The Relationship Between School Engagement and Delinquency in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Engagement in school is crucial for academic success and school completion. Surprisingly little research has focused on the relationship between student engagement and delinquency. This study examines whether engagement predicts subsequent school and general misconduct among 4,890 inner-city Chicago elementary school students (mean age: 11 years and 4 months; 43.3% boys; 66.5% black; 28.8% Latino). To improve upon prior research in this area, we distinguish three types of engagement (emotional, behavioral, and cognitive), examine whether the relationship between engagement and misconduct is bidirectional (misconduct also impairs engagement), and control for possible common causes of low engagement and misconduct, including peer and family relationships and relatively stable indicators of risk-proneness. Emotional and behavioral engagement predict decreases in school and general delinquency. However, cognitive engagement is associated with increases in these outcomes. School and general delinquency predict decreased engagement only in the cognitive domain. Suggestions for future research and implications for policy are discussed.     

Life Satisfaction in Early Adolescence: Personal,Neighborhood, School,Family, and Peer Influences

Drawing from an ecological assets framework as well as research and theory on positive youth development, this study examined the relationship of early adolescents’ satisfaction with life to trait optimism and assets representing the social contexts in which early adolescents spend most of their time. Self-reports of satisfaction with life, optimism, and ecological assets in the school (school connectedness), neighborhood (perceived neighborhood support), family (perceived parental support), and peer group (positive peer relationships) were assessed in a sample of 1,402 4th to 7th graders (47% female) from 25 public elementary schools. Multilevel modeling (MLM) was conducted to analyze the variability in life satisfaction both at the individual and the school level. As hypothesized, adding optimism and the dimensions representing the ecology of early adolescence to the model significantly reduced the variability in life satisfaction at both levels of analysis. Both personal (optimism) and all of the ecological assets significantly and positively predicted early adolescents’ life satisfaction. The results suggest the theoretical and practical utility of an assets approach for understanding life satisfaction in early adolescence.     

Personal and Ecological Assets and Academic Competence in Early Adolescence: The Mediating Role of School Engagement

Although the role of school engagement in influencing children’s academic competence has been recognized in past theory and research, how school engagement may mediate the relationships between ecological and personal resources and academic competence remains largely unknown. Using structural equation modeling procedures, the present study was aimed at examining the role of school engagement in mediating the associations between ecological and personal assets and academic competence. Data from 960 participants (45.6% boys) who took part in the Grades 5 and 6 assessments of the longitudinal, 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development were used. Evidence was found for a model positing two distinct school engagement components, Behavioral and Emotional, and for the role of these facets of school engagement in the relationships between developmental assets and later academic competence. Personal and ecological assets had indirect effects on later academic competence, via behavioral and emotional school engagement. Behavioral and emotional school engagement predicted academic competence differently. Emotional engagement was indirectly linked to academic competence, via behavioral engagement. Behavioral and emotional engagement also had different individual and contextual antecedents. Implications of the findings for evaluating the role of behavioral and/or emotional school engagement in academic competence and positive youth development are discussed.     

Implications of Out-of-School Activities for School Engagement in African American Adolescents

The connection between out-of-school activities and school engagement was examined in 140, 6th through 9th grade African American adolescents. Youth’s out-of-school activities were measured with a series of 7 nightly phone calls and focused on time in structured (homework, academically-oriented, extracurricular/sports) and unstructured (watching television, hanging out with peers) activities. School engagement was assessed during a home interview in terms of affective (school bonding), behavioral (school grades), and cognitive (school self-esteem) dimensions. Regression analyses controlling for parents’ education and youth grade in school showed that more time in extracurricular activities was associated with greater school self-esteem and school bonding. In addition, more time spent on homework was associated with greater school bonding for boys. Conversely, more time watching television was associated with lower school self-esteem and school bonding. Aryn M. Dotterer is a postdoctoral scholar at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from The Pennsylvania State University. Her major research interests include the development of and changes in school engagement and academic achievement among ethnic minority and low income youth from childhood through adolescence with an emphasis on parenting and family-school linkages. Susan M. McHale is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her major research interests focus on children’s and adolescents’ family roles, relationships and activities with a particular emphasis on gendered family dynamics and youth’s sibling relationship experiences. Ann C. Crouter is a Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University. Her major research interests focus on the implications of parents’ work situations for parents’ and children’s health, psychological development, and family relationships.     

