No abstract

Few researchers have considered the influence of school context, an important construct at earlier ages, on late adolescents' college adjustment. In a sample of second-semester freshmen (N = 266), the authors explored associations between a sense of school belonging and academic and psychological adjustment. Students' reports of belonging at the university as well as in high school were both significant in predicting current academic (e.g., grades, academic competence) and psychological adjustment (i.e., self-worth, internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors), even after controlling for other important demographic and relationship factors. Last, the authors found that parental education (i.e., whether the participant was a first-generation college student) interacted with high school belonging in predicting externalizing problem behaviors.

Results from a longitudinal study of 2402 low-income families during the recent unprecedented era of welfare reform suggest that mothers' transitions off welfare and into employment are not associated with negative outcomes for preschoolers (ages 2 to 4 years) or young adolescents (ages 10 to 14 years). Indeed, no significant associations with mothers' welfare and employment transitions were found for preschoolers, and the dominant pattern was also of few statistically significant associations for adolescents. The associations that did occur provided slight evidence that mothers' entry into the labor force was related to improvements in adolescents' mental health, whereas exits from employment were linked with teenagers' increased behavior problems.

The relationship between parenting style and adolescent functioning was examined in a sample of 302 African American adolescent girls and their mothers who lived in impoverished neighborhoods. Although previous research has found that authoritative parenting, as compared with authoritarian, permissive, and disengaged parenting, is associated with positive adolescent outcomes in both European American, middle-class and large multiethnic school-based samples, these parenting categories have not been fully explored in African American families living at or near poverty level. Data were collected from adolescent girls and their self-identified mothers or mother figures using in-home interviews and self-administered questionnaires. Parenting style was found to be significantly related to adolescent outcome in multiple domains including externalizing and internalizing behaviors, academic achievement, work orientation, sexual experience, and pregnancy history. Specifically, teens whose mothers were disengaged (low on both parental warmth and supervision/monitoring) were found to have the most negative outcomes.African American adolescents living in inner-city, high-poverty neighborhoods in the United States are at risk for developmental difficulties including behavior problems, depression, early sexual activity, and poor school performance (Brooks

No abstract