Adolescents’ socialization

Adolescents’ socialization into adulthood and related self-development were conceptualized
in terms of four mechanisms: First, it was assumed that the age-graded developmental
tasks, role transitions, and institutional tracks define an opportunity space
that channels young people’s future-oriented motivation, thinking, and behavior. Second,
the kinds of motives and personal goals adolescents construct, and the ways in
which they explore, plan, construct strategies, and enter into commitments were assumed
to be responsible for the ways in which adolescents direct their future development
and select their developmental environments. Third, as a consequence of their efforts,
adolescents attain outcomes, either successes or failures, which requires them to
adjust their previous efforts in terms of goal reconstruction, coping, and the use of self-
110 Socialization and Self-Development
protective causal attributions. Finally, after ending up in a particular social position
and related life situation, adolescents construct reflections and tell stories about who
they are.
Socialization and Self-Development
A review of previous research suggested, first, that adolescents have relatively detailed
conceptions of their age-graded developmental environments (i.e., the timing and sequential
structure of the transitions and tracks they are facing in the future). It was
therefore no surprise that such age-graded structures channel adolescents’ personal
goals and interests: Young people’s future hopes and interests were found to focus typically
on the major developmental tasks of their own age period. Young people also
continuously reconstruct their personal goals to match with the specific stages of a particular
transition through which they are going, as well as the institutional tracks in
which they are involved.
Both the personal goals adolescents have and the cognitive strategies they deploy,
which were assumed to be the major mechanisms in the selection process, were found
to contribute to the developmental trajectories they face subsequently, as well as how
well they are able to deal with the related challenges and demands. Clear evidence was
found from longitudinal studies that adolescents’ motives and personal goals predict
how their lives will proceed in educational, occupational, and family-related trajectories.
Similarly, the kinds of plans and strategies that adolescents apply have consequences
for their success in dealing with major challenges at school, at work, and also
in interpersonal relationships. However, adolescents become interested in forthcoming
developmental tasks and transitions as they grow older, and the tools they have for
dealing with these demands and challenges develop rapidly during early adolescence in
particular. Although the majority of adolescents deploy adaptive strategies, such as optimistic
and task-focused patterns, some of them deploy avoidant strategies as a way to
deal with a fear of failure or anxiety.
This review showed also that adolescents whose goals focus on major age-graded developmental
tasks have higher well-being than do those who have other kinds of goals,
perhaps because such goals help them to deal with the major demands and challenges
they are facing. Although it has been assumed that thinking of self-related issues is a
part of adolescents’ lives, strong evidence was found that self-focused, existential type
of goals are detrimental to young people’s well-being. Moreover, the deployment of
adaptive strategies led not only to higher levels of success in academic and interpersonal
domains of life but also, in the longer run, to higher well-being.
There is also considerable evidence that parents and their adolescent children share
similar kinds of goals concerning the adolescent’s future. Moreover, positive and authoritative
parenting is associated not only with adolescents’ high level of interest in
major developmental tasks, such as education and occupation, but also with adolescents’
use of adaptive strategies, particularly in achievement contexts.
After adolescents have received feedback about the outcomes of their efforts to deal
with the major developmental challenges and demands, they have to adjust their previous
efforts in terms of coping, reconstruction of goals, and making causal attributions.
Conclusions 111
Surprisingly, much less research has been conducted on the antecedents and consequences
of this adjustment compared with those of selection processes. Research on
coping showed that problem-focused coping and engagement coping are associated
with higher levels of psychological adjustment, whereas emotion-focused coping seems
to lead to maladjustment. However, there was little evidence that coping has clear
consequences for individual success in dealing with particular kinds of tasks. Authoritative
and positive parenting was shown to be associated with problem-focused coping,
whereas more negative parenting is related to emotion-focused coping.
Very little research has been carried out on how adolescents reconstruct their personal
goals based on their previous successes and failures. The few studies suggest that
adolescents reconstruct their goals on the basis of the feedback they receive concerning
goal attainment and that such goal reconstruction contributes to their well-being.
