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Authoring Your Life: Developing an Internal Voice to Navigate Life's Challenges Marcia B. Baxter Magolda Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2009, 377 pages, $29. 95 (hardcover)
For over 20 years, Marcia B. Baxter Magolda has been engaged in the study of adult development, focusing first on gender differences in the cognitive development of college students and later on the development of self-authorship in adulthood. Her longitudinal study consists of annual interviews with 35 participants beginning when they were firstyear college students at Miami University and continuing until the age of 40. Baxter Magolda has documented the lives of these men and women in numerous books and journal articles (see Baxter Magolda, 1992, 2001, and Baxter Magolda & King, 2008, for book-length treatments of this study).
Authoring Your Life is the latest iteration of Baxter Magolda's work on self-authorship. Geared for a popular rather than an academic audience, this book is designed to assist young adults in moving from dependence on external authorities to taking charge of their own life decisions. Secondly, the book serves as a guide to significant others in the lives of young adults who wish to help these individuals more effectively address the challenges that life brings.
Written directly to the intended audience, the introductory chapter provides an overview of Baxter Magolda's theory of self-authorship as well as a rationale for the importance of developing an internal voice. Using the analogy of a roadmap, Baxter Magolda includes a table summarizing the phases and elements involved in the development of self-authorship, from reliance on...