The Psychological World of the Gay Teenager:Social Change,Narrative, and “Normality” |
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Authors: | Bertram J Cohler Phillip L Hammack |
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Institution: | (1) Departments of Comparative Human Development, Psychology, Psychiatry and the Committee on Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, The University of Chicago, Chicago, USA;(2) University of California, Santa Cruz, USA |
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Abstract: | This paper examines the application of concepts of normal adolescence pioneered by Offer and colleagues to the study of gay
and lesbian youth. Adolescent development among this population demonstrates remarkable historical variability along the lines
of generation-cohort, revealing the utility of a life-course approach to the study of normal adolescence. Concepts of normal
adolescence appear to shift with changing narratives of identity for sexual minority youth. We contrast two narratives of
gay youth identity development that have emerged since the inception of substantive research programs on gay adolescence:
(1) the narrative of struggle and success that came to dominate the literature in the 1980s and 1990s and (2) the narrative of emancipation that has emerged from the work of Savin-Williams and others who argue for a recognition of the diversity of adolescent development
for this population. In relating this contrast to Offer’s seminal contributions to the study of adolescence, we suggest that
the most normative feature of human development, particularly during adolescence, is its connection to discourses of identity
through the formation of personal narratives that anchor the life course and provide meaning to conceptions of self-development.
The example of shifting narratives of gay youth identity development is meant to exemplify this characteristic feature of
human development.
William Rainey Harper Professor of Social Sciences, The College, the Departments of Comparative Human Development, Psychology,
Psychiatry and the Committee on Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, The University of Chicago. For nearly two decades
he collaborated with Dan Offer as the director of the University’s component of the Adolescence Training grant shared jointly
with Michael Reese Hospital and Directed by Dan Offer. His recent work focuses on the interplay of history and social change
in the study of lives over time.
Advanced doctoral student in the Department of Comparative Human Development. His work examines the cultural psychology of
adolescence and emerging adulthood, with a focus on identity and narrative. His earlier work with former student of Dan Offer,
Maryse Richards, focused on the study of ethnicity, context, and normal adolescence. Most recently, he has been studying culture
and normal adolescent development among Israeli and Palestinian youth. In 2007 he will be appointed an Assistant Professor
of Psychology at the University of California-Santa Cruz. |
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Keywords: | Gay youth Normal adolescence Sexual minority youth |
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