Adolescent Girls in Distress - Springer Publishing Company

1
Girl Power? Understanding Girls’
Socialization Through the Lens
of Popular Culture
A girl’s mental health is a function of her experience of larger cultural
systems operating in society, her family of origin and the values/behaviors
they model for her, peer group influences, the neighborhood in
which she lives, the school that she attends, her religious and/or community
institutions and resources, and all of the ways in which these
macro- and microsystems interact. In addition, individual biological
factors related to her physical development and psychosocial factors
stemming from her cognitive, identity, social, and moral development
interact with and are affected by these other systems. Consequently, it
is impossible for a counselor to understand a girl’s increasingly complex
inner life, her physical and psychosocial development, and her
overall mental health and wellness when viewing her through only a
unidimensional lens.
Bronfenbrenner (1979), an influential developmental psychologist,
was one of the first social scientists to note the importance of understanding
these types of intersections. According to his ecological
systems theory, human development and behavior are functions of
the interaction between the person and her environment, so that to
© Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
1