Beyond appearance: A new look at adolescent girls.

Johnson, N.G., Roberts, M.C., & Worell, J., Eds.(1999). Beyond appearance: A new look at adolescent girls. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (464 pp., ISBN-1-55798-582-0).

This edited volume was conceived and written by a distinguished group of authors with expertise in research and clinical practice concerning adolescent girls. The various chapters, edited by top experts in the field of psychology, work together to emphasize the strengths, challenges and choices of today's adolescent girl in order to identify paths for future research, education, practice, and public policy. Chapters provide up-to-date information on topics such as eating disorders, teen pregnancy, resilience, gender influences on adolescent development, and the important role of relational context in all adolescent girls' relationships. Unlike many reference works, this book succeeds in its determined effort to include and discuss a wide variety of issues pertaining to all types of diversity, such as immigrant as well as American-born adolescent girls of color, American Indian adolescent girls, and lesbian and bi-sexual girls. This well-organized and comprehensive reference work belongs on the bookshelves of psychologists, sociologists, and educators dealing with adolescent girls. Parents seeking scholarly knowledge and understanding of the many issues facing the adolescent girl of today would also benefit from reading this book. Each chapter provides a concise and thorough review of the literature as well as an extensive bibliography relating to the topic of discussion. Although psychological and sociological perspectives are emphasized, the educational implications are also discussed in most chapters. Many authors suggest areas for future research.

The editors and authors of this book complain that current research into issues relating to adolescent girls is based on an underlying assumption of pathology rather than resilience. Throughout the book, the authors acknowledge the many challenges that all adolescent girls face today, yet manage to emphasize the positive aspects of these young women's experiences, reminding the reader of the varied internal and external support systems girls upon which girls rely.

The authors of chapter 5, "The "Other" Adolescent Girls: Who Are They?" suggest that the assumptions underlying traditional research methodologies that typically rely on large numbers of participants "restrict our capacity to capture and fully represent the diversity in adolescent female psychologies" (page 117). Today's adolescent girls live in a wide variety of circumstances. The current paucity of research studies focusing on adolescent girls of color and the heterogeneity of girls even within their assigned "group" creates havoc with the appropriate interpretation of many research findings. Coming to terms with culture clash in immigrant families, for example, is often viewed as problematic for adolescent girls, yet for many of these girls from a wide range of cultures, the family serves as an important protective factor (p. 159). The authors suggest that alternate conceptions of knowledge and alternate research methodologies, such as qualitative-descriptive approaches, be more fully explored and accepted in the field of psychology.

In chapter 8, "Cultivating Hardiness Zones for Adolescent Girls: A Reconceptualization of Resilience in Relationships with Caring Adults," the authors accuse society of marginalizing and stigmatizing adolescent girls, focusing on their so-called failures and ignoring the relational and environmental contexts that are unable or unwilling to support them (p. 183). They question whether the so-called resilient child who defies the odds and adapts to upper-middles-class societal expectations is an appropriate model for all children, particularly poor girls of color.

Reviewed by Cindy A. Strickland, a doctoral student in Educational Psychology with an emphasis in Gifted at the University of Virginia.