The Evolution, Contributions, and Prospects of the Youth Development Study: An Investigation in Life Course Social Psychology

Grounded in social structure and personality, life course, and status attainment perspectives of social psychology, the Youth Development Study has followed a cohort of teenagers from the beginning of high school through their mid-thirties. Evidence for the effective exercise of agency derives from diverse adolescent work patterns leading to outcomes that are consistent with youth's earlier goals, motivations, and resources. Thus, the socioeconomic career begins well before the completion of formal education. The YDS has revealed multiple pathways of contemporary transition to adulthood, the circumstances surrounding parental residential and financial support to their transitioning children, and the cessation of deviant behavior as adult roles are acquired. Agentic pathways during this period are significant precursors of success during subsequent economic downturn. The new YDS Second Generation Study is well poised to address the impacts of parental trajectories on the adjustment and well-being of children.     

Building Links Between Early Socioeconomic Status,Cognitive Ability,and Math and Science Achievement

The present study examined whether and how socioeconomic status (SES) predicts school achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) using structural equation modeling and data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Child Care and Youth Development. The present inquiry addresses gaps in previous research linking SES and STEM achievement in high school. Results indicate that maternal education predicts the child’s early environment, which itself predicts the development of executive function (EF) and language, and thereby, STEM achievement. Moreover, children’s language ability and EF development influenced higher-order cognitive skills, such as relational reasoning, planning, and basic calculation skills. However, only relational reasoning strongly predicted high school math and science achievement, suggesting that relational reasoning, but not planning and calculation skills, was central to STEM thinking and learning.     

Effects of High School Course‐Taking and Other Variables on Choice of Science and Mathematics College Majors

Using a nationally representative sample, the effects of high school course‐taking on subsequent choice of science and math majors in college were examined in the context of background variables, early academic performance, and educational attitudes and behavior in high school. Effects of course‐taking on choice of science and math majors were stronger for women than for men. For women, 8th‐grade math test scores positively influenced math course‐taking in high school, which in turn positively influenced later choice of science and math majors. For men, completing high school physics had a significant positive effect on choice of science and math majors. These and other findings are discussed in terms of career theory and counseling and education practice.     

Career Linking: An Intervention to Promote Math and Science Career Awareness

A 1-year intervention was designed to improve minority students' awareness of and preparation for math and science careers. Specifically, goals focused on increasing students' career knowledge, self-esteem, math and science achievement, choice of high school, and high school course selection in math and science. Results indicated success in career knowledge and high school choice and moderate success in achievement, self-esteem, and math and science course selection. Results are discussed in terms of implications for counseling.     

Disentangling the Relations Between Different Components of Family Socioeconomic Status and Chinese Preschoolers’ School Readiness

Family socioeconomic status (SES) has been frequently linked to children’s early development. Treating SES as an aggregated variable has many issues, as different components of SES may relate to child outcomes through divergent mechanisms. The purpose of the study was to examine whether parents’ engagement in home learning activities and children’s participation in extracurricular activities (EAs) would function as pathways through which individual SES components related to children’s school readiness. A total of 588 families with preschool‐aged children were recruited from Guangdong province in China. Children’s receptive vocabulary, Chinese reading, and early math skills were individually assessed at three time points, and children’s social skills were rated by parents. Parents reported their engagement in home learning activities with children and their children’s participation in EAs. The results showed that all three components of family SES were related to multiple aspects of children’s school readiness, but through different pathways. Parental income was related to children’s school readiness through EA participation only; parental education and occupational status were associated with school readiness via both parental engagement and child EA participation. The findings suggest that considering SES components separately will produce a more nuanced understanding of the divergent pathways through which family SES may relate to children’s school readiness. Chinese government may provide parent education programs focused on cognitive stimulation for low‐SES families to promote children’s school readiness. Furthermore, the government needs to ensure children’s equal access to EAs to prevent increasing the developmental gap among children from discrepant socioeconomic backgrounds.     

Trajectories of adolescent stressful life events and young adults’ socioeconomic and relational outcomes: Weight and depressive symptoms as mediators

Little is known about how biological and psychological consequences of adolescent stressful life events (SLEs) are jointly associated with socioeconomic and relational outcomes in adulthood. To address this gap, the present study involved testing a model based on the life course perspective that posits adolescent SLE trajectories produce parallel trajectories of depressive symptoms and weight status, which are jointly associated with socioeconomic status and intimate relationship quality in adulthood. Prospective data over 13 years from a nationally representative sample of 11,677 US adolescents was utilized. The results demonstrated that trajectories of BMI and depressive symptoms, which showed contemporaneous and longitudinal comorbidities over the early life course, were influenced by adolescent SLEs. Both BMI and depressive symptoms trajectories are additively and jointly associated with socioeconomic status and intimate relationship quality in adulthood. Additionally, adolescent SLE trajectories are directly associated with these adult outcomes. These observed associations persisted even after controlling for early family socioeconomic adversity and race/ethnicity. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Normative Developmental Trajectories of Aggressive Behaviors in African American,American Indian,Asian American,Caucasian, and Hispanic Children and Early Adolescents

The current 5-year accelerated longitudinal investigation modeled the developmental trajectories of aggressive behaviors in 10,107 predominantly minority (>70%; African American, American Indian, Asian American, and Hispanic) children and early adolescents (Kindergarten through 8th grade, 49% female youth) from lower to lower-middle socioeconomic strata. Based on a two-part latent growth model, findings suggest that the probability and frequency of aggressive behavior use decreases slightly (linear) through the elementary school years and then increases as children move into middle school (quadratic). Though mean level differences were found across ethnic and racial groups, socioeconomic strata, and particularly by sex at initial status, rates of change over time across all groups were invariant. Findings suggest that potential socialization differences, if any, occur pre-Kindergarten in all groups.     

