tied to the knowledge of oneself, and one 's values. This self-identity develops and solidifies during adolescence. Erik Erikson and James Marcia both proposed theories of identity development and these theories were reviewed. Despite theoretical differences, both theorists agree some adolescence will develop a clear set of values and beliefs through experimentation with different identities, and an examination of their values. Because of the increased importance of peer relationships, adolescences are especially sensitive to peers pressure. By late adolescence will ordinarily re-establish close relationships with their families, provided these relationships were positive to begin with. Adolescence also creates more meaningful and productive relationships with other people outside their circle of family and friends. Romantic relationships begin to flourish during this developmental phase. In early adolescence these connections may be of a more flirtatious nature, and may bloom and fade rather quickly. However, by late adolescence, many of these relationships become more stable, mature, and emotionally intimate. Moral development naturally progresses as mental and emotional maturity improves. Adolescences ' understanding of right and wrong becomes more sophisticated and nuanced. Both Piaget 's and Kohlberg 's theories of moral development were reviewed, but Kohlberg 's theory has been more strongly supported by the research. According to Kohlberg 's theory, some adolescence will eventually base their moral decisions on a set of ethical principles that surpass existing laws or rules. Other youth will remain primarily concerned with rules, laws, and fairness. Sexual development was described as a complex merger of physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and moral development. During this time youth solidify their gender identity as masculine, feminine, or transgendered. Adolescence will also become aware of their sexual orientation which refers to a pattern of attraction to others, not sexual behavior. Adolescence will begin to realize they are primarily attracted to the opposite gender (straight), the same gender (gay or lesbian), both genders (bisexual), or still uncertain (questioning). During early adolescence most teens become curious about sex, but any sexual behavior is usually limited to masturbation. However, by middle to late adolescence, many teens begin to experiment with various sexual behaviors via masturbation, partners, or both. Because of the brain 's incomplete development youth are at risk for making poor or risky decisions regarding their sexuality. Ultimately adolescence must determine what type of sexual behavior is acceptable to them, and under what circumstances. These decisions are best made in advance of the need to make them.

Developmental Promotion
Educational and Vocational Preparation
School is a central organizing experience in most adolescents, lives. It offers opportunities to learn information, master new skills, and sharpen old ones; to participate in sports, the arts, and other activities; to explore vocational choices; and to be with friends. It widens intellectual and social horizons. Some adolescents, however, experience school not as an opportunity but as one more hindrance on the road to adulthood.
Influences on Motivation and Achievement Students who do well in school are likely to remain in school. As in the elementary grades, such factors as parenting practices, socioeconomic status, and the quality of the home environment influence the course of school achievement in adolescence (Jimerson, Egeland, & Teo, 1999). Other factors include gender, ethnicity, peer influence, quality of schooling, and – first and foremost—students’ belief in themselves.
Self-Efficacy Beliefs, self- efficacy—who believe that they can master tasks and regulate their own learning—are most likely to do well in school. In one study, 116 ninth- and tenth-graders of various ethnic backgrounds in two eastern high schools were asked such questions as “How well can you finish homework assignments by deadlines? Concentrate on school subjects? Plan and organize your schoolwork?” The students’ perceived self-efficacy predicated the social studies grades they hoped for, expected, and achieved. Students’ goals they hoped for’ expected, and achieved. Students’ goals were influenced by their parents’ goals for them, but students’ beliefs about their own abilities were more influential (Zimmerman et al.,1992). The message is clear: If parents want their children to do well in school, they must see that children have learning experiences that build a belief in their ability to succeed.
