This book describes how adolescents grow and develop during the transitional years from childhood to adulthood. Its purpose is to convey to readers what is known about adolescent development, how the behavior of young people can best be understood, and what the experience of adolescence is like for teenagers and those around them.

Featuring a topically organized introduction to adolescence, this text combines research (from psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine and biology), theory and practical knowledge. Its approach is multidisciplinary, emphasizing behavioural problems. The book offers balanced critiques of major theoretical and empirical perspectives. Interviews with adolescents provide a sense of reality and individuality via the case study approach. Detailed coverage is provided of loneliness, shyness, bicultural environments, growing up in divorced or reconstituted families, concerns related to homosexuality, contraception, pregnancy, and much more. (742 pp.)