The School Years

John Coleman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135856717
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría en psicología

The School Years provides a challenging and lively collection of essays on key issues affecting young people in the school setting. It is an essential book for all those concerned with adolescence and education. Since the first edition in 1979, major social changes such as unemployment, AIDS, issues of race and gender, and increasing divorce rates have had a direct impact on education and young people. With these dramatice changes in mind, the contributors take an entirely new and up-to-date approach to current controversial issues such as the relationship of home and school, gender roles, morality, delinquency, and peer groups. Contributors include: John Coleman, Trust for the Study of Adolescence; T. Honess, School of Psychology, University of Wales; Peter Kutnick, Department of Education, University of Sussex; Sally Archer, Trenton State College, USA; Philida Salmon, Institute of Education, University of London; Maurice Chazan; David P. Farrington, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge.

Chapter 1

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Current views of the adolescent process

John C. Coleman

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INTRODUCTION

Adolescence is a complex stage of human development, for the years 12 to 18 involve a wide range of major life changes. In fact it is unlikely that the individual undergoes greater changes at any other stage in the life cycle apart from infancy. During the teenage years the young person experiences puberty, which has an impact on physical, physiological and psychological systems. He or she undergoes a significant maturation of cognitive function. Major changes in the self concept are likely to occur, and there are radical alterations in all social relationships to be negotiated. How can we understand such fundamental transitions in human development, and make sense of the effects which they have upon the individual? Especially important in the context of the present book are the effects which these changes have upon the way the young person functions in the school setting, and it is primarily to this question that I shall address myself in what follows.

Broadly speaking there are two ways in which we can attempt to make sense of adolescent development. On the one hand we can look to theory. We can study theoretical notions of adolescence, and determine for ourselves the validity or logic of the different approaches. On the other hand we can turn to the research evidence. This will provide us with a factual base upon which to make an assessment of this period of the life cycle, but will inevitably leave a wide range of questions unanswered. It is my view that neither theory nor research can at present provide a complete answer. Both have limitations, and yet both have valuable insights to offer.

Clearly the scope of the present chapter must be limited. It seems important, however, to provide some form of introduction to the educational issues raised by adolescent development, and to offer a framework for those who wish to pursue further their study of adolescence, aided no doubt by the chapters that follow. 1 shall therefore review briefly two major theoretical views of adolescent development, and then turn to one or two of the issues which appear most pertinent to the school context. I have chosen to cover puberty, cognition and some aspects of social development, but have deliberately excluded the topic of the peer group, since this will be covered in a subsequent chapter.

TRADITIONAL THEORIES

There is general agreement by all who have written about adolescence that it makes sense to describe the stage as being one of transition. The transition, it is believed, results from the operation of a number of pressures. Some of these, in particular the physiological and emotional pressures, are internal; while other pressures, which originate from peers, parents, teachers, and society at large, are external to the young person. Sometimes these external pressures carry the individual towards maturity at a faster rate than he or she would prefer, while on other occasions they act as a brake, holding the adolescent back from the freedom and independence which he or she believes to be a legitimate right. It is the interplay of these forces which, in the final analysis, contributes more than anything to the success or failure of the transition from childhood to maturity.

So far two classical types of explanation concerning the transitional process have been advanced. The psychoanalytic approach concentrates on the psychosexual development of the individual, and looks particularly at the psychological factors which underlie the young person’s movement away from childhood behaviour and emotional involvement. The second type of explanation, the sociological, represents a very different perspective. While it has never been as coherently expressed as the psychoanalytic view, it is none the less of equal importance. In brief, this explanation sees the causes of adolescent transition as lying primarily in the social setting of the individual and concentrates on the nature of roles and role conflict, the pressures of social expectations, and on the relative influence of different agents of socialization. Let us now look more closely at each of these explanations.

Psychoanalytic theory

The psychoanalytic view of adolescence takes as its starting point the upsurge of instincts which is said to occur as a result of puberty. This increase in instinctual life, it is suggested, upsets the psychic balance which has been achieved by the end of childhood, causing internal emotional upheaval and leading to a greatly increased vulnerability of the personality. This state of affairs is associated with two further factors. In the first place, the individual’s awakening sexuality leads him or her to look outside the family setting for appropriate ‘love objects’, thus severing the emotional ties with the parents which have existed since infancy. This process is known as disengagement. Second, the vulnerability of the personality results in the employment of psychological defences to cope with the instincts and anxiety which are, to a greater or lesser extent, maladaptive. An excellent review of recent psychoanalytic thinking as it applies to adolescence may be found in Lerner (1987).

Regression, a manifestation of behaviour more appropriate to earlier stages of development, and ambivalence are both seen as further key elements of the adolescent process. According to the psychoanalytic view, ambivalence accounts for many of the phenomena often considered incomprehensible in adolescent behaviour. For example, the emotional instability of relationships, the contradictions in thought and feeling, and the apparently illogical shift from one reaction to another reflect the fluctuations between loving and hating, acceptance and rejection, involvement and non-involvement which underlie relationships in the early years, and which are reactivated once more in adolescence.

