Using contemporary research methodologies with young people can, and does, pose many ethical challenges for researchers keen to fully incorporate principles of participation and voice into their research endeavours. Adding to the challenge, when the project is grounded outside of an academic context in a not-for-profit community setting, ethical…

Developmental science rests on describing, explaining, and optimizing intraindividual changes and, hence, empirically requires longitudinal research. Problems of missing data arise in most longitudinal studies, thus creating challenges for interpreting the substance and structure of intraindividual change. Using a sample of reports of longitudinal…

Issues in studying pubertal events are examined, including whether puberty is best characterized as a social construction or a physical event, whether early adolescence is a transitional or distinct life period, life events associated with puberty, boundaries of early adolescence, and possible models for studying pubertal change. (Author/BW)

Introduces the "person approach" to the study of adolescence, and discusses the consequences of the approach for theoretical thinking and research methodology. Reviews major types of pattern-based methods used for carrying out a person approach and discusses methodological challenges for adolescent research, including interindividual…

Considers assumptions underlying design of Bussell et al.'s Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development study. Suggests that a source of the common environment specific to this study is the effect of an individual in mutual ratings of relationship with siblings, leading to a larger common-environment effect across variables than within…

Addresses concerns raised in Neale's commentary regarding the Bussell et al. (1999) Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development study. Discussion of assumptions focuses on those most relevant to study sample. Because Neale's proposed alternative models did not provide a better fit, the appropriateness of Bussell's model and importance of…

Explored applicability of the Loevinger conception of ego development for early adolescence and developed a measure of earliest ego levels: Sentence Completion Test for Children and Youth. Found oral administration of test did not yield essentially different responses or significantly differing ego-level scores from the written version, regardless…

Scholars are increasingly recognizing that adolescent development is best understood by acknowledging and examining adolescents' cultural, social, historical, and political contexts. The Euronet for Research on Adolescence in the Context of Social Change project, begun in 1991, is a collaborative effort among research teams from European countries…

Comments on problems raised in this special issue, focusing on the distinctive aspects of the risk research reported. Highlights issues like sample characteristics, measurement strategies, specificity of risk factors, and risk mechanisms. Discusses the challenges of integrating alternative models of risk, with special references to research into…

Comments on research problems raised in this special issue. Suggests that recent research highlights the nature of the multiple processes underlying variability in child and adolescent adjustment. Views variability as a function of covarying influences from multiple domains, operating on specific developmental outcomes across a background of time…

Considers the problems inherent in researching changes in social values and individual perspectives among selected age groups. Asserts that studies aimed at researching both aspects need to be organized as longitudinal studies. Utilizes data taken from a study of East and West Berlin adolescents to reveal specific research problems. (MJP)

Comments on the special theme issue examining the roles of socialization, biology, and culture as they affect adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes. Proposes a theory-guided research approach, based on four assumptive components of contemporary developmental theories: systematic change and relative plasticity; relationism and…

Comments on this special theme issue examining the roles of socialization, biology, and culture as they affect adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes. Presents models for predicting and understanding behavioral and affective change at transitions occurring especially from middle childhood through adolescence. Provides examples…