Researchers disagree over whether negative correlates of extensive part-time employment during adolescence are consequences of working or are due to differential selection into the labor force. This study examines the over-time relation between school-year employment and adjustment in a heterogeneous sample of approximately 1,800 high school sophomores and juniors. Analyses indicate both significant selection effects and negative consequences of employment. Before working, adolescents who later work more than 20 hr per week are less engaged in school and are granted more autonomy by their parents. However, taking on a job for more than 20 hr per week further disengages youngsters from school, increases delinquency and drug use, furthers autonomy from parents, and diminishes self-reliance. Leaving the labor force after working long hours leads to improved school performance but does not reverse the other negative effects.Many studies of part-time employment during adolescence have shown that work in excess of 15 or 20 hr a week during the school year is associated with a number of problems, including lower academic achievement and school involvement (Barton

The relation of self-understanding and moral judgment to dedicated prosocial behavior is investigated. Participants were African-American and Latin-American adolescents who had been nominated by community leaders for having demonstrated unusual commitments to care for others or the community (care exemplars). The care exemplars, and matched comparison adolescents, were extensively interviewed over the course of 4-6 sessions in order to elicit self-understanding, moral judgment, and implicit personality theories. The care exemplars were more likely than the comparison adolescents to: (1) describe themselves in terms of moral personality traits and goals, (2) view themselves as having closer continuity to their pasts and futures, (3) think of themselves as incorporating their ideals and parental images, and (4) articulate theories of self in which personal beliefs and philosophies are important. There were no differences between the care exemplars and the comparison adolescents in developmental stages of moral judgment nor in the abstractness of their implicit personality theories.

The relation of self-understanding and moral judgment to dedicated prosocial behavior is investigated. Participants were African-American and Latin-American adolescents who had been nominated by community leaders for having demonstrated unusual commitments to care for others or the community (care exemplars). The care exemplars, and matched comparison adolescents, were extensively interviewed over the course of 4-6 sessions in order to elicit self-understanding, moral judgment, and implicit personality theories. The care exemplars were more likely than the comparison adolescents to: (1) describe themselves in terms of moral personality traits and goals, (2) view themselves as having closer continuity to their pasts and futures, (3) think of themselves as incorporating their ideals and parental images, and (4) articulate theories of self in which personal beliefs and philosophies are important. There were no differences between the care exemplars and the comparison adolescents in developmental stages of moral judgment nor in the abstractness of their implicit personality theories.

Spencer's (1995) Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory is presented as a theoretical framework to integrate issues of context, coping, and identity in human development. The relation of coping supports (i.e., cultural socialization and spirituality) to psychological well-being was investigated for a sample of low resource African American youth. Results suggest that employment of religion and spirituality and cultural pride as a form of coping is important in the development of a healthy sense of self and a healthy sense of self in relation to others, especially among Black adolescent boys. The finding was not replicated among girls, suggesting the need to investigate other forms of support.