This was not the first that I've read/heard about adolescence being socially constructed. In pre-industrialized societies there is no adolescence, only childhood and adult.
G. Stanley Hill has some really really bad science. There are examples strewn throughout the chapter that seem a little less than reputable. There is also no time line for this adolescence "metamorphosis".
There is also a "metamorphosis", that does not make much sense.
Hill gives adolescence it's own "life" which is not fully developed, because America was not as old or conservative as Europe.
Hill makes a good point when he talked about adolescence being "plastic" bending and molding to different peoples views.
The thing is, adolescence is constructed for educational purposes. We have invented this "transitional" stage. The hormones have always been there but the social construct was such that there was no need to really deal with them. Now we stick all of these immature, MTV, reality show watching kids into a school and try to give them some sort of direction; but they have already picked out their role models and people our society has deemed "cool". Anyone who can not fit that mold is ostracized. Once ostracized it is very difficult to become "cool" and then clicks are formed and then the trouble starts. When teaching these youngsters we have more to deal with than just subject matter, we have all of these social problems to deal with as well, and that is more frightening than anything else.
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I agree that people do like to mold adolescence into what people's views on how their society functions. It is interesting that adolescence is so wide ranging in how people view it. In industrialized nations adolescence is a major factor in a child's life as they grow to an adult yet in many pre-industrialized nations no one acknowledges adolescence, it is child to adult. I think that there is an adolescence but I believe that it is unnecessary in a lot of ways in pre-industrialized nations. I believe also that we do not know enough about adolscence because it is so complex and not everyone experiences it the same way.
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