Developmental Tasks in Adolescence

Klaus Hurrelmann, Gudrun Quenzel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429838545
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The topic of adolescent development in Europe is one which has received little academic attention in recent years. Developmental Tasks in Adolescence makes an exciting contribution to the field by applying socialisation theory to four major developmental tasks of life: Qualifying, Bonding, Consumption and Participation, arguing that if the tasks in these areas are mastered, then personal individuation and social integration can take place, a prerequisite for the formation of self-identity.

In highly developed societies, adolescence encompasses a period of about 15 years on average. Puberty, or the transition from childhood, starts earlier and earlier, and the transition to adulthood is increasingly postponed. Developmental Tasks in Adolescence proposes that the way in which adolescents master the tasks of everyday life has become a pattern of orientation for the life stages which follow because of the new lifestyle requirements that are typical for modern democratic societies. Today, a life full of uncertainties and ambiguities is no longer limited to adolescence, but rather continues into adulthood.

Hurrelmann and Quenzel's sociological approach is valuable reading for students and academics in psychology, sociology, education, social work and youth studies, and for those on professional training courses in these fields.

1
Adolescence as a life stage

In this chapter, we will first discuss the duration and shape of the life stage adolescence and describe their demographic and biographic significance. In a second step, we will discuss the psychological and sociological characteristics of this life stage. For this analysis, we will refer to socialisation theory and its central concept of the developmental tasks. At the end of the chapter, we will analyse the transition from childhood to adolescence and then to adulthood.

The transformation of the life stage adolescence

The composition of the population according to age groups is shifting in all highly developed societies. One consistent trend is the decline in birth rates, which started with the transition from an agricultural to industrial society. Around 1800, women had on average four children; after 1900, this number continuously decreased. Today, there are just under 1.7 children born per woman in the highly developed countries, according to the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD, 2018a).

The decreasing numbers of the young generation

This development is mainly due to economic factors. For the rural and artisanal population of the 19th century, children were considered as wealth. They succeeded their parents in their farming or craft businesses and provided for them in their old age.

The importance of children changed during the course of industrialisation and with the increasing welfare state protection during the 20th century. In the 21st century, children are no longer necessary to ensure economic and social security for the parents. On the contrary, bringing up children is very expensive; their care and education requires a great deal of attention and leads to professional restrictions for the parents. As provision for old age is organised by transfer payments, which are not dependent on the family, it is not surprising that the number of households with children and also the number of children per family has dwindled.

Today, the motives for having children are above all to gain an emotional and biographical quality of life. Couples make the decision to have a child if it is perceived as a personal and social enrichment for their lives. The decision depends on their respective individual and professional life perspectives. The majority of couples make a positive decision only when all concerns have been laid to rest that a child could adversely affect the career, partnership, or economic situation, and only when the estimated advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages. But a significant number of couples also decide against children.

Statistics show that fewer children are being born, while at the same time the life span is increasing; this means that the percentage of young people is decreasing in nearly all of the OECD countries. In contrast to the population structure around 1900, with a very large number of young people and a very small number of old people, we now have at the beginning of the 21st century an inverse relation. The age pyramid has been virtually reversed and now resembles a “kebab spit”, with old people instead of young people constituting the largest share.

This has consequences for the impact of the different generations on social life and political decisions. Because of their demographic position as a minority of the population, it is increasingly difficult for the young generation to assert themselves on a socio-political level and obtain financial resources. They have a hard time trying to influence politicians to invest in kindergardens, schools, educational training centres, universities and youth centres, because the majority of voters are made up of the middle-aged and elderly generations.

The large proportion of people over 60 makes it very easy for members of the older generation to attract political attention and financial resources. They constitute a vast percentage of the voting population and therefore have great political influence. This effect is reinforced by the fact that in most countries, the members of the young generation are not eligible to vote until the age of 18.

The biographic importance of adolescence in the life course

The demographic weight of the young generation in the entire population is decreasing, but the biographic importance of adolescence in the life course is clearly increasing. Fifty years ago, adolescence was still considered as a short phase of transition from childhood to adulthood. Today, however, the life stage adolescence is perceived as an important part of the life course, which is highly significant, and of great importance for all subsequent life stages.

In pre-industrial society, there was no clear distinction between the life stages of childhood and adulthood. In those families whose main occupation was in farming and craft, a standardised organisational form of cohabitation of adults and children prevailed. Young and old lived under one roof, had many similar tasks and activities in their daily routine and similarly structured social contacts. Although children were perceived as young individuals with their own needs, they were mainly considered as “small adults” (Cunningham, 2005).

