ABSTRACT
In what spheres of their lives do adolescents typically find comfort? Do the
sources of comfort change as they grow older? Whereas most prior re-
search examined only one or two settings in isolation, our initial descrip-
tive analysis assesses adolescents’ perceptions of supportive, comfortable
experiences in four major spheres of their lives-the family, school, peer
group, and, for those who are employed, the work setting. In view of what
is known about these contexts, what might be anticipated about subjective
comfort in each one? How might the perception of comfort differ across
key subgroups of the adolescent population? To address this question, we
examine differences in experiences of comfort by widely acknowledged
indicators of advantage and disadvantage: gender, race, nativity, socioeco-
nomic status (SES), and family composition.
