Indigenous Adolescent Development: Psychological, Social and Historical Contexts

This volume explores the first four waves of a longitudinal diagnostic study of Indigenous adolescents and their families. The first study of its kind, it calls attention to culturally specific risk factors that affect Indigenous (American Indian and Canadian First Nations) adolescent development and describe the historical and social contexts in which Indigenous adolescents come of age. It provides unique information on ethical research and development within Indigenous communities, psychiatric diagnosis at early and mid-adolescence, and suggestions for putting the findings into action through empirically-based interventions.

About the Author

Les B. Whitbeck is the John G. Bruhn Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has been working in research partnerships with Indigenous people since the mid-1990s and is the author of more than one hundred refereed articles. Whitbeck specializes in community based participatory research (CBPR) and has been PI for nine NIH grants, one SAMSHA grant, and one NARCH grant for work with Indigenous people. Kelley J. Sittner Hartshorn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University. She received her PhD in 2011 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research is in the areas of crime and delinquency, mental health, substance use, and inequality, with a particular focus on North American Indigenous communities. She has worked with the Healing Pathways Project for over four years. Melissa L. Walls is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health and Population Sciences at the University of Minnesota Medical School-Duluth. She is also a Co-Director of the Research for Indigenous Community Health (RICH) Center at UMN. Her involvement in community-based participatory research (CBPR) projects to date includes mental health epidemiology; culturally relevant, family-based substance use prevention and mental health promotion programming and evaluation; and, examining the impact of mental health and stress on type 2 diabetes.