​Keeping Faith
Finding Meaning

​A Harvard psychologist explores Adolescence and Coming of Age

The 2022 Clark Lecture
with Professor Nancy Hill

Thursday 11 August 2022
Scots Church, 44 Margaret St, Sydney NSW 2000

Debates about when adolescence ends and adulthood begins often lead to judgements about how long youth today are taking to reach adulthood. Amid these debates, definitions of adulthood are nebulous and rife with implicit assumptions about what it means to be an adult, in both character and behaviour.

Dr Hill identifies societies as active agents in shaping adolescents’ beliefs about adulthood, including institutions such as schools, religious institutions, the economy, community agencies, and government. Many of these agencies serve to support, promote, and stratify youth into societal roles. As students struggle against, align themselves with, and catalyse change in these institutions, they find their place and sense of purpose as adults and citizens.

Growing up often entails a series of losses, gains, and renegotiations with the people and places that have defined them, along with internal processes of self-discovery, and individuation. In this lecture, Dr Hill discusses the mechanisms that lead to youth re-evaluating and deepening their faith, developing hope, and in the process finding meaning on the pathway to adulthood. 

During her month-long visit to The Scots College, Professor Hill spoke to a wide variety of audiences on the themes of boys' development, character and parenting. Some of her engagements included:

• Visits to all Scots campuses engaging with staff, students and parents
• Staff reading groups in developmental psychology
• Keynote at the Scots co-hosted Ethos Conference at St Paul's College within the University of Sydney on Christian scholarship and identity
• Keynote to the Teaching Schools Alliance Sydney on Christian education and developmental psychology
• ScotsIdeas lecture on 'Helping Boys Become Fine Young Men' - watch here
• Radio interview with Hope 103.2 - listen here

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Professor Nancy E. Hill
Charles Bigelow Professor of Education, Harvard University

Professor Nancy E. Hill is the Charles Bigelow Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and President of the Society for Research in Child Development. An expert in parenting and adolescent development, her most recent book is The End of Adolescence: The Lost Art of Delaying Adulthood (Harvard University Press, 2021). Professor Hill earned a BS at Ohio State University and an MA and PhD at Michigan State University, before going on to hold academic appointments at Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Duke University.

Professor Hill was awarded the Ernest Hilgard Award for Lifetime contributions to psychology from Division 1 of the American Psychological Association. She was named to the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) Board on Children Youth and Families, and has served as Chair of the Board of ChildFund International, a $250 million international nongovernmental agency (iNGO) that develops and implements programs to supports the positive development of vulnerable, deprived and excluded children in 31 countries.