Adolescent Vulnerabilities and Opportunities

This book explores the central importance of adolescents' own activities in their development. This focus harkens back to Jean Piaget's genetic epistemology and provides a theoretically coherent vision of what makes adolescence a distinctive period of development, with unique opportunities and vulnerabilities. An interdisciplinary and international group of contributors explore how adolescents integrate neurological, cognitive, personal, interpersonal and social systems aspects of development into more organized systems.

Eric Amsel teaches at Weber State University, where he is University Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department. He has also taught at the University of Saskatchewan and Vassar College. Amsel has published three other books: The Development of Scientific Thinking Skills (1998, with Deanna Kuhn and Michael O'Loughlin); Change and Development: Issues of Theory, Method and Application (1998, with K. Ann Renninger); and Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Development: The Development and Consequences of Symbolic Communication (2002, with James P. Byrnes). He has also published more than 20 journal articles in such journals as Child Development, Cognition, Cognitive Development, Developmental Psychology, the Journal of Research in Adolescence and New Ideas in Psychology. Amsel is Associate Editor of New Ideas of Psychology. He also serves as a Board Member and is past Vice President of the Jean Piaget Society and is currently Past President of the Rocky Mountain Psychology Association. Amsel was awarded the Weber State University Hinckley Fellowship and was Carnegie/Case Utah Professor of the Year. Judi Smetana has published six other books: Adolescents, Families, and Social Development: How Adolescents Construct Their Worlds (2011); Social Development, Social Inequalities, and Social Justice (2008, with Elliot Turiel and Cecilia Wainryb); New Directions for Child Development: Changing Boundaries of Parental Authority during Adolescence (2005); Handbook of Moral Development (2005, with Melanie Killen); Parental Beliefs: Causes and Consequences for Development: New Directions for Child Development (1994); and Concepts of Self and Morality: Women's Reasoning about Abortion (1982). She has published more than 70 articles in such journals as Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Human Development, the Journal of Adolescence, the Journal of Research in Adolescence, the Journal of Family Psychology and Social Development. Smetana has served as Associate Editor of Child Development and on the editorial board of Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Human Development, the Journal of Adolescent Research, Parenting: Science and Practice and Social Development. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Fetzer Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation. Smetana is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society and has served as Secretary of the Society for Research in Child Development. She was awarded the University of Rochester Susan B. Anthony Leadership Career Award.

"Piaget would not have been surprised by the adolescents of the 21st century. In this worthy addition to the distinguished Jean Piaget Symposium Series, the editors begin with a Piagetian vision of adolescents as rational agents and active contributors to their own development, which is seen as a constructive process of coordination and reflection. The authors proceed in a variety of disciplinary, theoretical, and empirical directions, so there's plenty for everyone in this diverse collection." -David Moshman "...Overall, the book highlights adolescents' coordinating activities in support of their own development as a constructivist process worthy of continued research... Highly recommended..." --L. E. Barnes-Young, American Military University, CHOICE