ABSTRACT
In the dominant, Anglo culture of the United States, remembering that the United States is a plural society of culturally and ethnically diverse peoples, adolescence or “the teen years” are considered a tumultuous time when young people are trying to find their identities and places in both their culture and adult society. The U.S. and other industrialized nations regard adolescence as a distinct phase in the life course noted for its youthful turmoil and rebellious behaviors (Mead, 1961 [1928]). In fact, it is this industrialized culture-based view of adolescence as a life crisis that inspired researchers such as Margaret Mead in the now classic Coming of Age in Samoa (1961, [1928]) to explore the cross-cultural record to search for the alleged causes of teenage trauma. Mead’s contribution to the study of adolescence has been discussed in Chapter 1 and will be again later in this
chapter; recall her argument that the “storm and stress” of adolescence is shaped by culture rather than due to raging hormones.
