Description
In recent decades, the lives of people in their late teens and twenties have changed so dramatically that a new stage of life has developed. In his provocative work, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett has identified the period of emerging adulthood as distinct from both the adolescence that precedes it and the young adulthood that comes in its wake. Arnett's new paradigm has received a surge of scholarly attention due to his book that launched the field, Emerging Adulthood.On the 10th Anniversary of the publication of his groundbreaking work, the second edition of Emerging Adulthood fully updates and expands Arnett's findings and includes brand new chapters on media use, social class issues, and the distinctive problems of this life stage. In spite of the challenges they face, Arnett explains that emerging adults are particularly skilled at maintaining contradictory emotions--they are confident while being wary, and optimistic in the face of large degrees of uncertainty. Merging stories from the lives of emerging adults themselves with decades of research, Arnett covers a wide range of topics, including love and sex, relationships with parents, experiences at college and work, and views of what it means to be an adult. He also refutes many of the negative stereotypes about emerging adults today, finding that they are not "lazy" but remarkably hard-working in most cases, and not "selfish" but rather concerned with making a contribution to improving the world. As the nature of American youth and the meaning of adulthood further evolve, Emerging Adulthood will continue to be essential reading for understanding the face of modern America.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second EditionPreface to the First Edition1. A Longer Road to Adulthood2. What Is It Like to Be an Emerging Adult? Four Profiles3. From Conflict to Companionship: A New Relationship with Parents4. Love and Sex: New Freedoms, New Problems5. Meandering Toward Marriage6. The Road Through College: Twists and Turns7. Work: More than a Job8. Digital Natives: Emerging Adults' Many Media Uses9. Sources of Meaning: Religious Beliefs and Values10. How Important is Social Class?11. Wrong Turns and Dead Ends12. Sometimes Goodbye is a Second Chance: Resilience in Emerging Adulthood13. Beyond Emerging Adulthood: What Does It Mean to Become an Adult?NotesReferencesIndex