Parenting Styles, Ethnicity, and Peer Influence The benefits of authoritative parenting continue in adolescence (Baumrind, 1991), affecting school achievement. Authoritative parents urge adolescents to look at both sides of issues, welcome their participation in family decisions, and admit that children sometimes know more than parents. These parents strike a balance between making demands and being responsive. Their children receive praise and privileges for good grades; poor grades bring encouragement to try harder and offer of help. Authoritarian parents, by contrast, tell adolescents not to argue with or question adults and tell them they will “know better; poor grades may be punished by reduced allowances or “grounding.” Permissive parents seem indifferent to grades, make no rules about watching television, do not attend school functions, and neither help with nor check their children’s homework. These parents may not be neglectful or uncaring; they may in fact, be nurturant. They may simply believe that teenagers should be responsible for their own lives. What accounts for the academic success of authoritatively raised adolescents? Authoritative parents’ greater involvement in schooling may be a factor as well as their encouragement of positive attitudes toward work. A more subtle mechanism, consistent with findings on self-efficacy, may be parents’ influence on how children explain success or failure. In a study of 2,353 high school students in California and Wisconsin, students who saw their parents as no authoritative were more likely than their peers to attribute poor grades to external causes or to low ability – forces beyond their control – rather than to their own efforts. A year later, such students tended to pay less attention in class and to spend less time on homework (Glasgow et al.,1997). Thus, a sense of helplessness associated with no authoritive parenting may become a self- fulfilling prophecy, discouraging students from trying to succed. Among some ethnic groups, parenting styles may be less important than other factors, such as peer influence, that affect motivation. In one study, Latino and African American adolescents, even those with authoritive parents did less well in school than European American students, apparently because of lack of peer support for academic achievement (Steinberg, Dornbusch, & Brown, 1992). On the other hand, Asian American students, whose parents are sometimes described as authoritarian, get high grades and score better than European American students on math achievement tests, apparently because they like math and because both parents and peers prize achievement (C. Chen & Stevenson, 19995). The strong school achievement of many young people from a variety of immigrant backgrounds reflects their families and friends strong emphasis on and support of educational success (Fuligni, 1997). Downward Peer influence may help explain the downward trend in academic motivation and achievement that begins for many students in early adolescence. In a longitudinal study of students entering an urban middle school after sixth grade, and are more likely to graduate from high school and plan to attend and finish college and graduate or professional schools. Boys are more likely to be underachievers, to be assigned to special or remedial education, and to be expelled from or drop out of school (Eccleset al.,2003; Freeman, 2004). Boys have had a slight edge on standardized tests of math and science, perhaps because they like school s little better than girls do, but this gender gap appears to be shrinking as girls take equally challenging math and science courses and do well in them. Girls do better than boys on assessments of reading and writing (Freeman, 2004; Sen et al., 2005). Internationally, in 2000, girls were better readers than boys in all of 43 participating countries; boys were ahead in mathematical literary in about half of the countries, though these gender differences were smaller (OECD, 2004).
Teachers tend to discipline boys more harshly than girls. On the other hand, they tend to give more favorable attention to high-achieving boys than to high-achieving girls. Boys are more likely than girls to be encouraged to take honors courses, to apply to top colleges, and to aim for challenging careers (Eccles et al., 2003). The Educational System The quality of school strongly influences students’ achievement. A good high school has an orderly, unoppressive atmosphere; an active, energetic principal; and teachers who take part in making decisions. Principal and teachers have high expectations for students. Emphasize academic more than extracurricular activities and closely monitor student performance. Students who like school do better academically. Adolescents are more satisfied with school if they are allowed to participate in making rulrs and feel support from teaches and other students (Samdal & Dur, 2000). Schools that tailor teaching to students’ abilities get better results than schools that try to teach all students in the same way. Research on Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence has found that students high in partical or creative intelligence do better when taught in a way that allows them to capitalize on those strengths (Stenberg, 1997: Sternberg, Torff, & Grigorenko, 1998). Some big-city school system, such as New York’s, Philadelphia’s, and Chicago’s are experimenting with small schools, in which students, teachers, and parents from a learning community united by a common vision of good education. The curriculum may have a special focus such as ethnic studies. Teaching is flexible, innovative, and personalized; teachers work together closely and get to know students well (Meier, 1995: Rossi, 1996). However, some small schools that originally showed promise have closed or declined in quality due to funding problems, increased enrollment, or staff turnover (Gootman & Herszenhorn, 2005). The transition to college, with its higher educational standards and expectations for self-direction, can be a shock for some students. Early college high schools –small, personalized, high-quality schools operated in cooperation with nearby colleges-are intended primarily for low-income and minority students and first –generation English language learners, groups statically underrepresented in higher education. By combining a nurturing atmosphere with clear, rigorous standards, these schools enable students to complete high school requirements plus the first two years of college (“The Early College high school initiative,” undated).
