Defining Features of the Study of Adolescence During Its Second Phase

Four defining features of the second phase of the science of adolescent development are
worth noting. First, during its second phase of life, the empirical study of adolescence
emerged as a relational field of inquiry. That is, it became an area of scholarship in
which implicitly (e.g., Block, 1971; Mussen & Bouterline-Young, 1964) or, at times, explicitly
(e.g., Nesselroade & Baltes, 1974) the key unit of analysis in understanding the
development of the person was his or her relation with both more molecular (e.g., biological)
and more molar (social group, cultural, and historical) levels of organization
(Overton, 1998). In such a relational frame, no one level of organization was seen as the
prime mover of development.
A second distinctive feature of the field of adolescence within this second phase derived
from its relational character. The confluence of the multiple levels of organization
involved in the developmental system provides the structural and functional bases of
plasticity and of the inevitable and substantively significant emergence of systematic individual
differences; that is, such individuality serves as a key basis of the person’s ability
to act as an agent in his or her own development (Brandtstädter, 1998; Lerner, 2002).
Accordingly, the field of adolescence has become the exemplar within the broader study
of human development for the substantive study of diversity and for the person-centered
approach to research on human development (Magnusson, 1999a, 1999b; Magnusson
& Stattin, 1998).
Third, although there remains a focus within the contemporary adolescent literature
on problems of this developmental period (Steinberg & Morris, 2001), the focus on
plasticity, diversity of development and people, and individual agency—and thus the
strength or capacity of an adolescent to influence his or her development for better or
for worse—means that problematic outcomes of adolescent development are now just
one of a larger array of outcomes that may characterize the relatively plastic relations
between adolescents and their contexts (e.g., B. Hamburg, 1974; D. A. Hamburg, 1992).
8 The Scientific Study of Adolescent Development
Indeed, this plasticity provides the theoretical basis of the view that all young people
possess strengths, or, more simply, the potential for positive development (Damon,
1997; Damon & Gregory, 2003).
The idea that the adolescent period provides the ideal time within life to study the
bases of positive human development frames what has become a fourth defining feature
of the field. The study of adolescent development is now characterized by a synthetic
interest in basic and applied concerns about youth development. One’s basic understanding
of how relational processes within the developmental system provide a
basis for diverse developmental trajectories across adolescence can be tested by assessing
whether changes in individual and ecological variables within the system combine
to actualize the strengths of youth. Benson (1990, 1997; Benson, Mannes, Pittman, &
Ferber, this volume) termed these individual and ecological variables developmental assets.
Such tests of developmental theory, when implemented within the actual ecology
of human development, are interventions into the course of adolescent development.
Depending on their target level of organization, these actions constitute policies or programs,
and in this context basic research in adolescence is also applied developmental
science (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Lerner, 2002). As a consequence of this trend,
the field has come to place a premium on community-based, change-oriented methods,
both to study development and to evaluate the efficacy of programs and policies designed
to alter the course of adolescent life for the better.
CONCLUSIONS: ADOLESCENCE AS A FIELD OF SCIENTIST–
PRACTITIONER–POLICY MAKER COLLABORATION
The chapters in this Handbook both reflect and extend the emphases on individualcontext
relations, developmental systems, plasticity, diversity, longitudinal methodology,
and application that were crystallized and integrated within the second phase of
the development of the scientific study of adolescence. As evident within each of the
chapters in this Handbook, and as underscored in both the foreword and the afterword
to the volume, the study of adolescence today represents the exemplar within developmental
science wherein excellent conceptual and empirical work is undertaken with a
collaborative orientation to making a contribution both to scholarship and to society.
Arguably more so than in scholarship pertinent to other periods across the life span,
within the study of adolescence the vision of Bronfenbrenner (1974) and D. A. Hamburg
(1992; D. A. Hamburg & Takanishi, 1996) of a developmental science involving
reciprocal collaborations among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers is being
actively pursued, if not yet completely realized.
The future of civil society in the world rests on the young. Adolescents represent at
any point in history the generational cohort that must next be prepared to assume the
quality of leadership of self, family, community, and society that will maintain and improve
human life. Scientists have a vital role to play to make in enhancing, through the
generation of basic and applied knowledge, the probability that adolescents will become
fully engaged citizens who are capable of, and committed to, making these contributions.
The chapters in this Handbook demonstrate that high-quality scientific
work on adolescence is in fact being generated at levels of study ranging from the bio-
Conclusions: Adolescence as a Field of Scientist–Practitioner–Policy Maker Collaboration 9
logical through the historical and sociocultural. Above all, this volume demonstrates
that the study of adolescent development at its best both informs and is informed by the
concerns of communities, practitioners, and policy makers. It is our hope that we have
assembled the best information possible to be used to promote and advocate for the
healthy and positive development of young people everywhere.