The Nature of Adolescence

The fourth edition of this successful textbook provides an up-to-date introduction to all of the key features of adolescent development. While drawing on the North American literature on adolescence, it highlights European perspectives and also provides unique coverage of the topic by summarising and reviewing what is known about adolescence from a British viewpoint.

Comprehensively updated and rewritten, this edition includes material on new topics such as:

• The development of the adolescent brain
• Sleep patterns in adolescence
• Parenting programmes for parents of teenagers
• Health, including sport and exercise, nutrition and obesity, and mental health
• Education and schooling
• Young people’s use of digital technologies
• New approaches to resilience and coping.

The book places a particular emphasis on a positive view of adolescence, and the author develops a new theoretical perspective which looks at how young people themselves construct and shape their own developmental pathways. Interview material taken from discussions with adolescents is included throughout the book, and there are sample essay questions and PowerPoint lecture slides available online.

This is an essential text for anyone studying human development at undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as on postgraduate courses for professionals including teachers, social workers, health workers, counsellors, and youth workers.

John C. Coleman is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Education at Oxford University. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Bedfordshire. He was the Editor of the Journal of Adolescence for 14 years , and is an internationally recognised expert in the field of adolescence. He was awarded an OBE for services to youth in 2001.