Dropping Out of high school Although more U.S. youth are completing high school than ever before, 5 percent of high school students dropped out during the 2000-2001 school year (Kaufman Alt & chapman, 2004). And 10.7 percent of 16- to 24-year olds in 2001 were out of high school without a diploma or equivalent- this at a time when high school graduation is for most purposes, a minimum requirement for labor force entry (Kaufman et al., 2001, 2004; NCES, 2003). Dropout rates are higher among boys than among girls (Freeman, 2004). His panic students are more likely to drop out than African Americans, who are more likely to drop out than non-Hispanic whites (NCES,2003).; and low- income students likely to drop out than middle- or high-income students (NCES,2004 a). The higher dropout rates among minority groups living in poverty may stem in part from the poor quality of their schools as compared with those attended by more advantaged children. Among other possible reasons for the high Latino dropout rates are language difficulties, financial pressures, and a culture that puts family first; these students often leave school to help support their families (U.S. Department of Education, 1992). Society suffers when young people do not finish school. Dropouts are more likely to be unemployed or to have low incomes, to end up on welfare, and to able income burden the public treasury (NVES, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004a). Perhaps the most important factor in keeping adolescents in school is active engagement: the extent to which the student is personally involved in schooling. On the most basic level, active engagement means coming to class on time, being prepared listening and responding to the teacher, and obeying school rules. A second level of engagement consists of getting involved with the coursework –asking questions, taking initiative to seek help when needed, or doing extra projects. Both levels of active engagement tend to pay off in positive school performance less likely to drop out (Mahoney, 2000; Shanahan & Flaherty, 2001); those who have full-time jobs are more likely to do so (Shanahan & Flaherty, 2001). What factors promote active engagement? Family encouragement is one. Others may include small class size and a warm, supportive school environment. Preschool experience – or the lack of it –may set the stage for high school success quality early childhood education program were less likely to be held back or to drop out of high school (Temple, Reynolds, & Miedel, 2000).
Educational and Vocational Aspirations How do young people develop career goals? How do they decide other to go to college and, if not, how to enter the world of work? Many factors enter in, including individual ability and personality, education, socioeconomic and ethnic background, the advice of school counselors, life experience, and societal values. Let’s look at some influences on educational and vocational aspirations. Then we’ll examine provisions for young people who are not college-bound.
Influences on Students’ Aspirations Students’ self-efficacy beliefs –often influenced by parents’ beliefs and aspirations –shape the occupational options the students consider and the way they prepare for careers achievement influence adolescents’ values and occupational goals. This is especially apparent among children of East Asian immigrant families, who strongly value education. Although high lege as peers from American- born families, the proportion of children of East Asian families who do so is much higher than among some other immigrant groups. Despite the greater flexibility in career goals today, gender – and gender stereotyping –may influence vocational choice. Girls and boys in United States are now equally likely to take challenging math and science course in high school and to plan careers in those fields, but boys are much more likely to earn college degrees in engineering, physics, and computer science (NCES, 2001), whereas girls are still more likely to go into nursing, social welfare professions, and teaching. Much the same is true in other industrialized countries. The educational system itself may act as a brake on vocational aspirations. Students who can memorize and analyze tend to do well on intelligence tests and in classrooms where teaching is geared to those abilities. Thus, as predicated by the tests, these students are achievers in a system that stresses the abilities in which they happen to excel. Students whose strength is in creative or practical thinking –areas critical to success in certain fields –never get a chance to slow what they can do. Recognition of a broader range of “intelligences”, combined with more flexible teaching and career counseling, could allow more students to get the education and enter the occupations they desire and to make the contributions of which they are capable.
