Introduction: A historical developmental approach to adolescence

Abstract

Adolescence is a recent historical discovery or invention. In the Rousseau–Stanley Hall tradition, adolescence has been considered a period of “normative turmoil,” “storm and stress,” and “oscillations and oppositions.” However, empirical research does not offer convincing empirical data supporting these typifications. There is little empirical evidence supporting the popular image of adolescents as sentimental, suicidal Werthers or as hedonistic, antibourgeois bohémiens. Originally, adolescence was considered to be the result of extended compulsory education. But nowadays, everybody, including adults, takes part in éducation permanente. The relational experimentation, once considered characteristic of adolescence, is nowadays quite common among adults. It appears that Ariès' [Ariès, P. (1992). Centuries of childhood. A social history of family life. New York: Vintage Books] observation is right: adolescence is the favorite age of our time and “we now want to linger in it as long as possible.” If we succeed, then in the long term adolescence will lose its most characteristic meaning as the bridge between childhood and adulthood.

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