In-depth interviews with ethnic-minority, low-income, urban adolescents reveal the multiple meanings of trust and closeness in friendships, the intersection of trust and distrust, and the ways in which close friendships are firmly embedded in cultural contexts.

Friendships serve as a secure base and buffer that help adolescents to cope with the psychological challenges of the social ecology of high school. Through these relationships, adolescents develop a stronger sense of belonging to their schools.

Basic concepts and procedures of qualitative analysis are discussed, especially as they relate to the study of the features, processes, and effects of friendships. The contributions of the previous chapters are presented according to theory and research on friendship as a developmental process.

Patterns of change in parental support, behavioral control, and psychological control were examined longitudinally across adolescence.

The psychological consequences of parental control over adolescents' issues of privacy and personal choice are explored with youth from varying cultural backgrounds.

Adolescents and parents view parents' regulation of some aspects of adolescents' lives as legitimate, but they disagree as to how much personal freedom adolescents should have. Too much parental control over personal issues in early adolescence leads to feelings of psychological control, but increasing autonomy over personal issues in later…

With age, Chilean, Filipino, and U.S. youth come to believe that fewer issues are legitimately within the control of parents and that they are less obliged to obey parental rules. These beliefs vary across domains and countries, providing insight into parent-adolescent conflict and the development of autonomy. (Contains 2 figures.)

In proposing connections among the paradigms represented by domain theory, parental control theory, and Baumrind's configural approach to parental authority, the worldview of each paradigm must be respected and ambiguities in core concepts must be resolved.

The construct of psychological control, important in research on parenting and adolescent development, is much in need of clarification.

Understanding parental influences and parent-adolescent relationships is difficult because individuals are involved in many activities and have varied goals. The chapters in this volume help address the complexities by focusing on variations in parental practices and domains of activities.

This volume brings together leading scholars to describe important new directions in research on child and adolescent development. This introductory chapter places their articles in the context of three larger trends in the field.

Over the past quarter century, the study of child and adolescent development has made important progress by using its theoretical insights to address the common problems of growing up. In light of findings generated by this empirical activity, it is now time to take a new look at the field's theoretical base to establish a comprehensive framework…

Demographic shifts in the U.S. population require developmental researchers to increase their attention to cultural diversity. Conceptual models that incorporate culturally relevant variables and focus on normative and positive development are needed to produce a more balanced understanding of Latino youth development. (Contains 1 table and 1…

This chapter argues for the essential role of culture in forming the basic constructs and theories of developmental psychology. The case is made for the need to overcome the cultural insularity of core developmental concepts and methods in order to create a psychology that is more truly universal.

This chapter examines the development of self from the Hindu perspective, which views the "Atman" or inner self as the real self, transcending the empirical self that is socially embedded and subject to change across the life span and with intercultural contact.