Such fluctuations in mood and behaviour are indicative also of the young person’s attitudes to growing up. Thus, while freedom may at times appear the most exciting of goals, there are also moments when, in the harsh light of reality, independence and the necessity to fight one’s own battles become a daunting prospect. At these times childlike dependence exercises a powerful attraction, manifested in periods of uncertainty and self-doubt, and in behaviour which is more likely to bring to mind a wilful child than a young adult.

A consideration of ambivalence leads us on to the more general theme of non-conformity and rebellion, believed by psychoanalysts to be an almost universal feature of adolescence. Behaviour of this sort has many causes. Some of it is a direct result of ambivalent modes of relating, the overt reflection of the conflict between loving and hating. In other circumstances, however, it may be interpreted as an aid to the disengagement process. In this context if the parents can be seen as old-fashioned and irrelevant then the task of breaking the emotional ties becomes easier. If everything that originates from home can safely be rejected then there is nothing to be lost by giving it all up.

Non-conformity thus facilitates the process of disengagement although, as many writers point out, there are a number of intermediate stages along the way. Baittle and Offer illustrate particularly well the importance of non-conformity and its close links with ambivalence:

When the adolescent rebels, he often expresses his intentions in a manner resembling negation. He defines what he does in terms of what his parents do not want him to do. If his parents want him to turn off the radio and study this is the precise time he keeps the radio on and claims he cannot study. If they want him to buy new clothes, ‘the old ones are good enough.’ In periods like this it becomes obvious that the adolescent’s decisions are in reality based on the negative of the parents’ wishes, rather than on their own positive desires. What they do and the judgements they make are in fact dependent on the parents’ opinions and suggestions but in a negative way. This may be termed the stage of ‘negative dependence’. Thus, while the oppositional behaviour and protest against the parents are indeed a manifestation of rebellion and in the service of emancipation from the parents, at the same time they reveal that the passive dependent longings are still in force. The adolescent is in conflict over desires to emancipate, and the rebellious behaviour is a compromise formation which supports his efforts to give up the parental object and, at the same time, gratifies his dependence on them.

(1971: 35)

To summarize, three particular ideas characterize the psychoanalytic position. In the first place adolescence is seen as being a period during which there is a marked vulnerability of personality, resulting primarily from the upsurge of instincts at puberty. Second, emphasis is laid on the likelihood of maladaptive behaviour, stemming from the inadequacy of the psychological defences to cope with inner conflicts and tensions. Examples of such behaviour include extreme fluctuations of mood, inconsistency in relationships, depression and non-conformity. Third, the process of disengagement is given special prominence. This is perceived as a necessity if mature emotional and sexual relationships are to be established outside the home.

Sociological theory

As has been indicated, the sociological view of adolescence encompasses a very different perspective from that of psychoanalytic theory. While there is no disagreement between the two approaches concerning the importance of the transitional process, it is on the subject of the causes of this process that the viewpoints diverge. Thus, while the one concentrates on internal factors, the other looks at society and to events outside the individual for a satisfactory explanation. For the sociologist, socialization and role are the two key concepts. By socialization is meant the process whereby individuals in a society absorb the values, standards, and beliefs current in that society. Some of these standards and values will refer to positions, or roles, in society, so that, for example, there will be expectations and prescriptions of behaviour appropriate to roles such as son, daughter, citizen, teenager, parent and so on. Everyone in a society learns through the agents of socialization, such as school, home, the mass media, etc. the expectations associated with the various roles, although these expectations may not necessarily be clear-cut. Furthermore, socialization may be more or less effective, depending on the nature of the agents to which the individual is exposed, the amount of conflict between the different agents, and so on. During childhood the individual, by and large, has his or her roles ascribed by others, but as he or she matures through adolescence greater opportunities are available, not only for a choice of roles, but also for a choice of how those roles should be interpreted. As will become apparent, it is implicit in the social-psychological viewpoint that both socialization and role assumption are more problematic during adolescence than at any other time.

Why should this be so? First, features of adolescence such as growing independence from authority figures, involvement with peer groups, and an unusual sensitivity to the evaluations of others all provoke role transitions and discontinuity, of varying intensities, as functions of both social and cultural context. Second, any inner change or uncertainty has the effect of increasing the individual’s dependence on others, and this applies particularly to the need for reassurance and support for one’s view of oneself. Third, the effects of major environmental changes are also relevant in this context. Different schools, the move from school to university or college, leaving home, taking a job all demand involvement in a new set of relationships which in turn lead to different and often greater expectations, a substantial reassessment of the self, and an acceleration of the process of socialization. Role change, it will be apparent, is thus seen as an integral feature of adolescent development.