Guiding Students Not Bound for College Most industrialized countries offer guidance to no college-bound students. Germany, for example, has an apprenticeship system in which high school students go to school part-time and spend the rest of the week in paid on the job training supervised by an employer-mentor. About 60 percent of those who complete it find jobs. In United State, vocational counseling is generally oriented toward college-bound youth. Whatever vocational training programs do exist for the approximately 38 percent of high school graduates who do not immediately go on to college tend to be less closely tied to the needs of businesses and industries. Most of these in community college course. Many, ignorant about the job market, do not obtain the skills they need. Others take jobs beneath their abilities. Some do not find work at all. In some communities, demonstration programs help in the school to work transition. The most successful ones offer instruction in basic skills, counseling, peer support, mentoring, apprenticeship, and job placement. In 1994, congress passed the school to work opportunities Act, which allocated $1.1 billion to help states and local governments develop vocational training programs. In 2000-2001 nearly half of public alternative schools and programs for at-risk youth offered vocational training.

Summary
Developmental Promotion in adolescence Support the adolescence in developing healthy habits and attitudes, help him or her make wise choices, and offer guidance in how to balance responsibilities. The following are examples of ways to promote healthy growth and development in specific areas. But remember that many growth and development issues overlap. For example, having a healthy body image is important for physical development and emotional development. Use these ideas as a starting point to help the adolescence to make good choices that will help him or her grow into a healthy and happy adult.
Promote the adolescence’s physical development by doing the following: Be aware of changing sleep patterns. Rapidly growing and busy teens need a lot of sleep. The natural sleeping pattern for many teens is to go to bed later at night and sleep in. Teach the adolescence how to take care of his or her skin. Most young people get at least mild acne. Help your teen manage acne with daily facial care and, if needed, medicines. Also have the adolescence avoid sunbathing and tanning salons. Sunburn can damage a child 's skin for a lifetime and put him or her at risk foreskin. Talk about body image. What the adolescence thinks about their bodies greatly affects their feelings of self-worth. Stress that healthy eating and exercise habits are most important for the short and long term. Help them to recognize that television and other media often produce unrealistic images of the ideal body that are not healthy. Help the adolescence choose healthy foods . By eating a wide variety of basic foods, the adolescence can get the nutrients he or she needs for normal growth. And he or she will be well-nourished. Offer strategies to avoid tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. Set firm, fair, and consistent limits for the adolescence. Help him or her understand the immediate and long-lasting results of substance use, such as falling grades and poor health during adulthood. Practice how to respond when a harmful substance is offered, such as simply stating "No, thanks" and moving on to another subject. If you believe your teenager is using drugs or alcohol, it is important to talk about it. Discuss how he or she gets the alcohol, tobacco, or drugs and in what kind of setting it is used. Seek advice from a doctor if the behavior continues.

Bibliography
Adams. James F. Understanding Adolescence. 2nd edition. Boston : Allyn and Bacon,Inc. 1973
Church. Joseph and Stone. Joseph L. Childhood&Adolescence. 3rd edition. New York : Random House. 1973
Feldman. Ruth Duskin., Olds. Sally Wendkos and Papalia. Diane E. Human Development. Tenth Edition. China : McGraw-Hill. 2007.
Feldman. Robert S. Adolescence. New Jersey : Pearson Education. 2008.
Lloyd. Margaret A. Adolescence. New York : Harper & Row publishers. 1985
Newman. Barbara M. and Newman. Philip R. Adolescent Development. Ohio : Merrill Publishing Company. 1986.
The Search for Identity: Age 12–19. Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/The-Search-for-Identity-Age- 1219.topicArticleId-26831,articleId-26796.html
Identity: Gender and Ethnicity. Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://sites.sinauer.com/cobb/chapter05.html
Identity Status Theory (Marcia). Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://www.learning- theories.com/identity-status-theory-marcia.html

Appendix

Bibliography: Feldman. Robert S. Adolescence. New Jersey : Pearson Education. 2008. Lloyd. Margaret A. Adolescence. New York : Harper & Row publishers. 1985 Newman Publishing Company. 1986. The Search for Identity: Age 12–19. Retrieved December 4, 2012 from http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/The-Search-for-Identity-Age-