THE ‘TWENTY-SOMETHING’ YEARS of emerging adulthood are increasingly recognized as a distinctive but puzzling era in the human life span. In this tenth anniversary revised edition of her 2001 classic, Sharon Daloz Parks, a pioneering voice in young adult development theory, builds on the foundation she established over two decades ago in The Critical Years, in which she recognized this significant stage in the human life span and underscored the role of mentors in the lives of young adults.
The emerging adult years constitute a new challenge to individuals, institutions, and cultures. It matters whether emerging adults move through the twenty-something decade on default settings or are well prepared for citizenship and leadership. Focusing on critical features of human development–transformations in thinking, feeling, and networks of belonging–Parks describes the potential and vulnerability of emerging adults and shows how mentors and mentoring environments can provide access to big-enough questions and inspire dreams worthy of engagement with a challenging and complex world.
Parks casts the emerging adult years within the task of making meaning in a dramatically changing world–a task that all human beings share. She helpfully recognizes ‘faith’ as meaning-making in its most comprehensive dimensions, whether expressed in secular or religious terms, and how over time our meaning-making orients our sense of purpose, moral stance, and competence.
This tenth-anniversary revised edition of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams is written for faculty and administrators in higher and professional education, supervisors in workplace settings, community leaders, parents, and for all who are open to deepening their understanding of emerging adult lives. This updated edition addresses recent issues and events, including (among others) violence in our culture, mixed spirituality and religious identities, social media and networking, the economic crisis, changing racial identity, cultural shifts, and other forces shaping the narrative of young adulthood today.
Tabella dei contenuti
Preface ix
1. Emerging Adulthood in a Changing World: Potential and Vulnerability 1
2. The Deep Motion of Life: Composing Meaning, Purpose, and Faith 20
3. Becoming at Home in the Universe: A Developmental Process 46
4. It Matters How We Think 70
5. It All Depends . . . 94
6. . . . On Belonging 114
7. Imagination: The Core of Learning and the Heart of Leadership 134
8. The Gifts of Mentorship and a Mentoring Environment 165
9. Higher Education as Mentor 203
10. Culture as Mentor 224
Coda: Mentoring Communities 243
Professional Education and the Professions 243
The Workplace 251
Travel 258
Families 261
Religious Faith Communities 267
Media 279
Social Movements 286
Notes 289
The Author 319
Name Index 321
Subject Index 325
Circa l’autore
Sharon Daloz Parks has been described as a keen observer, a probing listener, and a rich and subtle theorist. She is principal of Leadership for the New Commons, a senior fellow at the Whidbey Institute, and has held faculty and senior research positions at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Business School, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Weston School of Theology.