Emerging Adulthood and Higher Education

A New Student Development Paradigm

Joseph L. Murray, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Joseph L. Murray, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317225904
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This important book introduces Arnett's emerging adulthood theory to scholars and practitioners in higher education and student affairs, illuminating how recent social, cultural, and economic changes have altered the pathway to adulthood. Chapters in this edited collection explore how this theory fits alongside current student development theory, the implications for how college students learn and develop, and how emerging adulthood theory is uniquely suited to address challenges facing higher education today. Emerging Adulthood and Higher Education provides important recommendations for administrators, counselors, and student affairs personnel to provide effective programs and services to facilitate their emerging adults' journeys through this formative stage of life.

1

INTRODUCTION

Joseph L. Murray and Jeffrey Jensen Arnett

The primary goal of this book is to explore ways that the theory of emerging adulthood can be applied to student affairs. The theory of emerging adulthood, first proposed about 20 years ago (Arnett, 2000), has become highly influential as a framework for understanding development from age 18 to 29. An entire field of study has been spawned by the theory, including a thriving new Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood (SSEA; see www.ssea.org). The theory underscores the changes over recent decades in how ages 18–29 are experienced, and consequently, has important implications for understanding the worlds that today’s students come from prior to entering college as well as the futures for which students are preparing themselves, through the rest of their twenties and beyond. However, thus far, the application of emerging adulthood theory to student affairs has been limited despite the manifest relevance of the theory to development among students, most of whom fall into the 18–29 age range. The chapters in this book represent a variety of approaches to making fruitful use of the theory of emerging adulthood in promoting more effective student affairs practice. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the history and present status of the student affairs profession.

A review of the historical and contemporary literature of the student affairs profession reveals that both its stated philosophy and the theoretical principles that inform its practice have evolved through a process that has been both additive and integrative. The profession itself traces its origins to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a time when the faculty role was broadened to include a growing emphasis on research, even as on-campus residency remained a critical element of the undergraduate experience. As administrative functions necessarily grew, the student affairs profession quickly came into its own (Cohen & Kisker, 2010). From its inception, the profession has placed its primary focus on education of the whole student. However, the prevailing orientation toward student affairs practice has undergone continuous revision, in response to both advances in relevant disciplinary knowledge and the changing demands of the times (Dungy & Gordon, 2011).

Three Eras of Student Affairs Practice

The history of the student affairs profession, as reflected in the philosophical literature of the field, has generally been portrayed as a sequence of three major eras, each characterized by a corresponding orientation toward professional practice: (1) student services, (2) student development, and (3) student learning (Carpenter, Dean, & Haber-Curran, 2016; Sherman, 2014). The service orientation of the earliest student affairs practitioners was articulated in the American Council on Education’s (1937/1994) Student Personnel Point of View, which specified 23 essential student affairs functions, such as “orienting the student to his [sic] educational environment” and “providing a diagnostic service to help the student discover his [sic] abilities, aptitudes, and objectives” (p. 69). A more enduring legacy of this landmark document, however, was its call for education of the whole student, as an intellectual, emotional, physical, social, vocational, moral, and spiritual being, whose skills, aptitudes, values, resources, and aesthetic sensibilities all fell within the purview of collegiate institutions.

The shift from student services to student development reflected the growing influence of theoretical perspectives on student affairs practice. The prevailing philosophy of the student development era was perhaps best captured in the Council of Student Personnel Associations in Higher Education’s (COSPA, 1975/1994) Student Development Services in Post-Secondary Education. In the closing decades of the 20th century, the COSPA document called upon practitioners to assume the role of student development specialists, drawing upon relevant theories to address individual, group, and organizational issues on their campuses. A series of subsequent statements, issued by various professional associations around the turn of the millennium, ushered in the third era by calling upon student affairs professionals to form partnerships with faculty and academic administrators to create seamless campus environments for student learning, broadly conceived to include both academics and personal development (American Association for Higher Education, American College Personnel Association, & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, 1998; American College Personnel Association, 1996; National Association of Student Personnel Administrators & American College Personnel Association, 2004).

