ABSTRACT
Adolescent girls have come to occupy an increasingly prominent place in the expanding discourse on youth participation and girls’ empowerment, as many scholars and development organizations identify adolescence as a phase in which investing in young women can yield the greatest impact on their upward social mobility. This increasing interest is manifested in the wide range of disciplines that discuss adolescent girls, from education and psychology to international development and public health. Adolescence is usually understood as a transitional stage that takes place between the ages of 10 and 19, in which young adolescence makes place for late adolescence at the age of 15. During this life stage, as psychologist Nurmi (1993) notes, both cognitive and biological developments create new competencies for life-planning and the construction of the self.