Similarly, little research has been carried out on the role that causal attributions have
in the situations in which young people have had problems in dealing with previous demands.
The few studies that exist show that problems in dealing with major transitions
decrease the use of self-protective causal attributions, which then leads to an increase
in depressive symptoms. Dysfunctional causal attributions also lower adolescents’ active
engagement in school activities, and subsequently their academic achievement.
It was also assumed that entrance into certain roles and social positions has consequences
for the identities or self-concepts that adolescents construct. Although the
studies suggest that younger adolescents more frequently report less developed identity
statuses than do older adolescents, relatively little is know about the developmental antecedents
or consequences of these developments.
By contrast, we know much, on a descriptive level, about how self-concept and
self-esteem develop during adolescence. However, some of the recent findings have
challenged previous theories by suggesting a more dynamic view according to which
adolescents’ self-concepts fluctuate significantly and follow, in many cases, individual
developmental trajectories. This fluctuation has been found to reflect many changes in
the individual’s development environments, such as school transitions, grades, and a
variety of stressful life events.
Socialization in Place: Different Developmental Environments
In this chapter adolescent socialization and self-development were conceptualized in
terms of four mechanisms that are responsible for the transaction between the developing
adolescent, on the one hand, and his or her age-graded sociocultural environment,
on the other. It can also be assumed that the substantial amount of variation
across societies and cultures in the developmental environments in which adolescents
grow up (Brown, Larson, & Saraswathi, 2002; Hurrelmann, 1994) channels their subsequent
development in many ways. One key factor that contributes to this variation is
education: There are many differences in the educational systems that are reflected in
adolescents’ thinking and lives across the world (Hurrelmann, 1994; Nurmi, Seginer, et
al., 1995; Scnabel, Alfeld, Eccles, Köller, & Baumert, 2002). For example, in many European
countries and the United States, streaming in education based on academic
achievement begins relatively early (Hurrelmann, 1994), which also influences adolescents’
subsequent opportunities. In some other societies, such as Scandinavian coun-
112 Socialization and Self-Development
tries, adolescents receive comprehensive education until the age of fifteen without any
streaming (Nurmi & Siurala, 1994). These differences in educational transition then
cooccur with those of occupational life. For example, a large proportion of young
British youths leave school and enter the labor force at the age of 16, which is very different
compared to countries that aim at long education for a whole cohort, such as the
United States and Scandinavian countries.
There are also many cross-national differences in the transitions related to interpersonal
life, such as the age of first marriage and the patterns of starting family life, that
influence adolescents’ socialization into adulthood in many ways (cf. Martínez, de
Miguel, & Fernández, 1994; Roe, Bjurström, & Förnäs, 1994). One further factor along
which developmental environments vary is the relative importance of parents and peers
in adolescents’ lives. Although peers are an important part of adolescents lives in most
parts of the world, in some contexts (e.g., in India and in Arab countries) peer groups
play a relatively minor role, particularly for girls (Brown et al., 2002).
Besides cross-national differences, adolescents’ developmental environments vary
also within societies along many factors, such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
Young people who come from diverse backgrounds face different opportunity structures,
age-related normative demands, and standards and are provided different role
models and parental tutoring. Such differences then have consequences for the ways in
which adolescents direct their lives in the domains of education, occupation, and interpersonal
relations; for how they adjust to the outcomes of their efforts; and for the
kinds of reflections they construct about themselves during the transition from adolescence
to adulthood. For example, in the United States the percentage of adolescents
who had completed high school and the percentage of those who have a bachelor degree
vary substantially according to ethnicity: Whites show the highest percentages,
followed by Blacks, while Latinos show the lowest educational attainment (Kerckhoff,
2002). Such differences are important because they are also reflected in an individual’s
occupational career and problems with it, such as unemployment.
