Introduction

Adolescent psychology is a Eurocentric enterprise. Western social scientists, for example, have demonstrated remarkable ethnocentrism and have, with few recent exceptions, presented their findings as relevant to the human race (Lamb 1992; Munroe, Munroe, & Whiting 1981). Most of them have not had the motivation or the opportunity to consider the implications of their Eurocentrism. The ethnocentrism has been so overwhelming that the majority of both scholars and lay persons are unaware that the field would have been different had adolescence been “discovered” within the cultural conditions and life circumstances different than those of Europe and North America, say, in Africa.

The history of the discipline translates virtually into a tale of how research on adolescence emerged, developed, and consolidated as a Eurocentric project, of which the American model now dominates the field. This means, regrettably, that research efforts have so far failed to capture what adolescence truly is in its global context. Instead, scholars have tended to create, or more accurately, to recast, the African or other non-Western images of adolescence in the shadow of Euro-American adolescence. With this lopsided state of the field, the most compelling scientific project becomes the development of inclusive perspectives, which attempt to bring together the diverse ways by which all societies seek to understand and handle the challenges posed by their budding adults, adolescents, and youth.