Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 22, 2026

Determination of Reproductive Competence by Confirming Pubertal Onset and Performing a Fertility Assay in Mice and Rats
Published on: October 13, 2018
Social construction of puberty: norms, institutions and resistances
1METICES Research Centre, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium.
Abstract:
This article examines puberty as a socially constructed phenomenon using data from semi-structured interviews with 45 adolescents (aged 12-16). Drawing on feminist and constructivist frameworks, the research reveals three principal mechanisms of social construction: institutional adultocentrism that normalises adolescent bodies through medical and educational surveillance; gendered differentiation of bodily experiences that reproduces inequalities; and digital mediation that generates both opportunities for emancipation and new forms of normative control. The study highlights the need for more inclusive institutional approaches to puberty that recognise adolescent agency and the plurality of pubertal trajectories, moving beyond biomedical reductionism towards a more genuinely social understanding of this stage of life.
Related Concept Videos
Socioemotional Experience and Gender Development
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Social Foundations of Self II: The Generalized Other
Influence of Parents and Peers on Identity
Parental Influence on Identity Development
Parents serve as primary guides and managers in an adolescent's life, offering support instrumental in decision-making and personal growth. This guiding role...
Conduct Disorder
Sources of Self-Esteem I: Family Experience