An Egyptian proverb says, “When your son grows up, make him your brother.” Socialization in the Arab world recognizes the passage to adulthood as a transition to reflective, mature participation in society, maintaining the primacy throughout life of family ties, connectivity, and mutual responsibility. Adolescence in Arab societies – as varied as those societies are, both from each other and internally – is a process of learning responsibility and agency within a web of ongoing relationships. Traditionally, the transition from childhood to adulthood was marked by marriage. But economic and social pressures toward later marriage have lessened the salience of that marker, while contributing to increased recognition of adolescence as a stage with its own characteristics and challenges.

An ethos of connectivity and group primacy that puts the family at center stage need not conflict with achieving a mature self. Islam, the majority religion of the Arab world, offers a strong structure within which to define individuals' rights and duties. Arab Christians and Arab Jews also grow up with strong, communally supportive, structures. Yet, the family values with which today's Arab adolescents have grown up do not always seem to provide a helpful blueprint for the future, as those adolescents face local situations and a global environment that both seem increasingly to value economically defined contractual relations. And, as important as belief systems are to an adolescent's world view anywhere, neither those systems nor the impact they can have are uniform, while many other factors shape social experience.