With industrialisation, beginning around 1850, the areas of activity of children and adults drifted apart due to the emergence of external forms of production and the intense urbanisation process that began along with it. Adults now separated their social relationships at the workplace from the children. This went hand in hand with a new social and pedagogical understanding of the child. A child was now no longer considered as a small adult but as a human being in an independent developmental stage with special pedagogical and psychological requirements.

Between 1900 and 1950, the only life stage preceding adulthood was split into an early and a late stage. Puberty, the onset of sexual maturity, was defined as the boundary between the two stages. The stage of late childhood was designated as “adolescence”. At first, this term was used for a very short phase in the life course between the onset of sexual maturity and the start of a professional life and the foundation of a family, which took place only a few years later for most young people. An important reason for this development was that professional requirements became more and more complex. Increasingly large parts of the working population acquired a longer, differentiated, and targeted education. Most of the industrialised countries introduced compulsory school attendance during this period.

Around 1950, organisations outside the family increasingly started to take on responsibility for the preparation of social, cultural, and professional requirements: schools, professional training establishments, and universities. Thus, the new stage of adolescence finally emerged in the human life course.

Today, the entire adolescence is characterised by the attendance of schools, educational training establishments, and universities. In the new millennium, this period encompasses at least 10, often even 15 or 20 years and constitutes a separate life stage. As a result, adolescents have great margins for shaping their personal contacts, their leisure and media activities, and their social commitment, in addition to attending educational institutions.

Thus, the life stage adolescence has not only become an independent part of the life course; in today’s complex and rapidly changing societies, it is also seen as an experimental laboratory for coping with new types of life requirements. The way in which adolescents handle the many diverse opportunities is increasingly seen as exemplary by the members of the older generation, and the biographic importance of the life stage adolescence increases accordingly.

The developmental tasks in adolescence

What are the distinctive features of the life stage adolescence today, and how can it be differentiated from the preceding life stage childhood and the subsequent life stage adulthood? We will explore the answers to these questions using the concept of developmental tasks from socialisation theory as a basis.

In socialisation theory, the personality development of a human being is understood as an intensive process of coping with the innate physical and psychological traits on the one hand, and the requirements of the social and physical environment on the other hand (Hurrelmann and Bauer, 2018, p. 33). As socialisation processes are specific to each culture, questions arise as to which social requirements must be met by adolescents and how they can be matched with the physical and psychological personal needs they have. The concept of developmental tasks helps to answer these questions.

The concept of developmental tasks

The concept of developmental tasks, first published in 1948 and expanded during the 1950s, can be traced back to the educationalist Robert Havighurst (1953). What was particularly novel about the concept at that time was that it integrated the requirements of three different areas: physical development and body experience, personality development and identity, as well as social expectations, and that it additionally emphasised the active role of the individual (Seiffge-Krenke, 2000, p. 252). Havighurst (1953) defines psychosocial developmental tasks as age-specific, constitutive social expectations to be coped with by individuals and/or set as goals by themselves – either by internalising norms, as a result of their physical, cognitive, or sexual development, or by their own initiative. Successful coping with these tasks contributes to satisfaction and the successful coping with developmental tasks during later stages in the life course, while problems with coping lead to dissatisfaction and social disapproval:

A developmental task is a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to his happiness and to success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual, disapproval by the society, and difficulty with later tasks.

(Havighurst, 1953, p. 2)

The developmental tasks of adolescence mentioned by Havighurst were the following:

Achieving new and more mature relations with age mates of both sexes,

Achieving a masculine or feminine social role,

Accepting one’s physique and using the body effectively,

Achieving emotional independence of parents and other adults,

Achieving assurance of economic independence,

Selecting and preparing for an occupation,

Preparing for marriage and family life,

Developing intellectual skills and concepts necessary for civic competence,

Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior,

Acquiring a set of values and an ethical system as a guide to behavior.

(Havighurst, 1953, p. 111).

The concept of developmental tasks offers a valuable approach to the analysis of personality development in the life stage adolescence because it incorporates the external as well as the internal requirements. It describes the phenomenon that human beings – as a result of their physical and psychological development on the one side and age-specific social expectations on the other side – face similar challenges in specific phases of their lives and use similar coping strategies. Dealing with social expectations takes place by taking their own interests, resources and convictions into account, which in turn are already the result of interactive negotiation processes (Massey, Gebhardt and Garnefski, 2009, p. 502).

