Adolescence and old age in twelve communities

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Dec, 2001 by Pranab Chatterjee, Darlyne Bailey, Nina Aronoff

This paper disputes the theory of universal stages of development (often called the epigenetic principle) asserted by Erikson (1963; 1982; 1997) and later developed in detail by Newman & Newman (1987, p. 33). It particularly disputes that there are clear stages of adolescence (12-18), late adolescence (18-22), old age (60-75), and very old age (75 ). Data from twelve communities around the world suggest that the concept of adolescence is socially constructed in each local setting, and that the concept of late adolescence is totally absent in some communities. Further, the stage of old age (60-75) is much shorter in some communities, and that the stage of very old age (75 ) is not found at all in some communities.

**********

In 1996, a debate took place between the senior author of this paper and another faculty member at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University. The debate centered around the following topic:

   the model of human development, as proposed by Erik Erikson, is a very
   important tool in social work education, but represents a Euro-centric
   bias, a social class bias (favoring the upper classes in a social class
   hierarchy), and a regional bias (i.e., European and North American) in a
   world system.

The senior author took the "yes" position (i.e., favoring the topic, and opposing the universality of the Erikson model), and another social work educator from the Mandel School represented the "no" position (i.e., against the topic, and supporting the universality of the model). The research undertaking reported below began is a result of this debate, using the "yes" position of the debate as a working hypothesis.

Theoretical Background

Both in sociological and anthropological theory, there is a voluminous literature that biological roles (such as male/female, child/adult, parent/child) and their related role expectations are defined by local cultures (Elder, 1992; South & Crowder, 1999). These local cultures vary in numerous ways, not the least of which is technological complexity, which can be due to the fact that they are horticultural in nature, or agricultural in nature, or industrial in nature. In these examples, horticultural societies are lowest in technological complexity, and industrial societies are highest. Within industrial societies, market-oriented capitalist societies seem more complex than formerly socialist industrial societies. This can be ascertained by various measures. Seen from this perspective, societies can be placed in an ordinal position according to their technological complexity. (Later in this paper, we offer a measure of technological complexity.)

A great deal of current research in human behavior published in the United States takes the concept of life stages of development for granted (often in the Eriksonian manner). For example, adolescence has been an assumed life stage and used as either an independent variable or as a dependent variable (cf. Bulcroft, Carmody, & Bulcroft, 1998, Rosenfeld, Richman, & Bowen, 1998; Gavazzi & Law, 1997; Garnier & Stein, 1998). The culture-bound nature of adolescence as a life stage, or the concept of adolescence as a social construction, within societies and between communities within each society, are not generally seen as important to assess.

It should be noted that theories of development--about biologically-based roles and human development related to those roles--assume a relevance to the societies within which they are developed, and perhaps only to those societies. For example, Hall's (Hall, 1916) biogenetic theory of adolescence, Freudian and neo-Freudian psychoanalytic theory (A. Freud, 1948; S. Freud, 1933; Hartmann & Lowenstein, 1946) of adolescence, Spranger's (1955) Geisteswissenschaftliche theory of adolescence, Gesell's (1948; Gesell, Ilg, & Ames, 1956) theory of adolescence, or central or east European stage theories of adolescence (Kroh, 1944; Lersch, 1951; Remplein, 1956) are advanced from observation in European or American societies. But more often than not, their generalizability is assumed, rather than specified to their particular context and time. This is not to argue for relativism, which has its own significant drawbacks, but to propose (not at all in the original) that neither position be accepted without critical assessment.

Socio-Cultural Differences

Socio-cultural context is relevant to the understanding of human behavior for many reasons, as much of the sociological and anthropological literature have shown. In particular, it is apparent in numerous ways that within and between societies the social system is stratified, with different groups, institutions and rituals constituting the system's working structure. Elder (1992) and South & Crowder (1999) have emphasized the societal context vividly in terms of stratification. In industrial societies, a class system emerges and the stratification system is thereby defined by class, consisting of upper, middle, working, and lower classes. In peasant societies, there may emerge a caste system (a range of upper to lower); however, caste hierarchies are more often bound by local history and tradition and, so, are limited in their pervasive social effects. Often, the dominant groups in peasant societies--which sometimes form groups like the upper castes--are victors of wars in earlier histories, whereas the non-dominant groups are either defeated groups or groups which are culturally very different, stand apart and choose not to become assimilated in the dominant groups.