Society for Research on Adolescence

The Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA) is one of the leading organizations for the promotion of scientific knowledge regarding the development of adolescents. Officially formed in 1984, SRA currently has a membership of more than 1,100 individuals. Although the society initially positioned itself as a North American organization, it created an international committee in 1990 to promote contact and the exchange of information with scholars outside of North America, and it now has members in 27 different countries. SRA members come from a variety of academic and professional backgrounds, including psychology, sociology, medicine, and law.

In the first issue of SRA's newsletter, founding president Hershel Thornburg described the motivating factors for the creation of this new organization. In particular, he noted that research on “child development became better researched, more data based, more predictable and less eventful” (Thornburg, 1985, p. 1), whereas the reverse seemed to be true for adolescent development. SRA's creation was also inspired by the cultural changes of the 1960s and the prominence of youth in affecting and embracing these changes.

SRA's biennial conference (see Table 1) has provided a venue for research, both basic and applied. The list of topical sessions for SRA's first conference, held in 1986, began with social policy, implicitly emphasizing this area. The first four conferences were scheduled in coordination with the conference of the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM), because of that organization's focus on broad health issues and the overlap of interests and attendees. In 1996, conference submissions were to be directed to specific review panels for the first time, and two of these were explicitly applied; one panel focused on social problems and interventions, and the other focused on ethical, methodological, and public policy issues. Attendance in the early years of the conference was typically in the range of 400 to 600 participants, and that figure has increased to nearly 1,200 participants in recent years.

SRA's newsletter regularly includes information for the members that relates to the society itself, as well as information regarding funding opportunities, calls for papers, and so on. Yet SRA's applied interest [Page 1034]is present as well. In 1987, the newsletter included an article from the Girls Clubs of America that highlighted that organization's commitment to using research-based programs as well as its willingness to serve as a research venue (Wisdom, 1987). In 1991, under the editorship of Dennis Papini, the newsletter included short scholarly pieces, including Gerald Adams's article on “Identity and Intimacy.” In 1995, under the editorship of Patricia East, the newsletter adopted a new format that featured a front-page article written by a prominent researcher. These articles have often had applied foci and have featured the work of Richard Lerner (“Contemporary Crises of America's Youth: Implications for Programs and Policies,” 1995); Catherine Cooper (“When Diversity Works: Cultural Partnerships for Science, Policy and Youth in Democracies,” 1997); and Joan Brumberg (“Girl History: Social Change and Female Sexuality in the 20th Century,” 2000).

Presidential columns (see Table 2 for a listing of all SRA presidents) and other articles have also regularly addressed applied issues, such as teen pregnancy, runaways, drug abuse, delinquency, education, employment, and health. In 1989, E. Mavis Hetherington expressed her desire for “the Society for Research on Adolescence [to] lead the way and give guidance to such initiatives in adolescent research and social policy,” and this idea was repeated in 1996, when Stuart Hauser argued that SRA's efforts “should lead to having an increasingly sophisticated and persuasive voice in social policy discussions regarding adolescent-related issues, like substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and violence” (Hauser, 1996, p. 1). Anne Petersen (1991) and W. Andrew Collins (2000) have advocated for increased funding as well as the need for responsible public policy regarding adolescence. Other articles have addressed the proposed tobacco settlement (Arnett, 1998), discussed the United Nations' convention on the rights of the child (Richards, 1998), and attempted to place Arab American youth in perspective after the events of September 11, 2001 (Sarroub, 2002).

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