Eric Amsel and Judith G. Smetana (Eds): Adolescent Vulnerabilities and Opportunities

Excerpt

Adolescent Vulnerabilities and Opportunities, an invaluable addition to the Jean Piaget Symposium Series, explores adolescence through the lens of developmental psychology. The book reinvigorates the constructivist view of human development, emphasizing learning as an active process in which individuals accommodate new information and assimilate that information into what they already know. The editors, Eric Amsel and Judith G. Smetana, reawaken Piagetian principles in understanding the adolescent’s developmental trajectory. Jean Piaget embraced adolescents as active agents in their learning and development, empowered to design their development as they acquire morality, rationality, and an autonomous sense of self. The editors recognize adolescence as a critical and distinctive period in human development, fraught with unique and rewarding opportunities but also vulnerable to developmental risks. As adolescents actively navigate their development, they make sense of the world through coordinating activities that, in turn, shape their own individual development. As adolescents coordinate their activities, they develop a sense of self and fit themselves into the broader, social structure that surrounds them. Adolescents’ adaptive accommodation will depend on the coordination of their activities through opportunities for positive developmental outcomes and vulnerabilities inflicted when such coordinations are unsuccessful, impacting adolescents’ well-being, mental health, risk taking behaviors, parental conflict, and academic achievement. …