The Culture of Adolescent Risk-Taking (Culture and Human Development) - Softcover

Lightfoot, Cynthia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1572302321 ISBN 13: 9781572302327

Publisher: The Guilford Press, 1997

Synopsis

An in-depth exploration of the relationship between adolescent risk-taking and peer group culture, based on extensive interviews with teens themselves, this elegantly written book shows that taking risks is a natural and necessary part of growing up. The author proposes that risks are declarations of the self, worn like badges of autonomy, or defiance, or group membership. With a broad interpretive approach locating human action within the symbolic forms, communicative practices, and shared idioms of culture, Cynthia Lightfoot elucidates the cultural and psychological processes through which risk acquires meaning for teenagers and vividly depicts the drama and daring of adolescent social life.

About this title

About the Author

Cynthia Lightfoot, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University. Her professional publications and presentations focus principally on sociogenetic and interpretive approaches to human development, with special reference to adolescent peer culture and identity processes.

Foreword by Jaan Valsiner, Ph.D.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
2. The History of Our Ambivalence
3. The Interpretive Turn
4. Play as Interpretive Activity
5. Adolescent Risk-Taking as Transformative Experience
6. Risk-Taking and the Architecture of Adolescent Society (with Jean Louis Gariépy)
7. Pursuing Depth

Edition details

• Publisher: The Guilford Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572302321
• ISBN 13: 9781572302327
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 187