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In the last 10 to 15 years, research studies have focused on the effects of differences across generations that result in differences in cultural expectations within the workplace (e.g. Arsenault, 2004). Different generations create shared attitudes to work and preferences for types of work which result in differences in their perception of, for instance, what makes a good leader or even the value of leadership within an organisation. While these generational differences are real, these analyses do not take into account differences that might result from the age, and therefore developmental stage, of the populations being assessed. The neuroscience literature clearly shows that there are maturational differences in the brain which are not complete until late teens to early 20s. It is therefore possible that some of the generational differences result from differences in processing ability resulting from structural immaturities in the brain. In particular, there are differences in the rate of maturation of areas of the brain related to reward sensitivity, threat sensitivity and regulation of behaviour which result in substantial differences in behaviour from adolescence through into adulthood. The purpose of this paper is to consider the effect of maturational changes in the brain on behaviours related to leadership and to outline ways in which these changes can be addressed in order to encourage young people to develop as leaders. This will include providing suitable experiences of leadership to encourage the faster development of the neural structures which underlie these capabilities.

Recent advances in neural imaging have resulted in a substantial increase in research investigating the development of the brain during adolescence. A literature review was conducted to find adolescent research that investigated decision making and risk taking. The data obtained were integrated and implications for leadership were drawn from an analysis of the resulting theoretical framework.

The research into decision-making processes in adolescents and younger adults points to a number of ways in which these differ from mature decision making. Younger people: (find it harder to inhibit behaviours) are more responsive to immediate reward; are more optimistic about the outcome of risky decisions; and are more responsive to social rewards (Jones et al., 2014). They also lack the experiences that adults use to distil the gist of a situation and therefore are more dependent on conscious, cost-benefit analysis of the outcome of decisions.

An understanding of the differences between adult and adolescent decision making points to the role of experience as a key factor in mature decision making. If adolescents are to make mature decisions, they have to be offered suitable challenges in safe environments from which they can gain expertise in leadership decision making. These can be designed to account for differences in sensitivity to reward and punishment in this group. In addition, young adults would benefit from learning the gist interpretations that have been extracted from situations by experienced leaders. This suggests that adolescents and adults would benefit from simulated leadership experiences and leadership mentoring.

The Baby Boomer generation who currently hold many of the leadership positions in organisations are coming close to requirement. They will have to be replaced by members of Generation X and the Millennial Generation resulting in potentially younger leaders. In addition, flatter organisational structures that are currently being implemented in many organisations will require leadership at many more levels. Thus, we need to be able to develop leadership skills in a more diverse and younger section of society. Understanding how the brain develops can help us to design appropriate leadership experiences and training for this upcoming generation of young leaders.

Recent advances in neuroscience of adolescence provide a unique opportunity to bring new evidence to bear on our understanding of decision making in young adults. This provides practical implications for how to develop leadership within this group and to support them as they gain experience in this domain. The evidence also points to a benefit for the increased risk taking seen in adolescence since this leads to greater motivation to try new, and potentially risky, ventures. Through a better understanding of the differences in decision making, we can both help adolescents to develop more mature decision making faster while benefitting from the optimism of youth.

Having good relationships with friends and a trusting romantic partnership are extremely important for members of Generation Z. In social relationships with other young people, they experience solidarity and support with problems and crises, and learn to stand by others. Young people are therefore intensely concerned with how to enter into relationships and their expectations of them. Overwhelmingly, what they are looking for in friendships is similar across cultures – a set of shared values and similar hobbies. For romantic relationships, though, shared values and close proximity are key.

Young offenders are known to have more chaotic experiences in childhood than non-offenders, and this impacts on their attachments, coping styles and early maladaptive schemas (EMS). The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between these factors and drug use.

This study used self-report questionnaires on a sample of 105 incarcerated young offenders.

