Developmental Dynamics and Transitions in High School

de Sofie Pedersen, Mariane Hedegaard, Marilyn Fleer, Megan Adams

"This book is about young people and their transitions throughout their first year of high school, deepening our understanding of how it is to grow up, to enter new institutional settings, and how to understand youth life. It explores the everyday life of six young people as they enter high school and follows them closely as they encounter and try to make sense of the different standards, values and demands that are built into the institutional setting of high school. The chapters explore how institutional and interpersonal transitions are connected, and must be understood in their coherence at institutional and interpersonal levels. Using cultural-historical activity theory and ecological psychology derived from theorists including Bang, Barker & Wright, Gibson, Lewin, Hedegaard, Ilyenkov, and Stetsenko, Sofie Pedersen argues that developmental dynamics among young people cannot be reduced to individual nor social processes alone, but are connected to institutional conditions and to concrete places. By insisting on a wholeness approach to youth development, Pedersen reveals the developmental dynamics that unfold and sheds new light on the challenges that young people face"--