Standards for Preparation and Practice

With the establishment of a commonly held professional philosophy that incorporates a commitment to holistic learning, informed by relevant theories, the student affairs field has since turned its attention to articulation of uniform standards of professional preparation and practice. A major step toward accomplishment of this goal came when the American College Personnel Association (ACPA, 2007) published a statement of professional competencies and corresponding benchmarks for mastery at the basic, intermediate, and advanced levels. Within this statement, eight general areas of competency were identified: (1) advising and helping; (2) assessment, evaluation, and research; (3) ethics; (4) legal foundations; (5) leadership, administration, and management; (6) pluralism and inclusion; (7) student learning and development; and (8) teaching. Three years later, the Association partnered with the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) to issue a joint statement of ten professional competency areas with corresponding benchmarks at each of the original levels: (1) advising and helping; (2) assessment, evaluation, and research; (3) equity, diversity, and inclusion; (4) ethical professional practice; (5) history, philosophy, and values; (6) human and organizational resources; (7) law, policy, and governance; (8) leadership; (9) personal foundations; and (10) student learning and development (ACPA & NASPA, 2010).

While the aforementioned competency statements address general areas of expertise that are commonly shared across the student affairs profession, they offer little or no elaboration on application to specific functional areas within the field. In contrast, the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS), which was founded in 1979 as the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Student Services/Development Programs, offers detailed standards and guidelines for the provision of programs and services in 43 areas of practice, developed in conjunction with professional associations specializing in the respective areas (Wells, 2015).

Another distinctive feature of the CAS standards is the articulation of essential elements of master’s degree programs designed to prepare individuals for entry into the student affairs field. In addition to addressing administrative and pedagogical matters, the document offers guidance on the content of curricula, thereby lending clarity to the shared body of knowledge that constitutes content expertise within the field. The subject matter of the curriculum is divided into two broad categories: (1) foundational studies, which orient the individual to the history and philosophy of higher education and student affairs and (2) professional studies, which directly inform student affairs practice. Within the broad category of professional studies, the document specifies five topic areas that must be addressed: (1) “student learning and development theories”; (2) “student characteristics and the effects of college on students”; (3) “individual and group strategies”; (4) “organization and administration of student affairs”; and (5) “assessment, evaluation, and research” (Wells, 2015, p. 348).

An Evolving Body of Knowledge

The substantive knowledge of the student affairs field, as described above, is by its nature a “moving target,” as both the theories that inform professional practice and the underlying body of research remain in a state of flux. Adoption of a student learning agenda has prompted interest in developmental and pedagogical theories more traditionally associated with educational psychology (Silverman & Casazza, 2000) and adult and continuing education (Hamrick, Evans, & Schuh, 2002). Meanwhile, perspectives on cognitive and psychosocial development in college, and indeed, the concurrent processes of learning and development, have grown more integrative (Baxter Magolda, 2004; Kegan, 1994). A growing body of research on the effects of higher education on students (Feldman & Newcomb, 1969/1994; Mayhew et al., 2016; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991, 2005) offers ever more nuanced understandings of the environmental conditions that are most conducive to learning and development in college. With its deepening embrace of both qualitative (Jones, Torres, & Arminio, 2014) and quantitative (Sriram, 2017) research, the student affairs field has likewise grown increasingly sophisticated and inclusive in its methods of inquiry. Disciplinary boundaries have also been transcended, as student affairs scholars and practitioners have turned to the literature of such widely varied fields as counseling psychology (Harper & Wilson, 2010; Reynolds, 2009), management (Bryan, 1996; Ellis, 2010; Varlotta & Jones, 2010), organizational studies (Kuk, Banning, & Amey, 2010; Manning, 2013), and neuroscience (Bresciani Ludvik, 2016) to inform their work.

Perhaps nowhere is the dynamic nature of the knowledge base of the profession more apparent than in the study of student characteristics, where profiles of one generation make way for those of another on an ongoing basis (Coomes & DeBard, 2004; DeCoster & Mable, 1981; Seemiller & Grace, 2016). A growing body of national data from surveys such as the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey (Higher Education Research Institute, 2017) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana University School of Education, 2017), have allowed even the most subtle shifts in student characteristics and attitudes to be tracked over time. As more has become known about such changes, generational theory has taken its place alongside developmental theory, as a foundation for research and practice, with findings from each branch of theory lending texture to those of the other. Studies of generational change lend themselves well to application of an interdisciplinary approach, as the relevant literature incorporates perspectives drawn from such fields as history (Strauss & Howe, 1991), sociology (Edmunds & Turner, 2002), psychology (Twenge, 2006, 2017), economics (Koulopoulos & Keldsen, 2014), and political science (Bessant, 2014).