Cross-Informant Ratings of the Emotional and Behavioral Functioning of College Students

One hundred seventy-four college students and a subset of their mothers and fathers provided ratings of college students’ emotional and behavioral functioning. College students and their mothers and fathers demonstrated variable levels of correspondence in their ratings of college students’ internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Similar findings were noted with t-test comparisons, with college students rating themselves as experiencing significantly higher levels of behavior problems than did their mothers and fathers. Further, college students’ ratings of their mothers’ and fathers’ parenting and their perceptions of their parents predicted significantly their ratings of their own behavior problems. Although mothers’ communication reciprocity and perceptions of their college students served as significant predictors of mothers’ ratings, a different pattern of results occurred with paternal variables. Overall, these findings further the understanding of correspondence and predictors of cross-informant ratings of college students’ emotional and behavioral functioning. Kimberly Renk is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida, serving the Department of Psychology’s Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology at the University of Illinois, her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology at Illinois State University, and her Doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of South Florida after completing a predoctoral internship in Clinical Psychology at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center. Her current interests include parents’ perceptions of their children’s emotional and behavioral functioning and parent-child interactions. She and her graduate students pursue the study of these topics and provide clinical services to the community surrounding UCF through the Understanding Children and Families laboratory. Reesa Donnelly is a Doctoral student at the University of Central Florida. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Virginia and her M.S. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Central Florida. Her major research interests include parent-child relationships in the context of cognitive development and health psychology. Jenny Klein is a Doctoral student at the University of Central Florida. She received her B.S. in Psychology from the University of Florida and her M.S. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Central Florida. Her main research interests are in the area of family interactions, parenting, and child emotional and behavioral problems in minority populations. Arazais Oliveros is a Doctoral student at the University of Central Florida. She received her B.A. in psychology from Florida International University and her M.S. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Central Florida. Her major research interests involve the area of children and parenting, especially in families with risk factors for child maltreatment (e.g., marital abuse, medical concerns). Elizabeth Baksh is a Graduate student at the University of Central Florida. She received her B.S. in psychology and religious studies from the University of Miami and her M.S.W. from the University of South Florida. Her major research interests include parent-child relationships in the context of pediatric psychology.     

The Role of Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Ethnic-racial Socialization in Shaping Ethnic-racial Identity Among Early Adolescent Boys and Girls

The current study examined relationships between adolescents’ and mothers’ reports of ethnic-racial socialization and adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity. The sample included 170 sixth graders (49% boys, 51% girls) and their mothers, all of whom identified as Black, Puerto Rican, Dominican, or Chinese. Two dimensions of ethnic-racial socialization (cultural socialization and preparation for bias) were evaluated alongside three dimensions of ethnic-racial identity (exploration, affirmation and belonging, and behavioral engagement). Mothers’ reports of their cultural socialization predicted adolescents’ reports, but only adolescents’ reports predicted adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity processes. Mothers’ reports of preparation for bias predicted boys’ but not girls’ reports of preparation for bias. Again, only adolescents’ reports of preparation for bias predicted their ethnic-racial identity. Thus, several gender differences in relationships emerged, with mothers’ and adolescents’ perceptions of cultural socialization, in particular, playing a more important role in girls’ than in boys’ identity processes. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research.

