Varda Konstam, Emerging and Young Adulthood: Multiple Perspectives, Diverse Narratives

Abstract

Emerging and Young Adulthood: Multiple Perspectives, Diverse Narratives by Varda Konstam (University of Massachusetts, Boston) is the first volume published in the new series Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development (series editor, Roger Levesque, Indiana University, Bloomington). That this book on the lives of 20and 30-somethings leads the series makes an important statement: there is a new stage of development in town. Important to all invested in facilitating adolescent development and health, the book provides an overview of the demands adolescents will face as they become adults in the contemporary U.S. Understanding where adolescents are headed is an invaluable resource in preparing them to get there. The brevity of this book belies the expansive review of literature on the new transition to adulthood. The review provides context for 64 interviews conducted with 25–35year olds and interviews with parents and employers of this age group. These personal accounts give life to recent theory that has reconceptualized the years between adolescence and adulthood. Emerging adulthood has only recently been defined as a new stage of life span development typically occurring between ages 18 and 29 years (see Arnett 2000, 2004; Arnett & Tanner 2006). This developmental epoch is considered the age of feeling ‘‘in between’’ and the age of identity, possibilities, exploration, and instability, all highlighting the psychological dimension of becoming adult. The sociological perspective relies on the demographic definition of the transition to adulthood—focusing on the set of exits from youth roles and entries into roles that confer adult status (see Settersten et al. 2005; Osgood et al. 2005). Konstram’s book does not play disciplinary favorites, providing a spot-on integration of the multidisciplinary literature and using it to convey commonalities in perspective. Presenting new insights and interpretations of first-person accounts, these nine chapters bring to life major themes that have emerged in the past decade. The first theme that runs throughout the volume is the intrapersonal intensity of the transition stage that has evolved as a result of the complexity, expansion, and flux of contemporary culture. The first two chapters Identity (Chap. 1) and Cultural Considerations (Chap. 2) succeed in bringing a dimension of empathy to the challenges young people face during these years. The second theme that resounds through the excerpts details the longer, less predictable, and less frequently ‘‘normal’’ pathways that define these years. No two transitions to adulthood are the same, as we learn in Chaps. 4 and 5, In Pursuit of a Career Path and From the Professional to the Personal, which take the reader all over time and place in learning about any one pathway to adulthood. Third, from multiple perspectives, the generational divide between coming-of-age today and in past generations is explicated. The author’s prologue describes personal experience with making sense of the new ways that adult children come of age. In Chaps. 7 (Parental voices: ‘‘Adjustment reactions to children’s adult life’’) and 8 (Voices of employers: Overlapping disparate views) we learn that this is all new, not only to the emerging and young adults who offer their stories, but also to Baby Boomer parents and bosses. A close reading of this book reveals much more than an overview of themes drawn from the literature and a set of narratives to authenticate them. We are encouraged to critically reflect on our new way of understanding of this Jennifer L.Tanner (&) Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA e-mail: jetanner@rci.rutgers.edu