This edited volume establishes a state-of-the-art perspective on theory and research on gender, power, and communication in human relationships. Both theoretical essays and review chapters address issues relevant to female and male differences in power, dominance, communication, equality, and expectations/beliefs. All chapter contributors share two commonalities. First, each provides a 1990s assessment of power and equality in female and male relationships. Second, each reviews respective programs of research and focuses attention on the relevance of this research to understanding the...

A collection of studies on adolescent pregnancy and parenting. More than 200 women in an ethnically diverse sample were studied before and and after pregnancy. Its purpose was to offer an understanding of prenatal care, health outcomes, repeat pregnancies, parenting, and the role of the father.

In 1928, Margaret Mead published her first book, entitled Coming of Age in Samoa, in which she described to the Western world an exotic culture where people "came of age" with a minimum of "storm and stress." In 1983, Derek Freeman, an Australian anthropologist, published a book in which he systematically attacked Mead's conclusions about that culture and the way people came of age. Since then, a great deal of attention has been directed toward the Mead-Freeman controversy. This book contributes to that controversy and to the general understanding of adolescent storm and stress by...

The opening of the borders to Eastern Europe has opened the view on European diversities and offered opportunities to examine the effects of the heterogeneity in European cultural backgrounds and the different political systems on personality and social development. This book utilizes the cultural resource offered by the large number of cultural units represented in Europe and - at least in part - in the United States.

Using data from the Youth Development Study's representative panel of 1,000 adolescents, social scientists from the University of Minnesota address key questions derived from the arena-of-comfort thesis. They investigate in which arenas of their lives adolescents typically find comfort; whether the

Presenting a longitudinal study of the social and psychological consequences of teen parenting for both parents and children, this text uses both qualitative and quantitative analyses to demonstrate different outcome patterns and recommend social policy and intervening programmes. It should be of interest to scholars and practitioners in adolescence, infancy, human development and family studies.

Examines the lives of inner-city adolescent mothers and their diverse pathways to early adulthood. Their varied responses to becoming parents reflect a range of abilities, aspirations and supports but, the authors argue, most have the skills and desires to care for themselves and their children.

This book is intended as a thoughtful extension to Bachman et al.'s well-received monograph Smoking, Drinking, and Drug Use in Young Adulthood. That volume showed that the new freedoms of young adulthood lead to increases in substance use, while the responsibilities of adulthood--marriage, pregnancy, parenthood--contribute to declines in substance use. The Decline of Substance Use in Young Adulthood examines how the changes in social and religious experiences and in attitudes toward substance use observed among young adults are related to changes in substance use, family...

Adolescence is a time when the social world expands, a time of increasing engagement beyond the family sphere to the school, the peer group, and the workplace. These contexts may present experiences that differ greatly in their tone and content, either contributing to or hindering satisfaction and a positive sense of self. This book examines how the constellation of stressors and rewards in various life domains influences adolescent adjustment. The theoretical framework is Simmons' "arena of comfort": a context for individuals to relax and to rejuvenate, so that potentially stressful changes...

In this book the authors examine in depth the lives of inner-city adolescent mothers, going beyond stereotypes to illuminate the diverse pathways to young adulthood taken by these young women. The different ways they respond to becoming a parent reflect a range of abilities, aspirations, and supports. Their often-creative solutions to living in poverty, the intensity of their desires to make their children's lives better, the height of their youthful ambition when they succeed, and the depth of their pain when they fail, all show a surprising range. The authors argue that adolescent mothers...