ADOLESCENCEEdward Cope, a leading American proponent of
the biogenetic principle, he believed that the influ-
ence of the environment in producing acquired
characteristics that were then transmissible by he-
redity was greatest during adolescence. The impli-
cation of this Lamarckian view was momentous:
The future development of the human race de-
pended on improvements in the adolescent (Hall
1904, v. 1, p. 50). Indeed, as a leader of the Child
Study Movement, Hall forcefully argued for col-
laborative efforts between pedagogy and the emerg-
ing discipline of psychology, creating schools that
push adolescents to their physical and mental
limits, and effect the ‘‘moral rejuvenation’’ of youth,
society, and indeed the human race. A view of
adolescence as a source of manifold revitalization
was especially appealing to Hall’s readership, a
Gilded Age middle class weary from concern over
urbanization and the perceived cultural and eu-
genic threats posed by large-scale immigration
into the United States (Kett 1977; Ross 1972). The
view that adults can constructively regulate the
socialization of youth is reflected in continuing
scientific and public interest in the settings of
youth (e.g., the workplace) and their implications
for development.
Hall’s Adolescence was an interdisciplinary work,
and drew from a wide range of sources, including
writings by early sociologists such as Auguste
Comte, Herbert Spencer, Gustave Le Bon, and
Adolphe Quételet. The interdisciplinary study of
youth remains an important theme, with many
fields recognizing adolescence as a significant area
of inquiry, including psychology (Petersen 1988),
history (Modell and Goodman 1990), and anthro-
pology (Schlegel and Barry 1991). Yet each disci-
pline has its unique presuppositions and focal
points. Psychologists tend to focus on adolescents’
cognitive, motivational, and emotional capacities;
their maturation (often along universalistic lines,
as one finds in the work of Piaget and Erikson),
their interrelationships, and how they are shaped
by experiences in proximal settings, including the
family, peer group, school, and workplace. An-
thropologists and historians focus on the range of
experiences that adolescence encompasses across
cultures and through historical time: the existence
of the adolescent life phase, its distinctive social
and cultural traditions, and interrelationships
among youth, other age groups, and social institutions.Sociological studies of adolescence often over-
lap with these concerns, reflecting interests in the
social settings of youth and their implications for
the self, as well as variability in this stage of life
across societies and through historical time. Yet
sociologists have also maintained a unique view by
drawing on the life course paradigm as an analytic
framework. The life course focuses on age-graded
roles, opportunities, and constraints; how these
differ through historical time, and how they shape
the biography. The analytic focus is on the struc-
tural complexity and diversity of social settings
through time and place, as well as the plasticity of
humans in these settings (Dannefer 1984).The remainder of this entry will focus on three
distinctive features of adolescence as viewed from
a life-course perspective (see Table 1). The first
feature concerns adolescence as a life phase in
historical perspective: Has adolescence been a
recognized part of the life course through histori-
cal time? And how have the factors that mark the
transition both into and out of adolescence changed?
Implicit in the concept of markers that distinguish
adolescence from childhood and adulthood is the
rate of movement from one phase to the next.
Accordingly, the second feature concerns how
quickly young people move through the adoles-
cent role set and the social circumstances that
promote an accelerated life course.The third feature focuses on the central role
of institutionalized pathways through adolescence.
In this context, pathways refer to routes from
childlike dependence on the family of origin to the
autonomies of adulthood. At the same time, indi-
viduals actively construct their lives. Within the
structured pathways from childhood to adulthood,
how do adolescents actively shape their biogra-
phies? Throughout this essay, social historical ac-
counts are presented to underscore the highly
variable nature of adolescence in the last two
centuries; in turn, these accounts are juxtaposed
with current sociological efforts to understand the
social worlds of youth. The entry concludes by
considering the dual role of sociologists in the
study of adolescence: To contribute to substantive
debates about the place of youth in society, but