Piaget's view of formal operations as a universal change in cognition that results from adolescents' independent efforts to make sense of their world. Instead, it may be a culturally transmitted way of reasoning specific to literate societies and fostered by school experiences. Scientific reasoning develops gradually out of many specific experiences. By adolescence, boys are ahead of girls in mathematical performance, a difference related to biology, experience, social attitudes, and self-esteem. However, these sex differences appear only on some types of test items, such as complex word problems.
Language continues to develop in subtle ways.
For example, vocabulary expands, the grammatical complexity of speech increases, and communicative competence improves. School transitions create new adjustment problems for adolescents. Timing of school transitions, child- rearing practices, parent involvement in school, the peer culture, and characteristics of the learning environment affect school achievement during the teenage years. Although graduation rates have improved over the last half century, dropping out of school remains high in the United States and is related to a variety of family background and school variables that undermine life success. Factors that influence adolescents' vocational decisions include personality, family background, teachers, and gender stereotypes in the larger social environment, and access to vocational information.