Page 123 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

8 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

At sixteen I was stupid, confused and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise,
self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid,
confused, insecure and indecisive.Who would have supposed that maturity
is only a short break in adolescence? • Jules Feiffer (b. 1929)

Colley, L. (1992). Britons: Forging the nation, 1707–1837. New Haven, of adulthood, and no distinct adolescent stage is recog-
CT: Yale University Press. nized. The Cree Native Americans distinguish only
Imber, C. (2003). The Ottoman empire, 1300–1650: The structure of
power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. between adults and nonadults; a male child is a “small
Ladurie, E. L. (1998). The ancient regime: A history of France, 1610– man” and a female child a “small woman.” Even when a
1774 (M. Greengrass,Trans.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Lynch, J. (1989). Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. society reserves a special status for the pubescent boy or
Massie, R. K. (1986). Peter the Great: His life and world. New York: Bal- girl, the chronological age span may not overlap the
lantine Press. familiar definition of adolescence. Thus, among the
Padover, S. (1967). Joseph II of Austria:The revolutionary emperor. North
Haven, CT: Shoe String Press. North American Chippewa people, puberty was under-
Rosenberg, H. (1958). Bureaucracy, aristocracy, and autocracy: The stood to signal the beginning of a special stage of life, but
Prussian experience, 1660–1815. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press. that stage lasted until a person had grandchildren. Nev-
Ogg, D. (1962). Seventeenth-century Europe (8th ed.). New York: Macmil- ertheless, a stage in the life cycle comparable to adoles-
lan Press. cence is extremely common across time and geography.
Wallerstein, I. M. (1980). The modern world system II: Mercantilism and
the consolidation of the European world. San Diego, CA: Academic Virtually all of a sample of 186 cultures around the world
Press. recognize some kind of transition period between child-
hood and adulthood. What most differentiates adoles-
cence across societies is the duration of the adolescent
transition and the degree of upheaval experienced by the
Adolescence young person. The almost universal presence of adoles-

cence across time and geography is attributable to certain
he term adolescence refers to both a chronological universal features of human development.Variations that
Tstage in the human life cycle and a psychological and occur in the duration and quality of the adolescent tran-
behavioral profile understood to uniquely describe a sition are accounted for by differences in the context in
specific category of people. Chronologically, adolescence which children are raised, which influence how the uni-
is the transitional stage between childhood and adult- versal aspects of adolescence are played out in particular
hood. Psychologically and behaviorally, adolescence is a cases.
time of life characterized by emotional upheaval, risk tak-
ing, rule breaking, increased conflict with parents, uncer- Universal Aspects
tainty about self-identity, and heightened interest in of Adolescence
romantic attachments and sexual activity. Although all As a chronological stage of life, adolescence roughly coin-
known societies, past and present, distinguish among cides with puberty. Puberty is a complex set of physio-
children, adults, and old people, adolescence is not uni- logical processes that results in physical, emotional, and
versally acknowledged as a separate stage in the life motivational changes in a person.These changes include
cycle of a person. The term adolescence as used to indi- maturation of the reproductive system and associated
cate youthfulness seems to have appeared in the English increased interest in the opposite sex and parenting,
language only at the end of the nineteenth century, and along with maturation of secondary sex characteristics
the idea of adolescence as a special developmental stage such as body size, body shape, and patterns of hair
did not surface formally in Western culture until the twen- growth.All of these changes are precipitated by the activ-
tieth century. ity of several hormonal systems. Puberty is also associ-
Adolescence as a distinct stage of development also ated with maturation of certain brain functions that then
appears to be absent in certain non-Western societies. affect the motivational and emotional profile of the
Among the Cubeo people of the northwestern Amazon young person. Brain changes specifically related to
in South America, for example, puberty signals the arrival puberty underlie some of the psychological and behav-