Research

"Rites of Passage." Society for Research on Adolescence. Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA), 1
Jan. 2010. Web. 1 Nov. 2014. <http://www.s-r-a.org/announcements/blog/2014-02-11-rites-passage>.

The article was about a teacher talking to her students about various rites of passage. They
focused on rites that were about becoming adolescents to adults. The ages they determined to be
important were 16, 18, and 21. The most well-known rites of passage are ceremonies in other cultures
such as a Bar Mitzvah. The teacher determined with her students that here in the US, there are no welldefined or universally accepted rites of passages.
The article is relevant because it shows that while other cultures have rites of passages that
everyone goes through, the same does not apply here. We can name certain things that people do at a
certain age, but they may not mean the same to others.
The source for this article is from the Society for Research on Adolescence which is organization
established in 1984 focused on the theoretical, empirical, and policy research issues of adolescence.

Magida, Arthur J. Opening the Doors of Wonder: Reflections on Religious Rites of Passage. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006. Internet resource.

This book is about the author, Arthur Magida, exploring different rites of passages in religions.
Magida interviews various people from different religions to find out more about what they do and why.
Magida also compares the rites of passages today to what there were years ago and what rites are being
invented in the United States.
The book is a good source for reading about firsthand accounts on the rights of passage. The
rites include: Christian confirmations, Hindu sacred thread ceremonies (symbolize the transference of
spiritual knowledge), Muslim shahadas (creed declaring belief in the oneness of God and the acceptance
of Muhammad as God's prophet), and Zen buddist jukai ceremonies (a student of Buddhism receives
certain Buddhist precepts).
This is a reliable source because Magida is an established author who has published 5 books and
is now writing essays and non-fiction.