Arnett’s Theory of Emerging Adulthood

With the changes evident in the traditional aged college student population over time, it is reasonable to question prior assumptions regarding developmental change in college, as it manifests itself across generations reared under very different circumstances. Arnett (2015), a developmental psychologist, posits that social, cultural, and economic changes over the latter half of the 20th century have resulted in an elongation of the pathway to adulthood, especially within the most economically developed nations, such that the period from approximately 18 to 29 years of age now constitutes a distinct life stage that is neither adolescence nor adulthood. Arnett has labeled this period emerging adulthood, reflecting the fact that it is characterized—though not wholly defined—by its transitional nature. He cites four specific societal changes that have given rise to this phenomenon: (1) the Technology Revolution, (2) the Sexual Revolution, (3) the Women’s Movement, and (4) the Youth Movement. He further identifies five features of emerging adulthood that differentiate it from previous conceptions of the designated period of life: (1) identity explorations, (2) instability, (3) self-focus, (4) feeling in-between, and (5) possibilities/optimism.

Within the field of adolescent development, traditionally the epicenter of research on the transition into adulthood, Arnett’s (2015) theory of emerging adulthood has reframed conceptions of the transition itself. Although the principal publishing venues of researchers specializing in adolescent development and emerging adulthood would suggest strong scholarly affinities between the two groups (Swanson, 2016), the distinction between their areas of focus is also widely acknowledged in the relevant literature, where references to “adolescence and emerging adulthood” abound (e.g., Booth, Crouter, & Snyder, 2016; Thompson, Hammen, & Brennan, 2016; Wong, Branje, VanderValk, Hawk, & Meeus, 2010). Additionally, leading authors on emerging adulthood have been found to traverse across areas of scholarship and to collaborate frequently with specialists in other areas, leading one researcher to conclude that “emerging adulthood study has become increasingly interdisciplinary” (Swanson, 2016, p. 397).

While Arnett’s (2015) work has drawn comparatively little attention within the fields of higher education and student affairs, the growing body of research that it has inspired is directly applicable to administrative and student affairs practice within college and university settings. Since it was first introduced (Arnett, 2000), the theory has informed numerous studies on such topics as relationships and sexuality (Claxton & van Dulmen, 2013; Fincham & Cui, 2011; Morgan, 2013; Shulman & Connolly, 2013), religion and spirituality (Barry & Abo-Zena, 2014; Smith & Snell, 2009), work and career development (Konstam, 2015; Marshall & Butler, 2016), and mental health issues (Schulenberg & Zarrett, 2006; Tanner, 2016). Additionally, a series of polls conducted annually from 2012 through 2015, under the sponsorship of Clark University (2017), has yielded national datasets pertaining to the characteristics and experiences of both student and nonstudent emerging adults. Thus, more widespread engagement of higher education and student affairs scholars in the study of emerging adulthood could potentially advance understanding of both college student development and emerging adulthood g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Conceptual Foundations of Emerging Adulthood
• 3 Emerging Adulthood and Psychosocial Development in College
• 4 Emerging Adulthood through the Lens of Social Identity
• 5 Generational Theory and Emerging Adulthood
• 6 Career Development in Emerging Adulthood
• 7 Problems Associated with Emerging Adulthood
• 8 The Role of Parents in Emerging Adulthood
• 9 Strategic Enrollment Management for Emerging Adults: An Organizational and Equity-Based Perspective
• 10 Creating Campus Environments for Emerging Adults
• 11 Student Affairs Programs for Emerging Adults
• 12 Cultivating Relationships between the Institution and Its Emerging Adult Alumni
• 13 Conclusion and Future Directions
• Appendix: Information and Resources on Emerging Adulthood
• Contributor Biographies
• Index