Chapter 5: Adolescence in Dutch Culture: A Self-Regulation Perspective

Youngsters grow up in a multitude of social settings that shape their cognitions, feelings, and behavior (Bronfenbrenner, 1995; Phelan, Yu, & Davidson, 1994). When they reach adolescence, most students have had a multitude of favorable and unfavorable experiences in diverse social environments, and these experiences have been stored in their long-term memory schemata that are connected to these different contexts. This implies that adolescents’ appraisal (perceptions and interpretation) of learning opportunities organized by family members, teachers, or peers may be at variance, thus creating diverse mindsets that continue to influence the development of their knowledge base, skills, value system, self-concept, and self-esteem. In turn, adolescents’ appraisal of learning opportunities and their self-referenced cognitions have a pronounced effect on their behavior, both in the short term and long term. An interesting question in this respect is: “What leads some adolescents to accept academic goals as valid and regulate their behavior in such a way that they accomplish these goals, while others view educational targets as chores that have to be completed with minimal effort and maximum results?” In the next section, I provide some general information about Dutch adolescents and their educational experiences. Next, I argue that the cultural context within which adolescents grow up influences the content of their goals and their self-regulation processes. I illustrate that one cannot accurately understand Dutch adolescents’ behavior without understanding the interaction between their salient goals and contextual influences.