Adolescence in America: An Encyclopedia (2 Volumes) (The American Family) [Library Binding]

Jacqueline V. Lerner (Editor), Richard M. Lerner (Editor), Jordan Finkelstein (Editor)

Book Description

Series: The American Family | Publication Date: June 1, 2001

In Adolescence in America, more than 100 leading experts from the fields of biology, medicine, behavioral and social science, law, education, and the humanities piece together the puzzle of adolescence. In readable, accessible language they analyze the explosion of research that has reshaped the study of adolescence in the last 30 years and explain how today's leading scientists and practitioners view the challenges of this developmental period. Best of all, they show parents how to apply the latest scientific knowledge, such as the 40 "developmental assets" that predict a child's behavior, to their own family situation.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This two-volume encyclopedia contains over 220 articles, arranged alphabetically and signed by experts in the field. Each entry includes a resource list, with an emphasis on academic articles and books. Unfortunately, this wordy but dry work also contains many irrelevant, vague, or unnecessary entries, e.g., "Computer Hacking," "Sadness," "Personal Fable," "Coping," "Lore," "Health Promotion," and "Empathy." Worse, the editors, all psychology and human development professors, often assign odd titles to articles, making them difficult to locate by subject matter, e.g., "Bumps in the Road to Adulthood" under B, "Storm and Stress" under S, and "Why Is There an Adolescence?" under W. There are no cross references. For information on smoking, readers must see "Cigarette Smoking," and for crime, "Juvenile Crime." Libraries would do better choosing David Pruitt's Your Adolescent: Emotional, Behavioral, and Cognitive Development from Early Adolescence Through the Teen Years (LJ 2/15/99), a one-volume paperback available from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at a tenth of the cost. Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Much of this information is available in other sources, but it is handy to have it collected in one spot. The editors, from Boston College and Tufts University, sought "to present the best information currently available about the adolescent period and the ways in which scientists and practitioners understand the period and, as well, take actions to successfully promote positive development among youth."

About 200 alphabetically arranged articles, most by university-affiliated authors, range from two to five pages in length. All are accompanied by see also references and short lists of "Further readings," mainly from professional journals from the 1990s. A complete bibliography is found at the end of volume 2. Black-and-white photos are scattered throughout, illustrating multicultural male and female teens.

The variety of writers means that there are some inconsistencies. Terms (e.g., modality, school engagement) are not always defined, and length and scope of articles could have been more uniform. Better entry headings and indexing would have improved usability. Many of the entry headings are obvious for a work dealing with adolescence, such as Body image, Dating, Inhalants, Shyness, and Standardized tests; but there are also some odd headings, such as Bumps in the road to adulthood and Why is there an adolescence? Readers looking for information on working mothers will find nothing in the index to refer them to Maternal employment. There is no reference in the index from Indian to the entry heading Native American adolescents, even though both terms are used in the article.

Less scholarly than Encyclopedia of Adolescence (Garland, 1991) and more focused on the period between childhood and adulthood than Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood and Adolescence (1997), this one will be used, despite its flaws. It presents a wide range of topics that will be useful for school reports as well as interesting for high-school, college, and general readers. RBB
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Library Binding: 918 pages
• Publisher: ABC-CLIO; 2 Vol. Set edition (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576072053
• ISBN-13: 978-1576072059
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.4 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,748,989 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)