ADOLESCENCEmid-adolescence lead to better choices during the
transition to adulthood, choices that in turn have
implications for later life. Clausen reasons that
children are not capable of planful competence,
but most adults possess at least some; therefore
interindividual differences at mid-adolescence are
most likely to differentiate people during the tran-
sition to adulthood and through later life. Adoles-
cents who are planfully competent ‘‘better pre-
pare themselves for adult roles and will select, and
be selected for, opportunities that give them a
head start’’ (1993, p. 21).
Drawing on extensive longitudinal archives
from the Berkeley and Oakland samples at the
Institute of Child Welfare, Clausen (1991b, 1993)
demonstrated that planful competence in high
school (age 15 to 18 years) had pervasive effects on
functioning in later life. Planfulness significantly
predicted marital stability, educational attainment
for both males and females, occupational attain-
ment and career stability for males, and life satis-
faction in later adulthood. Satisfaction with mar-
riage was often associated with adolescent planfulness
among men and women, especially among men
who were capable of interpersonal warmth. Men
who were more planful earlier in life reported
greater satisfaction with their careers, more job
security, and better relationships with their coworkers.
Some research suggests that the effects of
planfulness are conditioned by historical experi-
ence, an insight that joins the concepts of path-
ways and agency. Drawing on the Terman Sample
of Gifted Children, Shanahan and his colleagues
(1997) examined the lifetime educational achieve-
ment of two cohorts of men who grew up during
the Great Depression. The older cohort, those
born between 1900 and 1910, often were in col-
lege or had just begun their careers when the
Great Depression hit. The younger cohort, those
born between 1910 and 1920, typically attended
college after the Depression and began their ca-
reers in the post-World War II economic boom.
For the older cohort, it was hypothesized that
adolescent planful competence would not predict
adult educational attainment. Rather, very high
levels of unemployment during the Depression
would support a prolonged education for this
cohort—through continuity in or return to school—
regardless of their planfulness. In contrast, planful
competence in adolescence was expected to pre-
dict adult educational attainment in the younger
cohort, which was presented with practical choices
involving employment opportunities and further
education.
As expected, planfulness at age fourteen posi-
tively predicted educational attainment, but only
for the men born between 1910 and 1920, who
often finished school during the postwar econom-
ic boom. Planful competence did not predict edu-
cational attainment for men from the older co-
hort, who typically remained in school or returned
to school after their nascent careers floundered.
Thus, for the older cohort, the lack of economic
opportunity precluded entry into the workplace
and under these circumstances, personal agency
did not predict level of schooling. In short, the
Terman men’s lives reflect ‘‘bounded agency,’’ the
active efforts of individuals within structured set-
tings of opportunity.ADOLESCENCE IN RETROSPECT AND
PROSPECTA historically sensitive inquiry into the sociology
of adolescence reveals several prominent features
of this life phase. First, although adolescence as a
state of semiautonomy between childhood and
adulthood has long been part of the Western life
course, it has nevertheless been highly responsive
to social, political, economic, and cultural forces.
Indeed, adolescence acts like a ‘‘canary in the coal
mine:’’ As successive generations of youth encoun-
ter adult society for the first time, their reactions
tell us much about the desirability of social ar-
rangements. These reactions have ranged from
enthusiastic acceptance to large-scale revolt and
have often led to the emergence of new so-
cial orders.
Second, the many ‘‘adolescences’’ revealed
through historical time and place are both differ-
ent and similar in significant ways. Many suppos-
edly universalistic accounts of social and psycho-
logical development would not describe adolescent
experiences and interpretive frames in the past
(Mitterauer 1992). On the other hand, few, if any,
aspects of the adolescent experience are without
precedent. Statistics on adolescent sexual behav-
ior are met with great alarm today, and yet alarm
was already sounded in pre-Colonial times: Leav-
ing England for America in the 1630s, the Puritans
hoped to establish an ‘‘age-relations utopia’’ be-
tween young people and their elders, which had