Attachment styles did not differentiate drug users from non-drug users. Drug users were found to be no more likely than non-drug users to use avoidant coping styles. However, they were more likely to have emotional coping styles. Drug users had more EMS, and overall, those with insecure attachments had more EMS. Individuals with emotional coping styles scored higher than those with rational coping styles on several EMS. Those with emotional coping styles scored lower on the emotional inhibition EMS than those with rational coping styles.

The evidence presented has implications for the understanding of drug use in young offenders by: providing support to the model proposed by Young et al. (2003) regarding how insecure attachments can contribute to EMS; providing support for Crittenden’s (2008) model of attachment whereby problematic behaviours such as drug use can be a strategy the individual uses to protect themselves at times of threat or discomfort; highlighting the need for an integrated model of substance use in offenders which incorporates early experiences, attachments and EMS; and highlighting why substance use may become a coping strategy in young offenders and how to engage them to meet their needs in pro-social ways.

The study contributes to the understanding of attachment, coping and drug use in a young offender population. It sets foundations in the authors’ understanding of patterns of EMS in young drug users and highlights the need for an integrated model of substance use which incorporates early experiences, attachments and EMS.

Purpose – To provide teachers with an outline of characteristics typically associated with young adolescent students and the nature of effective teaching and learning opportunities appropriate at this distinct level of human growth and development.Design/methodology/approach – The chapter presents concepts associated with differentiated instruction and authentic learning activities; both are examined as central when exploring ways to close the learning gap between students of poverty and their more advantaged peers.Findings – The goals of establishing effective pedagogy and closing demographic achievement gaps based on test scores must be addressed in parallel since closing the latter without addressing the first does not produce lasting effects.Research limitations/implications – The authors present a sampling of researchers’ findings related to effective pedagogy for adolescent learners; these include conclusions on differentiated instruction, developmentally appropriate curriculum, technological literacy, inquiry, project-based, and expeditionary learning.Practical implications – Factors that make particular middle schools in a large urban area effective are examined as well as each school’s partnership connection with a college literacy program.Originality/value of chapter – Teachers’ adherence to research-tested methodologies appropriate for adolescent learners requires knowledge of valid, reliable sources, and successful models of implementation.

The purpose of the research is to evaluate the visibility and effectiveness of responsible drinking campaigns used for the sale of the product “beer” (on labels and commercials) on a sample of university students at the University of Pisa to verify whether a preventive “education” on the issue of the effects of alcohol consumption is suitable to improve the perception of responsible communication.

A focus group methodology was used. Three interviews were conducted with 21 university students. The interview protocol was divided into three sections and ten guiding questions were prepared to conduct the focus groups.

The study shows the weak effectiveness of responsible communication promoted by brewers, even though the sample knew aspects related to responsible communication and the adverse health effects of alcohol. Most respondents failed to remember the existence of responsibility messages placed on beverage labels, except as a result of visual stimuli, a sign that preventive education can play a role in message recognition. Commercials seem to have a more significant impact when associated with the dangers of drunk driving. However, promoting consumer awareness campaigns continues to be perceived as contradictory.

This study presents the results of qualitative research that focuses on university students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the most recent responsible communication campaigns conducted by brewers. The research is significant in assessing the effectiveness of communication tools, providing theoretical and industrial implications for improving the understanding of the phenomenon and the effectiveness of responsible messages.

Grounded in Critical Youth Studies and English education scholarship that examines the consequences of conceptions of adolescence on English teachers’ thinking about pedagogy, this chapter highlights two ways English teacher educators can facilitate pre-service English teachers’ interrogation of dominant discourses of adolescence/ts so they might be better positioned to create pedagogical practices aligned with more comprehensive understandings of secondary students. The first focuses on teaching a Youth Lens in the context of a Young Adult Literature course, an approach that helps future teachers learn about adolescence as a construct and the linkages between this idea and English pedagogy. The second focuses on integrating youth into English teacher education coursework as guest speakers on a range of English and schooling practices whereby they are “re-positioned” as experts and contributors to English teacher education. Together, these points of intervention provide ways to re-position youth systemically throughout English teacher education programs.

