Adolescent Portraits: Identity and Challenges

Adolescent Portraits introduces contemporary theories and research that surround adolescent development today through eighteen first-person accounts written by young adults. The case study approach of the book illustrates the complexity of the individual experience and the interactions among an individual’s needs, ideas, relationships, and context. Each case, taken alone, helps us begin to know one more adolescent and his or her experience; taken together, the cases provide a rich overview of the wide, diverse, and complex range of adolescent experiences.

This edition also includes three follow-up essays, written five or more years after their original memoir. The authors of these follow-ups reflect on their original story written in late adolescence from the more mature point of view of full-fledged adulthood. These retrospectives provide a poignant and lifespan developmental perspective on the ways in which the adolescent themes of identity and challenges transform, for better or worse, with the tasks of adulthood.

With contributions from adolescents from a range of racial, class, and family backgrounds, the book provides a diverse introduction to the adolescent experience. It is a must-read for any student of adolescent development.