About the journal

The Journal of Adolescence is an international, broad based, cross-disciplinary journal that addresses issues of professional and academic importance concerning development between puberty and the attainment of adult status within society. Our focus is specifically on adolescent development: change over time or negotiating age specific issues and life transitions. The aim of the journal is to encourage research and foster good practice through publishing empirical studies, integrative reviews and theoretical and methodological advances. The Journal of Adolescence is essential reading for adolescent researchers, social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, and youth workers in practice, and for university and college faculty in the fields of psychology, sociology, education, criminal justice, and social work.


Research Areas Encompassed:

  • Adolescent development with particular emphasis on social, cognitive, and emotional functioning
  • Resilience, positive development, and effective coping within the context of adolescent development
  • Disturbances and disorders of adolescence, approached from a developmental perspective
  • Public health approaches and interventions designed to reduce risk or support positive development


JoA actively seeks papers that are strongly grounded in theory and have a clear developmental focus. We are particularly interested in research focusing on less studied populations or that examine contextual variation in developmental processes.  In addition to empirical research articles, JoA also publishes systematic Review Articles and papers that focus on areas of methodological import. 


The Journal publishes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method research and welcomes systematic review articles and papers providing reviews or practical guidance on important or novel topics relevant to developmental methodology. We do not publish papers whose primary purpose is the validation of established measures in new cultural contexts.  If required, additional words may be permitted to report such validations within a standard empirical research article.

Indexing information:

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