Continuity and Discontinuity Across the Transition of Early Adolescence: A Developmental Contextual Perspective

Abstract

Adolescence, and particularly early adolescence, is a period of multiple, and often rapid and profound changes and transitions. Yet these changes—involving the biological, psychological, and social characteristics of the person—are often coupled with constancies among variables associated with these same domains of characteristics. The study of adolescent development or, more generally, human development, involves a concern with temporality. This focus obviously involves the study of change. In the study of human development, the individual level of analysis is the most typical focus of interest, but other levels of analysis—both more molecular and more molar —has been considered. Complicating the definitional problem further is the fact that the concept of change, ubiquitous in developmental theory, is typically defined either in terms that describe functions of change or in terms that highlight evaluations associated with change. An example of the former is the description of change as either elaborative or decremented.