Marion Simmonds
Cheltenham Girls High School
High Distinction
8 Going on 18: The Adultification of Children and the Emergence of Tweens: An Investigation of Postman’s Hypothesis

Childhood, adolescence and adulthood are biologically and socially constructed. A new stage of development between early childhood and adolescence has emerged: “tweens”.

I investigated the complex social forces contributing to the adultification of children and compared this life stage today with the previous generation. 

With few studies on tweens, primary research was critical to my PIP. I began by interviewing girls aged eight to thirteen and women from their mothers’ generation about aspects of the tween phenomenon and compared the responses from the two generations. From this qualitative data, I developed two questionnaires, one for tweens and one for mothers with tween-aged daughters. I used statistical and qualitative methods to analyse the data. I also developed two structured interviews, one for editors of tween magazines and one for “experts”, including counsellors, sociologists and child psychologists. Content analyses of interviews provided additional qualitative data. To investigate the representation of tweens in the media, I conducted content analyses of popular Australian tween and teen magazines.

While variables such as gender and culture emerged, my major cross-cultural component focussed on generational changes over time for girls aged eight to thirteen.

There are a number of interacting influences. Changes in family structures, increased independence and celebrity role models in the media have contributed to changes in the social construction of childhood and pre-adolescence.