Adolescence, Current Trends and Research about

The scientific study of adolescent development has rapidly evolved in the past 100 years, since G. Stanley Hall's publication on adolescence in 1904. From the quest for applying general theoretical frameworks and much atheoretical work, through the development of adolescent research as a scientific discipline with remarkable growth in both breadth and depth of study, the current study of adolescence is moving toward a growing awareness by researchers of the importance of conducting research that has significant implications for policy development and practitioners who work with adolescents (Steinberg & Lerner, 2004). Research efforts have moved from asking the question, “Why do adolescents have problems or take advantage of opportunities?” to asking, “Which adolescents, and under which conditions, have problems or take advantage of opportunities?” Research teams investigating questions of importance to adolescent development are increasingly interdisciplinary in nature and focus on both normative and nonnormative development.

Applied developmental research and theory on adolescence reflects a recognition of the importance of the context for individual development. Although theoretical work (e.g., ecological models, developmental contextualism) on the importance of context has been around for several decades, it is only in the past 10 years that statistical techniques, such as hierarchical linear modeling and dynamic systems modeling, have caught up with theoretical efforts for studying contextual influences in detail. This has led to an increase in research that investigates the relative impact of families, peers, neighborhoods, and communities on the development of adolescents. In line with this increasing attention for contextualization, adolescent researchers have continued to focus on studying multiple levels of functioning, including biological processes.