The adolescent experience : European and American adolescents in the 1990s

The opening of the borders to Eastern Europe has opened the view on European diversities and offered opportunities to examine the effects of the heterogeneity in European cultural backgrounds and the different political systems on personality and social development.

This book utilizes the cultural resource offered by the large number of cultural units represented in Europe and - at least in part - in the United States.

One way to understand the life conditions of adolescents in different countries is to study what they actually do in everyday life and how much time they spend on what types of activities.

This also provides information about individual and societal priorities and values.

Therefore, differences between the samples can partly be explained by cultural differences and also contribute knowledge about the cultural units included.

Thus, the "Euronet" scientists set up a postdoctoral training workshop on adolescent psychology for ten selected American and ten selected European participants. The Euronet project comprises 13 different samples - six stemming from Middle and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, the Czechoslovakian Federal Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Romania), six from Western European countries (Finland, France, Germany, Norway, French and German Switzerland) and one from the United States (Michigan).

This book reports the results of this large, cross-national, longitudinal study of adolescents and the world(s) in which they live, and is offered to those who have an interest in adolescence and/or the diversity of Europe.

Readers will learn about features of adolescence which are more or less characteristic of the cultures, ages and genders.