The Developmental Significance of Adolescent Romantic Relationships: Parent and Peer Predictors of Engagement and Quality at Age 15

From a longitudinal sample (n = 957; 49.9% male; 77.3% White/non-Hispanic) of participants studied from infancy through age 15, adolescents’ depth of engagement in, and quality of romantic relationships were predicted from early and contemporaneous parent–child interactive quality and peer social competence. High quality maternal parenting and peer experiences prior to and during adolescence tended to be negatively associated with the depth of engagement in this domain for the full sample, yet positively associated with the quality of adolescents’ romantic relationships for the sub-set of individuals currently dating at age 15. Results reconcile contrasting views of the origins of romantic relationship engagement and quality and the positive versus negative developmental salience of romantic relationships in adolescence.     

Shyness, Sociability, and Parental Support for the College Transition: Relation to Adolescents’ Adjustment

A path model was tested in an ethnically diverse sample of 350 college students in which shyness, sociability, and parental support for the college transition were related to loneliness and friendship quality. Furthermore, friendship quality and loneliness were related to depression and anxiety. High levels of shyness, low levels of sociability, and low levels of parental support were related to high levels of loneliness. High levels of parental support for the college transition were related to more positive friendship quality. Multiple regression analyses suggested that loneliness, but not friendship quality, were related to adolescents’ anxiety and depression. In addition, the interaction between shyness and sociability was significantly related to anxiety for African-American adolescents such that adolescents who reported low levels of sociability in combination with high levels of shyness reported the highest levels of anxiety. There was also a significant interaction between sociability and parental support for African-American adolescents such that high levels of sociability in combination with low levels of parental support for the college transition were related to high levels of anxiety. For White adolescents, only loneliness was related to anxiety. Nina S. Mounts is an associate professor at Northern Illinois University. She received her PhD in child and family studies from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her major research interests are on linkages between parent and peer contexts, parental management of adolescents’ peer relationships, and peer influence on adolescents. David P. Valentiner is an associate professor at Northern Illinois University. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from University of Texas-Austin. His major research interests are cognitive and emotional factors in anxiety disorders, including the development and maintenance of social anxiety. Katherine Anderson is a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her MS in developmental psychology from Northern Illinois University. Her major research interests are on career identity development in college students. Michelle Boswell is a graduate student at Northern Illinois University. She received her MS in clinical psychology from Northern Illinois University. Her major research interests are on parenting effects on bullying and victimization.     

Too Much of a Good Thing? How Breadth of Extracurricular Participation Relates to School-Related Affect and Academic Outcomes During Adolescence

Although adolescents often participate in multiple extracurricular activities, little research has examined how the breadth of activities in which an adolescent is involved relates to school-related affect and academic performance. Relying on a large, multi-ethnic sample (N = 864; 55.9% female), the current study investigated linear and non-linear relationships of 11th grade activity participation in four activity domains (academic/leadership groups, arts activities, clubs, and sports) to adolescents’ sense of belonging at school, academic engagement, and grade point average, contemporarily and in 12th grade. Results of multiple regression models revealed curvilinear relationships for sense of belonging at school in 11th and 12th grade, grade point average in 11th grade, and academic engagement in 12th grade. Adolescents who were moderately involved (i.e., in two domains) reported a greater sense of belonging at school in 11th and 12th grade, a higher grade point average in 11th grade, and greater academic engagement in 12th grade, relative to those who were more or less involved. Furthermore, adolescents’ sense of belonging at school in 11th grade mediated the relationship of domain participation in 11th grade to academic engagement in 12th grade. This study suggests that involvement in a moderate number of activity domains promotes positive school-related affect and greater academic performance. School policy implications and recommendations are discussed.     

