American-style adolescence is an anomaly. In preindustrial nations, where young people are rapidly integrated into adult society at an early age, teen turmoil is largely absent. A recent study of 186 preindustrial societies indicates that 60 percent of such societies don't even have a word for adolescence and that antisocial behavior by young males is completely absent in more than half of them. Where teen problems are beginning to emerge in various countries around the world, they can be traced to the increasing isolation of teens from adults brought about by Western educational practices, labor restrictions, and media. --The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen by Robert Epstein, Ph.D.