While role change may be one source of difficulty for the adolescent, it is certainly not the only one. Inherent in role behaviour generally are a number of potential stresses such as role conflict. Here the individual occupies two roles, let us say son and boyfriend, which have expectations associated with them which are incompatible. The individual is thus caught in the middle between two people or sets of people, who expect different forms of behaviour. Thus in the case of son and boyfriend, the teenage boy’s mother might put pressure on him to behave like a dutiful child, while his girlfriend will expect him to be independent of his parents and to care for her rather than for anyone else. Such a situation is one which few young people can avoid at some time or another.

Next there is role discontinuity. Here there is a lack of order in the transition from one role to another. Many years ago, Ruth Benedict (1938) drew attention to the fact that primitive cultures provided more continuity in training for responsibilities, sexual maturity and so on than western societies, and the situation has hardly improved today. Role discontinuity is said to occur when there is no bridge or ordered sequence from one stage to the next, or when behaviour in the second stage necessitates the unlearning of some or all of that which was learned earlier. One only has to think of the problem of transition for the young unemployed or the grossly inadequate preparation for parenthood in our society to appreciate the point. Third, there is role incongruence. Here the individual is placed in a position for which he or she is unfitted; in other words the role ascribed by others is not the one that the individual would have chosen. Good illustrations from adolescent experience would be parents who hold unrealistically high expectations of their teenage children, or who, alternatively, fight to maintain their adolescent sons and daughters in childlike roles. Implicit in these theoretical notions is the view that the individual’s movement through adolescence will be very much affected by the consistent or inconsistent, adaptive or maladaptive expectations held by significant people in his or her immediate environment.

Up to this point our discussion has concentrated on the features of role behaviour which lead sociologists and social psychologists to view adolescence not only as a transitional period, but as one which contains many potentially stressful characteristics. However, the process of socialization is also seen by many as being problematic at this stage. In the first place the adolescent is exposed to a wide variety of competing socialization agencies, including the family, the school, the peer group, adult-directed youth organizations, the mass media, political organizations and so on, and is thus presented with a wide range of potential conflicts, values and ideals. Furthermore, it is commonly assumed by sociologists today that the socialization of young people is more dependent upon the generation than upon the family or other social institutions. Marsland goes so far as to call it ‘auto-socialization’ in his description of the process:

The crucial social meaning of youth is withdrawal from adult control and influence compared with childhood. Peer groups are the milieu into which young people withdraw. In at least most societies, this withdrawal to the peer group is, within limits, legitimated by the adult world. Time and space are handed over to young people to work out for themselves in auto-socialization the developmental problems of self and identity which cannot be handled by the simple direct socialization appropriate to childhood. There is a moratorium on compliance and commitment and leeway allowed for a relatively unguided journey with peers towards autonomy and maturity.

(Marsland 1987: 12)

Both the conflict between socialization agencies and the freedom from clearly defined guidelines are seen as making socialization more uncertain, and causing major difficulties for the young person in establishing a bridge towards the assumption of adult roles. Brake (1985), in his discussion of youth subcultures, makes similar points, and it is a common assumption among those writing from the sociological point of view that the social changes of the last twenty years or so have created ever-increasing stresses for young people.

In particular it should be noted that most writers see little of value in what they believe to be the decline of adult involvement and the increasing importance of the peer group. Among such writers the adolescent peer group is frequently described as being more likely to encourage anti-social behaviour than to act as a civilizing agent, and though it is accepted that the effects of peer involvement depend on the standards and activities of the peer group, there is undoubtedly a general feeling that when young people spend a considerable amount of time with individuals of their own age more harm than good is likely to come of it. While, on the one hand, there is clearly some logic in the view that the adolescent who is deprived of adult company is at a disadvantage in the transition towards maturity, on the other hand research does not bear out the myth of the all-powerful peer group, and it is still very much an open question as to what effect increasing age segregation has on the socialization process.

To summarize, the sociological or social-psychological approach to adolescence is marked by a concern with roles and role change, and with the processes of socialization. There can be little doubt that adolescence, from this point of view, is seen as being dominated by stresses and tensions, not so much because of inner emotional instability, but as a result of conflicting pressures from outside. Thus, by considering both this and the psychoanalytic approach, two mutally complementary but essentially different views of the adolescent transitional process have been reviewed.

PUBERTY

Puberty, and the physical growth that accompanies it, is important to those involved in education for a number of reasons. In the first place puberty has a range of physiological effects which are not always outwardly apparent to observers, but which can none the less have a considerable impact on the individual. Second, rates of maturation vary enormously, leading inevitably to questions of normality and comparability between young people. Furthermore, especially early or unusually late developers have particular difficulties to face, which again have marked implications for classroom performance and behaviour. Third, physical development cannot fail to have psychological consequences, often affecting self-concept and self-esteem, factors which themselves play a major part in motivation and learning. Thus it can be seen that an understanding of puberty is essential in making sense of adolescent development as a whole. I shall deal with each of these areas in turn.

Adults often fail to appreciate that puberty is accompanied by changes not only in the reproductive system and in the secondary sexual characteristics of the individual, but in the functioning of the heart and thus of the cardio-vascular system, in the lungs, which in turn affect the respiratory sys...