This article challenges biocultural assumptions and embraces diversity in adolescent populations, suggesting new methodologies.
Adolescence is an expansive, dynamic period within the life course, covering a broad age range (10‐24 years) and a cascade of biological and cultural changes. However, biocultural approaches to adolescence have been less well developed within existing research compared to child and adult counterparts. In this article, we present a roadmap to revisit received wisdom about adolescence and to advance the study of adolescence rooted in biocultural frameworks. Drawing on existing biocultural and anthropological work, we present three main opportunities to (1) challenge assumptions, (2) embrace adolescent diversity, and (3) innovate biocultural methods in the study of adolescence. We invite readers to reflect upon this synthesis in their future studies with and among adolescent populations in varied socioecological milieus.
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Glass et al. (2025) studied this question.
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