ABSTRACT
Four sets of issues affect women's adult development and provide distinct disciplinary paths for approaching its study: (1) Structural/institutional concerns, well developed in the sociological literature, explore the impact of widespread institutional conditions, policies, and roles on women's options and development; (2) Cultural concerns, grounded in social psychological and anthropologically based research, examine how culture shapes images of women and defines roles and life choices at home and work; (3) Psychologically based developmental concerns explore the gender-specific ways that women see and intrapsychically make sense out of their world; and (4) Biologically based concerns focus on the impact of physiological differences between men and women. Each set of issues offers a unique explanation of and implicit prescription for encouraging women's cognitive, social, and emotional growth.