How Do I Feel About Feelings? Emotion Socialization in Families of Depressed and Healthy Adolescents

Emotional and cognitive changes that occur during adolescence set the stage for the development of adaptive or maladaptive beliefs about emotions. Although research suggests that parents’ behaviors and beliefs about emotions relate to children’s emotional abilities, few studies have looked at parental socialization of children’s emotions, particularly in families with depressed adolescents. The present study examined associations between parent and adolescent meta-emotion philosophies (MEP), defined as thoughts, reactions, and feelings about their own emotions. Additionally, adolescent depressive status was tested as a moderator of relationships between parents’ and adolescents’ MEP. One hundred and 52 adolescents, aged 14–18 (65.8% female), and their parents (148 mothers, 106 fathers) participated in a study on emotion socialization in families of depressed and healthy adolescents. Depressed adolescents (n = 75) and matched healthy adolescents (n = 77) were recruited based on research criteria for mental health status. The sample was largely Caucasian (82%) and of middle socioeconomic class status. Results indicated that mothers’ and fathers’ MEP about their children’s emotions were associated with adolescents’ MEP, although parents’ MEP about their own emotions was unrelated to adolescents’ MEP. Fathers’ MEP about children’s emotions made unique contributions to adolescents’ MEP across both adolescent groups. Adolescents’ depressive status moderated the relationship between mothers’ and adolescents’ MEP such that mothers’ MEP was particularly relevant for depressed adolescents. The continued influence of parents in the emotional lives of adolescents is discussed as well as differences in emotion socialization in families with depressed and healthy adolescents.     

Classroom Context,School Engagement,and Academic Achievement in Early Adolescence

Classroom context and school engagement are significant predictors of academic achievement. These factors are especially important for academically at-risk students. Grounded in an ecological systems perspective, this study examined links between classroom context, school engagement, and academic achievement among early adolescents. We took a multidimensional approach to the measurement of classroom context and school engagement, incorporating both observational and self-reported assessments of various dimensions of classroom context (instruction quality, social/emotional climate, and student–teacher relationship) and school engagement (psychological and behavioral engagement). Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we tested whether school engagement mediated the link between classroom context and academic achievement among 5th grade students, and whether these pathways were the same for students with previous achievement difficulties identified in 3rd grade. Participants included 1,014 children (50% female) in 5th grade (mean age = 11). The majority of the participants were white (77%) and 23% were children of color. Results indicated that psychological and behavioral engagement mediated the link between classroom context and academic achievement for students without previous achievement difficulties. However, for students with previous achievement difficulties psychological and behavioral engagement did not mediate the link between classroom context and academic achievement. These results suggest that improving classroom quality may not be sufficient to improve student engagement and achievement for students with previous achievement difficulties. Additional strategies may be needed for these students.     

Immigrant Students’ Emotional and Cognitive Engagement at School: A Multilevel Analysis of Students in 41 countries

Central to student learning and academic success, the school engagement of immigrant children also reflects their adaptation to a primary institution in their new country. Analysis of questionnaire responses of 276,165 fifteen-year-olds (50?% female) and their 10,789 school principals in 41 countries showed that school engagement has distinct, weakly-linked cognitive and emotional components. Native students had weaker attitudes toward school (cognitive engagement) but greater sense of belonging at school (emotional engagement) than immigrant students or students who spoke a foreign language at home. Students with better teacher–student relationships, teacher support or a classroom disciplinary climate often had a greater sense of belonging at school and had better attitudes toward school than other students. While immigrant students often have solid attitudes toward school, teachers can help them feel a greater sense of belonging at school.     

Linkages Over Time Between Adolescents' Relationships with Parents and Friends

This 5-wave longitudinal study examines linkages over time between adolescents’ perceptions of relationships with parents and friends with respect to support, negative interaction, and power. A total of 575 early adolescents (54.1% boys) and 337 middle adolescents (43.3% boys) participated. Path analyses mainly showed bidirectional associations between adolescents’ perceptions of parent–adolescent relationships and friendships with a predominantly stronger influence from parent–adolescent relationships to friendships than vice versa in early to middle adolescence and an equal mutual influence in middle to late adolescence. The findings support the theoretical ideas that perceptions of relationships with parents generalize to perceptions of relationships with friends and that relationship skills and principles of adolescent friendships generalize to relationships with parents. Furthermore, the results indicate that the influence of parents decreases, whereas the influence of friends increases, and that both social worlds become equally important and overlapping towards late adolescence.     

