 | Key People
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Peter Benson
- I have been the Director of the Search Institute since 1985.
- I direct a staff of 80 people and lecture about youth.
- I consult with a number of communities and organizations on adolescent issues.
- Under my direction, the Search Institute has determined that such assets as family support help prevent adolescents from developing problems.
Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark
- We are pioneering African American psychologists.
- We conducted research on the self-esteem of African American children.
- Our work influenced the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision to desegregate schools.
- We founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem.
- We challenged beliefs about intellectual differences between Caucasian and African American children.
Marian Wright Edelman
- I am a tireless advocate of children's rights.
- I am president of the Children's Defense Fund.
- The idea of the prevalence of social neglect in the United States particularly disturbs me.
- I find society needs to take the parenting and nurturing of the next generation of parents seriously.
- I believe that we need better health-care and parent education, safer schools and neighborhoods, and improved family support programs.
G. Stanley Hall
- Charles Darwin influenced me.
- I believe that all development is controlled by genetically determined physiological factors.
- I believe that heredity interacts with environmental influences to determine the individual's development.
- One concept I developed is the storm-and-stress view.
- I am a giant in the field of adolescence.
Leta Hollingworth
- I was often overlooked in the field of adolescence because I am female.
- I was the first to use the word gifted to describe intelligent youths.
- I criticized theories of my time.
- I especially criticized the theory that males were superior to females.
- I conducted research refuting the myth that phases of the menstrual cycle are associated with a decline in performance in females.
Kenneth Kenniston
- I am a sociologist.
- I propose that there is a transition period of two to eight years or even longer between adolescence and adulthood.
- I call this transition period "youth."
- I believe youth is a period of economic and personal temporariness.
Reed Larson
- I made an effort to capture what is needed for more positive youth development.
- I argued that adolescents need more opportunities to develop a capacity for initiative.
- I believe adolescents need to be more self-motivated.
- I found adolescents become too bored with their lives.
- I argue that in order to counter boredom, adolescents must take part in structured voluntary activities such as sports or other organizations.
Margaret Mead
- I am an anthropologist.
- I studied adolescents on the South Seas island of Samoa.
- I believe that the basic nature of adolescence is sociocultural.
- I think adolescence is not a time of storm and stress if culture provides a smooth, gradual transition.
- My work is most often criticized for being biased in my portrayal of the people of Samoa.
Bernice Neugarten
- My work focuses on human development across the lifespan.
- My area of specialty is development in adulthood and later life.
- I believe our nation has major shortcomings in our economic and social policies.
- These policies result in older adults getting more resources than adolescents.
- I believe we should support people of all ages.
Daniel Offer
- I conducted a cross-cultural study that found no support for the negative view of adolescents.
- In studying the self-image of adolescents around the world, I found most were happy and had a positive self-image.
- My research indicated most adolescents reported being able to cope with stress and positive characteristics of themselves and their lives.
- My research suggests that most adolescents get along well with and have values similar to the adults in their lives.
George Sanchez
- I studied mental measurements and bilingual education.
- I have been called the founder of Chicano psychology.
- I documented cultural bias in intelligence tests for children and adolescents.
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