EDPSY 380: Perspectives Regarding to Adulthood

Michael Li 27 April 2019 EDPSY 380 Perspectives Regarding to Adulthood Adult, does not just mean who is 18 years old and can leave from his parents’ house to enjoy the freedom. Rather, adult means additional responsibility to his own behavior, capability to take care of his family, and has a specific goal to achieve. Adulthood is a process of growing up to confront obstacles and gaining the ability to resolve them. Everyone has different experiences but always has something in common. On the study on adult education, I will compare the experiences of two individuals, Mr. Arslan and Ms. Wang, who gave me a completely new and different view on what it means to be an adult. The two interviews were separately recorded in writing while the final combination of the points of view from the two unnamed individuals yielded in this report. The report claims that although there are changes and mixed perspectives on the notion of adulthood, it is clear that adulthood and human development is a process which entails an interaction between the biological development of an individual and the cultural practices of his or her society. The first person in the interview was 54-year-old Mr. Arslan whose grandparents moved in to the United States of America from a country in East Africa. He has a nuclear family comprising him, his wife and two teen children. Mr. Arslan is employed at a local firm in his city and he and his family are financially stable. The second person in my interview is 32-year-old Ms. Wang who was born and raised Ohio, United States of America by two young parents as she mentions that she is the only one in her family. She is a lot younger than Mr. Arslan and is not yet married as she has three years working as a cultural journalist in one of the radio stations in her city. Thereupon, Ms. Wang is an economically and financially stable individual for a young person with limited responsibilities. From my interview, the two individuals manifested their plausible knowledge on their respective cultures and they provided credible and reliable information on the topic. The first claim derived from the interview is that human development is an interaction between the biological development of an individual and the cultural practices of the society in which he or she was born in. In this context, when an individual grows in to an adult, reaching puberty, breaking their voices and beginning to distant themselves from their parents, an individual begins to relate differently with the society. This means that an individual starts to learn the cultural practices of the society and begins to involve himself or herself in experiences that would change their neural networks in to learning the practices and social roles that that lead to development (Gutierrez & Rogoff, 2003).For instance, when I asked Mr. Arslan to describe what it takes for one to be termed as an adult or becoming an adult, he gave a detailed description about learning the cultural practices of the society and fulfilling its roles. He said, “Transition in my community wholly depends on one being able to partake certain responsibilities to the satisfaction of their parents and the whole community in general. These responsibilities include looking after cattle, performing ploughs, fencing, grounds work and taking care of the compound for the boys. For the girls, they are adults when they start helping out their parents in doing household chores, fetching firewood and water, cooking and taking care of their younger siblings. Additionally,” similar to the idea of Eliason et al. (2015), “being a leader is the greatest responsibility that marks total transition in to adulthood, in my community”. Secondly, adulthood or transition from childhood to adulthood entails learning meaning it is a process and not just a sudden event in the life of an individual (Merriam & Bierema, 2014). In the context that human development is ultimately a form of learning, this concept supports the claim in the sense that every situation that involves an individual taking the course of learning, the act is a chronology of events and activities, or simply a process with outcomes. In detail, human development is a process of learning new experiences and acquiring skills needed for the next stage of life. Furthermore, the theory of humanism explains that an individual learns new skills with the aim of self-actualizing and making choices that determine their behavior in the next stage of adulthood. Moreover, according to constructivism theory, adulthood is a process of learning and negotiating with the environment where an individual takes an experience such as buying his or her own clothes from some money paid by a job, and creates a personally relevant and viable meaning out of it (Merriam & Bierema, 2014). Also, within the same point, the theory of social cognitivism states that an individual becomes an adult in a long period of time characterized with learning by observing specific mode...