(P. 27)“Puberty itself is a key developmental challenge for adolescents. They must accommodate to the physical changes in a cultural milieu that, for girls, values the prepubertal over the mature female body.” I don’t know where Brooks-Gunn and O.Reiter got this tidbit but I find it quite upsetting. Just what cultural milieu are they talking about? Are middle school girls really being reproached for growing up from their “cutie pie” old selves? If this is true, I can’t see how all adolescent girls aren’t emotionally crushed after the onset of puberty. Is this the ‘Daddy’s little girl’ factor?
I am glad that the authors state, on p.28, that: “We regret that we are able to say little about the pubertal experience of groups other than middle-class white youth”. It seems that research can’t often go beyond the “norm” to appease the most socially influential class in the United States. Although the rich have more real power, American society aims to please and work towards the embetterment of the white middle-class, since this has historically been the “heart” of our nation.
It’s very interesting that although the main proponent, G. Stanley Hall, of adolescent studies was writing as far back as the early 1900s, it wouldn’t be until the 1980s that the topic came to its own. The authors cite reasons why this is so. These reasons are basically the uncomfortable and ambivalent stance adults take on the subject. Adults therefore wish to think of adolescence as a social construct and not a physiological phase so as to not have reason to do further research on the topic.