Another important factor that influences the challenges, opportunities, and standards
that adolescents face is the socioeconomic status of their family, which consists
of a number of interrelated variables, such as family income and values, parental education,
and membership in particular subcultures and communities. For example, family
income is a foremost factor in differentiating the paths taken through the transition
from adolescence to adulthood in many countries (Mortimer & Larson, 2002). As adolescents
have relatively detailed conceptions of their age-graded developmental environments
(Crockett & Bingham, 2000), they are probably also conscious of how their
social background will influence them. The impact of socioeconomic status is reflected
not only in the opportunity structure but also in parents’ values and aspirations, which
have been shown to influence adolescents’ subsequent life paths (Hogan, 1985).
Because the key assumption in this chapter is that adolescents’ age-graded developmental
environments provide a basis for the ways in which adolescents direct their development
and adjust to developmental outcomes, this variation in adolescents’ environments
across and within countries can be expected to be reflected in many ways in
the channeling, selection, adjustment, and reflection processes. For example, Scnabel
et al. (2002) showed that academic achievement was predictive of adolescents’ career
decisions both in Germany and the United States, whereas social background influ-
Conclusions 113
ences were more pronounced in Germany. Moreover, Nurmi, Seginer, et al. (1995)
found that due to earlier and shorter educational transitions, Australian adolescents
showed higher levels of exploration and commitments, both in the domain of future education
and work, compared with their Israeli and Finnish counterparts. They also expected
their goals and hopes related to future education and work to be realized earlier
in their lives than did young Finns and Israelis.
Overall, these results are important because they suggest that the different environments
in which adolescents grow up produce substantial amounts of variation in their
subsequent life paths. Consequently, one must be careful in making generalizations
from results found in one sociocultural context to other environments. However, this
variation provides researchers with an interesting option to examine the extent to which
their theories and findings generalize across different developmental environments.
Socialization in Time: Historical Changes
It is only during the past 100 years that adolescence emerged as an independent and extended
life period, mainly due to the extended period of education (Hurrelman, 1994).
Moreover, adolescence, as well as how it is defined by society and culture, shows continuous
change. Herdandez (1997) summarized the trends in the United States during
the past 150 years. According to him, the major changes in the developmental context
of children and adolescents during the century before the second world war included
the shift to nonfarm work by fathers, a drastic constriction of family size, and enormous
increases in educational attainments. After the half century that followed, the key
changes have included the increase of labor force participation by mothers, the rise of
single parenthood, and a large decline and then substantial rise in child poverty. Although
the timing of these historical changes has varied from one country to another,
the general patterns are more or less the same in industrialized countries. Moreover,
some of the recent changes in developing countries resemble the changes that happened
in industrialized societies several decades ago (Brown et al., 2002). The importance of
these analyses for adolescent research is that they help us to understand that how things
appear in young people’s lives at a given moment is not a consequence of unchangeable
general laws but rather is influenced by many historical and societal developments.
A few recent trends also modify adolescent development. First, gender differences
in adolescents’ thinking and interests seem to be changing in industrialized countries.
Although girls continue to be more interested in future family and human relationships
and boys in material aspects of life, comparisons of research findings across the past 30
years suggest that girls’ interests in education and occupation began to exceed those of
boys (Nurmi, 2001). These results accord well with the statistics that in many countries
the proportion of girls in higher education exceeds that for boys. However, in less industrialized
countries the experiences and opportunities of adolescents boys and girls
have remained markedly different (Brown & Larson, 2002).
Another still-continuing change is a move from rural areas to urban environments.
It has been suggested that living in urban versus rural living environments, along with
related differences in the opportunity structures, is reflected in young people’s motivation
and thinking in many ways. For example, Nurmi et al. (1994) found that adolescents’
exploration and commitments related to education and occupation increased
114 Socialization and Self-Development
with age in urban environments but not in rural environments. This difference was suggested
to be due to the fact that rural environments provide less educational choices
than do urban contexts.
