Current research on adolescence provides plenty of facts about delinquency, unemployment, and illegitimacy, yet tells us little or nothing about the inner life of adolescents. In an attempt to provide more information, the research reported on here describes the "periods" of adolescence as they are structured in the various social-institutional contexts of the family, the school, the workplace, the media, the criminal justice system, and the peer group. Also discussed is how these social systems interact to produce a code or codes of rules internalized by individual adolescents. Data from ethnographic fieldwork in urban, suburban, and rural communities in the United States, from psychodynamic interviews with youth in these same communities, and from the research and practice literature in each of the institutional contexts illustrate the connections and conflicts between and among the institutional contexts and how youth internalize this pattern of organization. The findings of the research lead to the development of a model of the psychosocial organization of adolesence. This model emphasizes linkage among social institutions in a community approach to youth in order to help the adolescent make the transition to adulthood without unnecessary delays and confusion. (CMG)