This chapter explores the symbolic connections between coming of age liminality and identity-oriented consumption practices in postmodern American culture, specifically among adolescent girls.

Forty-two female participants (ages 20–23) participants were asked to answer the general question of “Who am I?” through creating identity collages and writing accompanying narrative summaries for each of three discrete life stages: early adolescence (past-self), late adolescence (present-self), and adulthood (future-self). Data were analyzed using a hermeneutical approach.

Coming of age in postmodern American consumer culture involves negotiating paradoxical identity tensions through consumption-oriented benchmarks, termed “market-mediated milestones.” Market-mediated milestones represent achievable criteria by which adolescents solidify their uncertain liminal self-concepts.

In contrast to the traditional Van Gennepian conceptualization of rites of passage, market-mediated milestones do not necessarily mark a major transition from one social status to another, nor do they follow clearly defined stages. Market-mediated milestones help adolescents navigate liminality through an organic, nonlinear, and incremental coming of age process.

Rather than traditional cultural institutions (e.g., church, family), the marketplace is becoming the central cultural institution around which adolescent coming of age identity is constructed. As such, organizations have the power to create market-mediated milestones for young people. In doing so, organizations should be mindful of adolescent well-being.

This research marks a turning point in understanding traditional rites of passage in light of postmodern degradation of cultural institutions. The institutions upon which traditional rites of passage are based have changed; therefore, our conceptions of what rites of passage are today should change as well.

Sexual education in adolescence may represent the only formal sexual information individuals ever receive. It is unclear whether this early educational experience is sufficient to promote lifelong sexual health literacy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the timing and source of sexual knowledge on current safe sex knowledge and risky sexual behaviours among middle-aged and older adults in the USA.

Participants (n=410, mean age=53.9, 50.7 per cent female) reported whether and when they received sexual knowledge from various sources. They were asked about their current safe sex knowledge and their lifetime sexual risk behaviours.

Most of the participants (61.5 per cent) received formal sexual education in adolescence and 20.2 per cent reported formal sexual education post-adolescence. Across the life span, friends were the most common source of sexual information. The sample scored in the upper mid-range on the scale indexing safe sex knowledge (M=6.69, SD=1.64, range=0-8). Participants reported engaging in an average of approximately four (out of 16) risky sexual behaviours across their lifetime. Those with formal sex education in adolescence scored significantly higher on safe sex knowledge. However, they also engaged in more risky sex behaviours.

This study is among the first to situate the normative, formal sexual education experience of adolescence within a life span context that not only accounts for time, but also multiple sources of influence. It would appear that there are more things to learn about the long-term influence of sexual education programmes during the formative years by studying adult sexual health and knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how adolescent arrest and correctional confinement impact psychosocial development during the transition to adulthood.

The research uses a US-based sample of 12,100 youth in junior and high school and again in early adulthood. Factor analyses determine measurement of psychosocial maturity (PSM) and subsequently compare baseline and subsequent psychosocial development in a multivariate framework for males and females.

Findings show that net of socio-demographic and delinquency-related controls, all three groups have similar baseline psychosocial measures pre-confinement but by early adulthood (ages 18–25) there are significant differences between the two justice-involved groups for multiple measure of psychosocial well-being, net of any differences at baseline. Differences are exacerbated for females.

Results suggest the need for juvenile correctional facilities to incorporate programming that allows juveniles to build psychosocial skills through activities that mirror typical adolescent responsibilities, behaviors and tasks.

The authors compare PSM development for three groups of adolescents: non-justice-involved youth, youth who were arrested but not confined before age 18 (arrested non-confined), and delinquent youth who served time in out-of-home correctional placement before age 18 (confined) to compare development and changes in psychosocial development over time. Further, the authors examine the interaction of gender and confinement to explore if the context of confinement disrupts PSM development differently for females.