Adolescence as a Social Construct

Being primarily a history student (and hoping to be a high-school history teacher) I was quite surprised by much of Chapter 2 as well as the whole of "The Social Construction of Adolescence" section. I have never really given any thought to the idea of puberty being as much of a social construct as a physical one. In fact, just last week in class when we were asked to come up with some concerns about teaching in the middle school environment, practically the first thing that came to my head was dealing with all of the tumultuous hormones that middle school entails. I understood this as a given and never questioned its relevance or truth. After reading these sections I am open to the idea that although physical changes are occuring in youth at this age, it's neither fair nor true to characterize all the students by this simple fact. How the changes are dealt with is just as important as the changes themselves.

Also, the idea that adolescence was first spoken of / studied in the early 20th century as a way to subjegate minorities and women while boosting the white male's position in society was surprising. Another fact that I found interesting was that the idea of adolescence only exists in developed countries where an education is possible before a young person enters the workforce. Obviously, barring malnutrition, people in all countries develop at around the same time and in the same way, it's just the makeup of a society that determines how these changes are dealt with. Being that this is such an important time in someone's life, I'm surprised that these facts aren't common knowledge.