Adolescents, Families, and Social Development: How Teens Construct Their Worlds

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

About the Author

Judith G. Smetana is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Ph.D. Program in Developmental Psychology at the University of Rochester, where she also held the Frederika Warner Chair in Human Development from 1995 to 1998. She has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals, and she is the author of more than 150 articles and chapters on the development of children's moral and social reasoning and on adolescent-parent relationships in different ethnic and cultural contexts.