ABSTRACT
In this chapter we map a series of shifts in the study of girls’ development in the United States since the 1990s. We begin with the publication in the early 1990s of a cluster of influential scholarly and popular works in the fields of psychology and education. This literature documented what was seen as a psychosocial (and subsequently academic) “crisis” faced by girls as they entered adolescence. These books and studies generated widespread public concern and led to a variety of reform and intervention efforts designed to address girls’ developmental challenges. In the years since, there has been a marked expansion in both the study of girls’ lives in the United States and in programs designed to serve girls’ needs. But the mainstreaming of this “girls’ movement” has brought with it significant
changes in the intent, substance, and implications of more recent scholarly and popular study.