Adolescents’ Response to Parental Efforts to Influence Eating Habits: When Parental Warmth Matters

Previous findings have shown both beneficial and adverse effects of parents’ attempts to influence adolescents’ eating habits. The current study examined the differential effect of parents’ persuasion (e.g., encouragement, giving information) and pressure tactics (e.g., guilt induction, ridicule) and the moderating influence of parental warmth on older adolescents’ emotional and behavioral responses. An ethnically diverse sample of 336 older adolescents (M age = 18.6; SD = 1.1; 58.0% female) were surveyed. Adolescents who reported higher levels of pressure tactics by parents reported more negative affect and behavioral resistance. Perceived parental warmth moderated the influence of persuasion tactics, but not pressure tactics. For adolescents with low parental warmth, high levels of persuasion were associated with more negative emotional and behavioral responses; persuasion had the opposite associations for adolescents with high parental warmth. These results suggest that parental warmth plays an important role in how older adolescents respond to parents’ persuasion tactics. However, when parents use more forceful pressure tactics to influence eating habits, adolescents react negatively regardless of the overall quality of the parent–adolescent relationship.     

Big School,Small School: (Re)Testing Assumptions about High School Size,School Engagement and Mathematics Achievement

In an effort to increase both adolescents’ engagement with school and academic achievement, school districts across the United States have created small high schools. However, despite the widespread adoption of size reduction reforms, relatively little is known about the relationship between size, engagement and outcomes in high school. In response, this article employs a composite measure of engagement that combines organizational, sociological, and psychological theories. We use this composite measure with the most recent nationally-representative dataset of tenth graders, Educational Longitudinal Study: 2002, (N = 10,946, 46% female) to better assess a generalizable relationship among school engagement, mathematics achievement and school size with specific focus on cohort size. Findings confirm these measures to be highly related to student engagement. Furthermore, results derived from multilevel regression analysis indicate that, as with school size, moderately sized cohorts or grade-level groups provide the greatest engagement advantage for all students and that there are potentially harmful changes when cohorts grow beyond 400 students. However, it is important to note that each group size affects different students differently, eliminating the ability to prescribe an ideal cohort or school size.     

School Engagement Among Urban Adolescents of Color: Does Perception of Social Support and Neighborhood Safety Really Matter?

In this study we examined the effects of risk factors (perceived neighborhood crime/delinquency problems, neighborhood incivilities) and protective factors (teacher support, family support, peer support) on the school engagement of 123 urban adolescents of color. Age and gender were also examined to determine if different ages (younger or older) or genders (male or female) significantly modified the relationship between the risk factors and school engagement. Results indicated that perceived neighborhood incivilities was uniquely predictive of school engagement. Contrary to hypotheses, different levels of the perceived social support variables did not modify the effects of risky neighborhood conditions on adolescent’s perceived school engagement. Age, but not gender, significantly modified the relationship between perceived family social support and perceived neighborhood crime on adolescents’ reported levels of school engagement. The implications of the results for prevention and intervention programs that address school engagement among early adolescents of color are considered.

The Reciprocal Relationships Among Parents’ Expectations,Adolescents’ Expectations,and Adolescents’ Achievement: A Two-Wave Longitudinal Analysis of the NELS Data

