ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines thinking on the nature of adolescence, particularly as it relates to the changing relationships that young people have with the people around them. In much academic writing, adolescence is conceptualised as a stage of transition between childhood and adulthood. In sociological approaches, where the object is ‘youth’ rather than ‘adolescence’, adolescent identity is conceptualised in collective and cultural terms, as a function of youth groups or subcultures. A survey of African-American young people in the USA found that protective family processes in early adolescence predicted enhanced academic engagement, negative views of typical risk-taking peers, and avoidance of risk-promoting peers. In adolescence, the social relations with the peer group are generally agreed to have a special role, not only subjectively to young people themselves as relations change with those around them, but also in terms of the attention peer groups receive from the adult world.
