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The study of adolescence has long been dominated by psychologists, beginning with G. Stanley Hall (1904). In the 1980s a great increase in research activity has occurred, culminating in the founding of the Society for Research in Adolescence. Along with that increase in volume has come a major shift in the focus of adolescent research. Whereas most earlier research was limited to the study of individual adolescents carrying out their developmental tasks (Erikson 1968), an increasing proportion of research now places the biological, cognitive, and emotional development of adolescents in a broader social context. The changing orientation of adolescent research is in part a function of the breakdown of traditional barriers between fields. Outstanding developmental psychologists now perceive adolescence as occurring in historical, social, organizational, cultural, and institutional contexts (Bronfenbrenner 1979, Lerner & Foch 1987). Biological determinism has been discredited, and the study of pubertal development is now concerned with the evaluation of physical development by social actors (Brooks-Gunn 1984, Dornbusch et al 1987a). Some of the changes in orientation within the field of adolescent research are a product of contributions by sociologists. Sociologists who have helped to reshape the research agenda include Zena Blau (1981), Orville G. Brim, Jr. (Brim & Kagan 1980), Albert K. Cohen (1955), James S. Coleman (1961, 1987), Glen H. Elder (1974, Elder et al 1985), Joyce Epstein (1981), Howard
Sanford M. Dornbusch (Tue,) studied this question.