Modification of Housing Mobility Experimental Effects on Delinquency and Educational Problems: Middle Adolescence as a Sensitive Period

Residential mobility is one documented stressor contributing to higher delinquency and worse educational outcomes. Sensitive period life course models suggest that certain developmental stages make individuals more susceptible to the effects of an exposure, like residential mobility, on outcomes. However, most prior research is observational, and has not examined heterogeneity across age or gender that may inform sensitive periods, even though it may have important implications for the etiology of adolescent development. Moreover, there are important translational implications for identifying the groups most vulnerable to residential mobility to inform how to buffer adverse effects of moving. In this study, low-income families were randomized to residential mobility out of public housing into lower poverty neighborhoods using a rental subsidy voucher (“experimental voucher condition”), and were compared to control families remaining in public housing. The sample was comprised of 2829 youth (51% female; 62% Non-Hispanic Black, 31% Hispanic, 7% other race). At baseline, youth ranged from 5 to 16 years old. This study hypothesized that random assignment to the housing voucher condition would generate harmful effects on delinquency and educational problems, compared to the control group, among boys who were older at baseline. The results confirmed this hypothesis: random assignment to the experimental voucher condition generating residential mobility caused higher delinquency among boys who were 13–16 years old at baseline, compared to same-age, in-place public housing controls. However, residential mobility did not affect delinquency among girls regardless of age, or among boys who were 5–12 years old at baseline. The pattern of results for educational problems was similar but weaker. Families with teenage boys are particularly vulnerable to residential transitions. Incorporating additional supports into housing programs may help low-income, urban families to successfully transition to lower poverty neighborhoods.     

Longitudinal Links Between Identity Consolidation and Psychosocial Problems in Adolescence: Using Bi-Factor Latent Change and Cross-Lagged Effect Models

Most previous identity research has focused on relationships between identity synthesis, confusion, and psychosocial problems. However, these studies did not take into account Erikson’s notion of identity consolidation, that is, the dynamic interplay between identity synthesis and confusion. This study aimed to examine longitudinal relationships and the directionality of the effects between identity consolidation and psychosocial problems during adolescence, using two waves of longitudinal data from 793 Japanese adolescents (49.7% girls; ages 13–14 and 16–17 at Time 1). A bi-factor latent change model revealed that levels and changes in identity consolidation were negatively associated with levels and changes in psychosocial problems. Furthermore, a bi-factor cross-lagged effects model provided evidence that identity consolidation negatively predicted psychosocial problems, and vice versa. Our study facilitates a better understanding of the importance of identity consolidation in the relations between identity components and psychosocial problems.     

Characterizing the Self-System over Time in Adolescence: Internal Structure and Associations with Internalizing Symptoms

The longitudinal effects among self and identity processes, and between these processes and internalizing symptoms, are not well understood. As a result, the present study was designed to ascertain the over-time effects among identity commitment, reconsideration of commitments, and self-concept clarity, as well as to map the interplay of these self and identity processes with anxiety and depressive symptoms in early adolescence. A sample of 923 Dutch adolescents (mean age 12.4 years at Time 1; 49.3% female) participated at each of five annual assessments. Multivariate growth curve and cross-lagged panel models indicated that the association between self-concept clarity and commitment was bidirectional, that reconsideration occurs based on problems or dissatisfaction with self-concept clarity and with identity commitments, and that self-concept clarity (but not commitment or reconsideration) temporally precedes depressive and anxiety symptoms. Results are discussed in terms of the structure of the self-system and its associations with internalizing symptoms.     

Longitudinal Associations of Electronic Aggression and Victimization with Social Standing During Adolescence

Prior empirical work has documented that the dynamics of social standing can play a critical role in the perpetration and receipt of aggression during adolescence. Recently, investigators have emphasized the emergence of new, electronic modalities for aggressive acts. Our longitudinal project therefore considered electronic forms of aggression and victimization as correlates of social standing. We recruited 415 ninth grade students (53 % female) from a high school in Southern California. In the spring of two consecutive school years, participants completed peer nominations assessing their social standing, aggression, and victimization. More popular youths were concurrently more electronically aggressive and victimized than their peers. Popularity also was associated with increases in electronic aggression over time. In turn, electronic aggression was related to increases in popularity for girls and decreases for boys. We additionally found concurrent, positive associations between social acceptance and electronic forms of aggression and victimization, although these effects held only at the first time point. Among adolescent males, social acceptance also was related to increases in electronic victimization over time. Overall, our results suggest that adolescents may rely on electronic aggression to establish and maintain a privileged position in their peer hierarchy. Our results additionally highlight that popular and accepted youths, who likely possess a large, digitally-connected social network, may be at increased risk for electronic victimization.     

