To what extent is maturation of the adolescent brain a matter of time versus experience?
I'm aware the brain--especially the portion concerning planning and judgement--isn't matured until around the mid-20s and that the brain's structure is sensitive to environment. That said, let's assume a society with the knowledge of the adolescent brain being different from an adult brain educates adolescents early on personal and civic responsibility, and it's probably helpful to say the society doesn't stigmatize adolescent parenthood.
Would their brain maturation hasten in response to their upbringing, or would they at the least be more mindful of their thoughts and behaviors until they acquire the hardware some years later?
While I know of instances wherein mindfulness meditation have improved youth behavior, I didn't have any luck finding studies comparing the brains of adolescents with differing amounts of responsibility and mentoring. In addition, I know there will be individual differences, that some adolescents display better judgement than some adults, and that responsibility, mentoring, and judgement have a degree of subjectivity to them; let's say good judgement is the opposite of trolling and CZW Cage of Death.
Something else may also be said about the influence of collective and individualist societies.
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I don't think it will, the brain maturation you are talking about is a biological phenomenon, not a training or learning phenomenon. Specifically, it is (at least one component of it is) coating the nerves in the brain with myelin, a physical process that improves accuracy of transmission and doubles the speed. This begins in puberty but does not proceed "brain wide" all at once; instead it seems to proceed in the order of evolutionary development. Since our large (comparatively to other animals) frontal cortex, responsible for planning and judgment and foresight, appeared late in human evolution, it is the last to be "optimized" in this way; and other structures related to emotion and sexual urges are the first. This is likely to be responsible for some of our teenage rebellious phase, driven by emotion and the desire to mate, taking lethal risks to do so (because earlier parts of the brain are working faster than our frontal cortex by a factor of two).
It isn't "hormones", as popularly described, it is just a competition within the brain in which rationality, caution, and foresight are at a severe disadvantage and losing out to physical attraction, impulsiveness, and other strengthened emotions (love, hate, jealousy, greed).
The brain just is not returned to balance until all parts are returned to equal footing, in the mid-20's, with some other physical developments as well. This is not a muscle; training will not hurry the growth of myelin, although severe punishments for "bad behavior" can still reduce the incidence of it; given enough fear of consequences, even adolescents will fall into line.
But that is not "maturity", it is a simulation of it. The emotional life is still raging and keenly felt, even if the actions are not taken.
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