Overview
The term “emerging adulthood” refers to a newly proposed model for understanding the years between ages 18 and 25. The model, first introduced by Jeffrey Arnett in 2000 (Arnett 2000), proposes the shared characteristics of young people who are no longer adolescent but not yet adult distinguish this age period as a time of feeling in-between, identity explorations, instability, self-focus, and possibilities. This essay briefly details the historical roots of the concept, examines the theory of emerging adulthood, details the nature of development during this period, highlights controversies surrounding the theory, and concludes that the theory offers a new and valuable way to examine this period of human development.
Historical Roots of Emerging Adulthood
Throughout the twentieth century, the boundary between childhood and adulthood was assumed to be sharp and distinct. Until the theory of emerging adulthood was proposed in 2000, the transition to adulthood was a widely...
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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Tanner, J.L. (2011). Emerging Adulthood. In: Levesque, R.J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_257
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_257
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