Schulenberg, Bryant and O’Malley (2004, p. 1119) argue that developmental tasks have a normative character in the sense of an expectation of normality, not primarily because a social expectation exists with regard to what human beings should do at a specific age but because these are the things that they normally do in reality. Following this argument, it is the adoption of and dealing with social expectations and active appropriation which creates developmental tasks out of social expectations. Thus, developmental tasks are only developmental tasks if they are personally accepted as tasks and defined as personal age-specific expectations.

A central assumption of the concept of developmental tasks is that in coping with developmental tasks, human beings acquire competences that enable them to establish a stable and autonomous self-structure and thus fulfil the task of individuation and at the same time integrate into the social environment as a member of society, because the process of accepting norms and values and the search for possibilities to reconcile them with individual needs leads to the further development of one’s own personality. This assumption can be illustrated as shown in Figure 1.1.

Empirical research on developmental tasks also shows that the various developmental tasks are closely connected, and that an understanding of this interdependence is indispensable for a comprehensive understanding of developmental regulation (Seiffge-Krenke and Gelhaar, 2008). Intercorrelations between developmental tasks take place in a diachronic as well as synchronic perspective. Successfully solving a developmental task is regarded as the basis for the solution of other developmental tasks; likewise, problems in specific areas can often also be traced back to problems in other areas (Roisman et al., 2004).

Figure 1.1 Determinants and consequences of successful mastering of developmental tasks

Thus, the concept of developmental tasks understands the concrete development process as a function of social and personal expectations as well as social institutions, and assumes that development does not take place automatically but that individuals must identify, accept, and actively cope with developmental tasks. Individuals are actively involved in shaping their development as it regards the target selection and shaping of objectives; at the same time, target selection and shaping, but also the probability of target achievement, depend upon socio-cultural and biological factors (Silbereisen and Wiesner, 2000).

Therefore, the mastering of psychosocial developmental tasks means hard work and is dependent upon factors within as well as outside the individual adolescent. The risk of problems in coping with developmental tasks increases especially if individuals are faced with conflicting expectations from different groups with regard to a specific developmental task; problems arise in reconciling various developmental tasks in terms of time or contents; only limited knowledge of how the developmental tasks can be mastered is available; not enough material, social, and/or personal resources are available to successfully master the developmental tasks; or the requirements for mastering the developmental tasks conflict with personal needs, interests, and objectives.

The broad variety of reasons for problems in coping also shows how many conditions must be fulfilled in order to successfully master the developmental tasks. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which individuals are not faced with diverging expectations, in which no conflicts in terms of timing or content with other requirements exist, in which the required knowledge is already available, all relevant material, social, and personal resources can be mobilised without problems, and no conflicts with other personal needs, interests, and objectives exist.

In the following, we will work with an updated and more dynamic concept of developmental tasks, as compared to Havighurst’s original concept presented above (Hurrelmann and Bauer, 2018, p. 36). We will distinguish between four domains of developmental tasks:

• Qualifying
• Bonding
• Consumption
• Participation

We will describe the four domains first on the individual and then on the social dimension of personality. This can be illustrated as shown in Figure 1.2.

The individual dimension of developmental tasks: individuation

At the individual level, mastering developmental tasks serves the personal individuation, i.e., the constitution of a personality structure with very specific physical, psychological, and social characteristics and competences, and the subjective experience of a unique individual:

Figure 1.2 The four domains of developmental tasks

1. 1 “Qualifying” encompasses the cognitive, intellectual, and social competences that are required to act autonomously in everyday life. If this dimension of a developmental task is mastered, an adolescent is educated and able to deal with the performance requirements and social expectations in everyday life confidently.
2. 2 “Bonding” encompasses the acceptance and active dealing with the changing physical and psychological constitution, also in the case of any possible impairment or handicap. In addition, it is about dealing with sexual needs, the formation of a sexual identity, the emotional detachment from the parents, building friendships, and establishing a relationship as a heterosexual or homosexual or a partnership matching one’s own wishes and needs.
3. 3 “Consumption” encompasses the ability to establish emotionally satisfying and stable friendships and social contacts, about developing an adequat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Adolescence as a life stage
• 2 Personality development in adolescence
• 3 Adolescents as productive processors of reality
• 4 The developmental task qualifying
• 5 The developmental task bonding
• 6 The developmental task consumption
• 7 The developmental task participation
• 8 Problems in coping with developmental tasks
• Bibliography
• Index