New Article on Measuring Progression Through EA

The article that I wrote with Jeff Arnett and my Texas Tech faculty colleague Malinda Colwell, introducing our Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA) measure and providing reliability and validity information, has now been published. The article appears in the Summer 2007 issue of the Journal of Youth Development, a relatively new online publication (see links section on the right). We hope EA researchers will find the article and measure to be useful. Practical applications for families and educators are also discussed in the article.

Congressional Group Studies Issues Affecting Young Adults

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has created a "30 Something Working Group" within her party's caucus. Although the participating House members are older than what would generally be considered the Emerging Adulthood range, the working group appears to be focusing its agenda toward young adults pretty broadly (also, one must be at least 25 years old to run for the U.S. House of Representatives, so individuals in the traditional EA range of 18-25 years old would be almost entirely ineligible to run). According to the 30 Something group's mission statement:

These Members are committed to engaging the next generation of Americans further in government and the political process. "30 Something" Members seek to talk and listen to young Americans about the issues they care about and how Congress can better represent their opinions on those issues.

Among the specific issues mentioned on the 30 Somethings' website are college cost reduction and raising the minimum wage, both of which are important to large numbers of young people who are transitioning to adulthood.

I also checked the website of Republican floor leader John Boehner and didn't find any signs of a similar project within the GOP.