Does it matter if those who matter don't mind? Effects of gang versus delinquent peer group membership on labeling processes

Despite renewed interests in the labeling perspective and the impact of official intervention on individuals’ future outcomes, scant attention has been given to potential conditioning factors for theorized labeling processes. We argue that, when viewed through a symbolic interactionist lens, variations in the nature of primary social groups, through which individuals filter official labels like arrest, may generate patterns for subsequent self-concept and delinquency that are contrary to what labeling theory indicates. To test our rationale, we offer a moderated mediation model in which gang membership is expected to differentially impact the effect of arrest on future delinquency through an intermediary mechanism: self-esteem. We test a gang–nongang dichotomy and then probe further to test whether hypothesized effects are gang specific or occur similarly for nongang youths with highly delinquent peer groups. Analyzed using Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) data (N = 961), comparisons between gang members and nonaffiliated youths with similarly highly delinquent peer groups revealed no significant differences in conditional indirect effects of arrest on self-esteem and future delinquency; the two groups were similarly insulated from any negative impact of arrest on self-esteem. For nongang youths with fewer delinquent peers, however, arrest significantly reduced later self-esteem, which in turn increased their future delinquency.     

Dual-Credit Courses and the Road to College: Experimental Evidence from Tennessee

Dual-credit courses expose high school students to college-level content and provide the opportunity to earn college credits, in part to smooth the transition to college. With the Tennessee Department of Education, we conduct the first randomized controlled trial of the effects of dual-credit math coursework on a range of high school and college outcomes. We find that the dual-credit advanced algebra course alters students’ subsequent high school math course-taking, reducing enrollment in remedial math and boosting enrollment in precalculus and Advanced Placement math courses. We fail to detect an effect of the dual-credit math course on overall rates of college enrollment. However, the course induces some students to choose four-year universities instead of two-year colleges, particularly for those in the middle of the math achievement distribution and those first exposed to the opportunity to take the course in eleventh rather than twelfth grade. We see limited evidence of improvements in early math performance during college.     

Exploring Gender-Specific Trends in Underage Drinking Across Adolescent Age Groups and Measures of Drinking: Is Girls’ Drinking Catching Up with Boys’?

Underage drinking is among the most serious of public health problems facing adolescents in the United States. Recent concerns have centered on young women, reflected in media reports and arrest statistics on their increasing problematic alcohol use. This study rigorously examined whether girls’ alcohol use rose by applying time series methods to both arrest data, Uniform Crime Reports, and self-report data from Monitoring the Future, a nationally representative long-term survey gathered independently of crime control agents. All self-reported drinking behaviors across all age groups show declining or unchanged female rates and no significant change in the gender gap, while the official source displays a steady narrowing gender gap and some increase of female arrest rates for liquor law violations. Results indicate that social control measures applied to underage drinking have shifted to target young women’s drinking patterns, but their drinking has not become more widespread/problematic. Girls’ increased alcohol use and abuse is a socially constructed problem, rather than the result of normalization of drinking or more strain in girls’ lives. Future underage drinking policies and practices that apply legal intervention strategies to less chronic adolescent drinking behaviors will increase the visibility of girls’ drinking.     

Does federally subsidized rental housing depress neighborhood property values?

Few communities welcome federally subsidized rental housing, with one of the most commonly voiced fears being reductions in property values. Yet there is little empirical evidence that subsidized housing depresses neighborhood property values. This paper estimates and compares the neighborhood impacts of a broad range of federally subsidized rental housing programs, using rich data for New York City and a difference‐in‐difference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find that federally subsidized developments have not typically led to reductions in property values and have, in fact, led to increases in some cases. Impacts are highly sensitive to scale, though patterns vary across programs. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management