The third developmental trend that influences adolescents’ lives in most parts of the
world is globalization (Brown & Larson, 2002). Besides a move from rural to urban environments
and increasing length of education, globalization refers also to the important
role of a uniform youth culture as reflected in standard elements of dress, music
taste, and entertainment. This development is closely connected to the increasing importance
of new information technologies and worldwide media business.
One recent change in adolescents’ lives in industrialized countries consists of an increase
in so-called turbulences in the transition into job markets. Many young people
start their occupational careers in jobs that both they and their employer expect to be
temporary. Although it has been suggested that this trend is due to the educational system
of the United States (Kerckhoff, 2002), a similar trend is evident in many European
countries. The problem of this development is that it may also postpone other transitions
during young adulthood, such as gaining independence from parents and starting
one’s own family.
The final important recent change in adolescent life is the increase in divorce and
single parenthood. If this trend continues, it may lead to many changes in adolescent
socialization. For example, as most of the single parents are women, increasing amounts
of adolescents are living in a situation in which they lack advice and support from their
fathers (Jenkins Tucker et al., 2001). This may cause particular problems in adolescent
socialization into the adult world, particularly for boys.
Methodological Implications
This chapter summarized the results of research about adolescents’ socialization and
self-development. Unfortunately, many parts of the literature review concluded that the
research included serious methodological limitations.
One typical feature of the reviewed studies was that the direction of influence was
presupposed on the basis of cross-sectional findings. This problem was particularly true
for the research that focused on the role of parent and peer relations in adolescents development.
Consequently, there is a need to enhance the quality of data when examining
any developmental mechanisms. One way to do this is to use cross-lagged longitudinal
data in which the same variables are repeatedly measured across time. This means
that the time for easy solutions to conduct adolescent research is over: Cross-sectional
procedures in the examination of developmental processes are in many cases wastes of
time and money.
Another way to test the direction of effects is to use intervention studies. This approach
has not been typical in the research on adolescents socialization, perhaps
because it is not clear what should be targeted in interventions. In the case of problem
behaviors, such as criminality and drug abuse, this, of course, is not a problem.
One assumption in this chapter is that adolescent development consists of interactions
between the developing individual and his or her changing age-graded environments.
The major idea is that age-graded environments channel adolescents motives
and interests, and feedback concerning their efforts in dealing with a variety of transi-
Conclusions 115
tions and challenges leads to the adjustment of previous strategies and goals and the
formation of reflections concerning oneself. Examination of such mechanisms requires
at least two features of the data.
First, as the processes included in socialization might be assumed to change rapidly,
there is a need for intensive measurements, such as every half year or even less. The
problem with traditional longitudinal studies is, namely, that they may not be intensive
enough to reach the critical developmental changes. Examination of developmental
processes should be preceded by theoretical analysis of the time range during which
major developmental processes take place, and this time range should then be applied
to define the length of the time intervals between the measurements (Aunola, Leskinen,
Onatsu-Arvilommi, & Nurmi, 2002).
The second requirement for the successful examination of processes such as socialization
is that studies focus on periods of adolescent development during which key developmental
processes take place. It might be assumed that the times when adolescents
are facing some major transitions in their lives are such important periods. During
early adolescence such transitions are typically scheduled by the individual’s age. During
late adolescence, they may appear more independently from age, which may require
less traditional research designs. One additional aspect of such studies on critical transitions
is that if a group of individuals is followed only across a particular transition, the
phenomena under focus can be measured intensively.
In sum, the results reviewed in this chapter indicate that we know much about how
age-graded sociocultural environments channel adolescent development, as well as
about the mechanisms by which adolescents select their developmental environments.
There are also data depicting how adolescents reflect themselves as a consequence of
these adventures. However, less is known about how adolescents try to adjust their previous
efforts as a means to deal with negative feedback and failures. Moreover, the fact
that only a few cross-lagged longitudinal studies have been conducted on the role that
parents and peers play in adolescent socialization and self-development limits our possibilities
to understand the processes taking place in these interpersonal settings.