This course will ask: How can families, schools, communities, and society help adolescents to navigate contemporary stressors and develop into physically and mentally healthy adults? To do this, we will use research, and an understanding of adolescent development, to explore and analyze issues affecting the health and behavior of American adolescents. Such issues include (but are not limited to) sex education, the role of social media in mental health, substance use, policing in schools, dating violence, suicide prevention, access to sexual and reproductive health care, and school start times. We will consider how adolescent well-being is shaped by social contexts, including the role of parents and family members, peers, schools, communities, social media, and culture. We will examine policies and programs that affect adolescents, how effective they are at promoting adolescent health, and how they might be improved to better support healthy adolescent development.