Previous research has consistently demonstrated the importance of parents’ expectations and adolescents’ expectations on adolescents’ academic achievement. Less is known, however, about the reciprocal relationships among these constructs. To address this issue, we analyzed two waves of data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) using longitudinal cross-lagged path models. The sample consisted of 14,376 students (51.1% females; 6.5% Asian, 11.1% Hispanic, 9.2% African American, and 73.2% White). Results indicated that there was a reciprocal relationship between parents’ expectations and adolescents’ expectations (i.e., they had mutual influence on each other). Moreover, there was a reciprocal relationship between expectations (both parents’ and adolescents’) and adolescents’ academic achievement. Multiple-group analyses of gender and ethnicity revealed that the effects of parents’ expectations on students’ expectations were stronger among males than among females. With respect to ethnic differences, the effects of adolescents’ expectations were weakest on parents’ expectations among African Americans as compared to the other ethnic groups (i.e., Asian, Hispanic and White). Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Effects of Gender and Family,Friend, and Media Influences on Eating Behaviors and Body Image During Adolescence

The current study expands upon body image research to examine how gender, self-esteem, social support, teasing, and family, friend, and media pressures relate to body image and eating-related attitudes and behaviors among male and female adolescents (N = 177). Results indicated that adolescents were dissatisfied with their current bodies: males were concerned with increasing their upper body, whereas females wanted to decrease the overall size of their body. Low self-esteem and social support, weight-related teasing, and greater pressures to lose weight were associated with adolescents’ negative body esteem, body image, and eating attitudes. Females displayed more high risk eating behaviors—which were associated with more psychosocial risk factors—than males, whose high risk attitudes and behaviors were only associated with low parental support and greater pressure to be muscular. Reducing adolescents’ perceptions of appearance-related pressure from family and friends may be key for enhancing body image and decreasing links between low self-esteem and negative eating behaviors and weight-related perceptions. Rheanna N. Ata is currently a research assistant at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center, Miriam Hospital/Brown University. She is interested in body image and eating disorders and completed this research during her undergraduate studies at the College of the Holy Cross. Alison Bryant Ludden is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on social relationships and problem behaviors during adolescence, with a special interest in school as a developmental context. She is an assistant professor of psychology at the College of the Holy Cross. Megan M. Lally is currently a graduate student in psychology at Pepperdine University. She completed this research during her undergraduate studies at the College of the Holy Cross.     

Peer Selection and Socialization in Adolescent Depression: The Role of School Transitions

Previous studies have indicated homophily in depressive symptoms among adolescent friends, resulting from both peer selection and socialization processes. However, developmental differences and the role of school transitions in these processes have not been elucidated. A sample of 367 (51% female) adolescents was followed from 6th to 11th grade to investigate prospective relationships between adolescents’ and their friends’ depressive symptoms in middle school and in high school. Results revealed that students selected friends with similar levels of depressive symptoms after each school transition. Additionally, friends appeared to socialize adolescents to become more similar in depressive affect in late middle school years. These findings suggest normative selection effects after school transitions, followed by socialization effects in middle school, but not high school.     

Links Between Adolescents’ Expected Parental Reactions and Prosocial Behavioral Tendencies: The Mediating Role of Prosocial Values

The purpose of the present study was to examine relations between adolescents’ social cognitions regarding parenting practices and adolescents’ prosocial behavioral tendencies. A mediation model was tested whereby the degree to which adolescents perceived their parents as responding appropriately to their prosocial and antisocial behaviors was hypothesized to predict adolescents’ tendencies toward prosocial behavior indirectly by way of adolescents’ prosocial values. Adolescents (N = 140; M age = 16.76 years, SD = .80; 64% girls; 91% European Americans) completed measures of prosocial values and of the appropriateness with which they expected their parents to react to their prosocial and antisocial behaviors. In addition, teachers and parents rated the adolescents’ tendencies for prosocial behaviors. A structural equation model test showed that the degree to which adolescents expected their parents to respond appropriately to their prosocial behaviors was related positively to their prosocial values, which in turn was positively associated with their tendencies to engage in prosocial behaviors (as reported by parents and teachers). The findings provide evidence for the central role of adolescents’ evaluations and expectancies of parental behaviors and of the role of values in predicting prosocial tendencies. Discussion focuses on the implications for moral socialization theories and on the practical implications of these findings in understanding adolescents’ prosocial development.