Coming of Age in a Changing Family System

The assumption that adolescent experience is shaped in important ways by family experience is widely embraced by developmentalists. While researchers appreciate the family's powerful impact on children's success in negotiating the period of adolescence, how that passage is linked to specific features of family structure and dynamics has not been adequately studied. Complicating the examination of this process are the profound changes that have been occurring in the family over the past several decades.