SELF-CONCEPT OF THE SECONDARY-SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ZAGREB, CROATIA

With its project ''Growth and development of children and adolescents'' the Clinic for Psychological Medicine has opened a new field of studying psychological profiles and the structures of certain age groups. This study attempts to analyze thoroughly and define the psychological structure and self-concept of an age which is the most dramatic in the development of a human being. The research is a contribution to the mosaic of similar studies undertaken in the USA and the West European countries. The subjects are 2500 adolescents. The first part of the research, presented in this paper, reveals similarities in their biological development and their own experiences of this development, but it also points to the cross-cultural differences which shape the age of adolescence.