Math and science motivation: A longitudinal examination of the links between choices and beliefs

This study addresses the longitudinal associations between youths' out-of-school activities, expectancies-values, and high school course enrollment in the domains of math and science. Data were collected on 227 youth who reported on their activity participation in 5th grade, expectancies-values in 6th and 10th grade, and courses taken throughout high school. Math and science course grades at 5th and 10th grade were gathered through school record data. Results indicated youths' math and science activity participation predicted their expectancies and values, which, in turn, predicted the number of high school courses above the predictive power of grades. Although there were mean-level differences between boys and girls on some of these indicators, relations among indicators did not significantly differ by gender.     

Family transitions during the adolescent transition: implications for parenting

This study explored how family transitions affect parenting practices in a sample of 7,000 ethnically diverse students in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade over a period of 2 years. Adolescent perceptions of parental control and parental responsiveness were assessed in three groups: (1) adolescents moving into mother-custody households following a marital separation or divorce, (2) adolescents from stable never-divorced households, and (3) adolescents from stable mother-custody households. The study examined pre- and posttransition data to determine whether adolescents in newly formed single-parent families experienced a larger drop in parental control and responsiveness than did adolescents in stable nondivorced and stable mother-custody households. Adolescents from all family types reported significant declines in behavioral control, but not parental responsiveness. However, the lack of family-type differences contrasts sharply with findings from the childhood-divorce literature. Findings suggest that adolescent individuation may overshadow family-type differences during middle adolescence. As expected, boys reported lower parental control than did girls. Ethnic differences revealed that European American adolescents reported the highest levels of parental responsiveness, and African American adolescents reported the highest levels of parental control. Contextual and individual pathways in adolescence are discussed.     

Homophobic bullying victimization trajectories: The roles of perpetration,sex assigned at birth,and sexuality

There is a paucity of research on developmental trajectories of bias-based aggression. We examined homophobic bullying victimization trajectories among high school students (N = 3,064; M age = 13.67; Girls = 50.2%) and how these developmental pathways vary as a function of factors like homophobic bullying perpetration, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality. Using data from a 3-wave longitudinal investigation over a 2-year period, we utilized latent growth mixture modeling to explore the aforementioned trajectories. Findings suggested that there were three distinct classes characterized by high initial rates and declines over time, low initial rates, and increases over time, and low, stable, rate across time. Furthermore, results indicated that homophobic bullying perpetration, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality all predicted class membership.     

Measuring Readiness and Success at a Higher Education Institution

This study investigated readiness as a correlate of academic success among beginning university students. A total of 829 first-time entering students from a large business sciences faculty were participants (males = 319, females = 510, mean age = 19, SD = 0.50 years). They completed the Academic Readiness Questionnaire (Lemmens, 2010) during the first-year orientation week. Data on academic success, consisting of subject marks and credits were collected in 2009 after a results verification process. Data were analysed with three separate multiple regression analyses. The first analysis consisted of the overall student sample, the second and third consisted of the black and the white students separated from the overall student sample. The main findings reveal that high school marks, the number of subjects in first year (credits registered), goal orientation, race, learning-efficacy, gender and the geographical area of high school have a direct relationship with academic success. The variables that predict academic success for black students are high school marks, credits registered, and parental education. The variables that predict academic success for white students are high school marks, goal orientation, credits registered, learning-efficacy, gender, and parental education.     

Parental strategies and trajectories of peer victimization in 4 to 5 year olds

This study was designed to examine how parental strategies contribute to explaining trajectories of peer victimization in young children. A total of 73 4 and 5 year old children identified as victims of peer aggression in the fall semester and their parents were recruited from 46 classrooms in 18 schools in the Netherlands. All children were followed-up twice in order to determine for whom victimization was stable. Hypothetical vignettes describing various forms of victimization were presented to one parent of each child in order to assess parental responses to victimization events. Findings indicated that autonomy supporting and autonomy neutral strategies were associated with a decrease of victimization in the first semester of the school year. No protective effects were found in the second semester. Autonomy undermining strategies were not related to the course of peer victimization. These findings underscore the importance of joint and coordinated efforts of teachers and parents as partners in supporting victimized young children at school.     

Trajectories of aggression, delinquency, and substance use across middle school among urban, minority adolescents

This study evaluated bidirectional associations between substance use, aggression, and delinquency across sixth, seventh, and eighth grades using data available from a large study of urban minority youth (n = 2,931). Group-based trajectory analysis revealed trajectories of aggression, delinquency, and substance use which support the existence of both adolescent-limited and life-course persistent offenders. In addition, a pattern of decreasing aggression was observed during middle school. Clear temporal associations were observed between developmental changes in aggression, delinquency, and substance use. Notably, the decreasing aggression trajectory was as likely to be associated with high trajectories of substance initiation as was the high aggression trajectory. Furthermore, trajectories of delinquency were differentially associated with future substance use; however, substance use trajectories did not predict trajectories of delinquency. There were few gender differences in the developmental progression of these problem behaviors during middle school with only two exceptions, males were more likely to follow a trajectory of decreasing aggression and a trajectory of high stable delinquency. Evaluations of ethnic/racial differences in the trajectory group membership also revealed few differences. The results of this study provide important information regarding interconnections between developmental changes in problem behavior that occur during the middle school years, highlighting groups that may be missed via traditional analytic approaches that predict mean changes.     

Anxiety Symptoms in African American Children: Relations with Ethnic Pride,Anxiety Sensitivity,and Parenting

This cross-sectional study examined the relations among children’s ethnic pride, perceived parenting behavior (i.e., parental control, parental acceptance), anxiety sensitivity, and child anxiety symptoms (i.e., physical symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, separation anxiety symptoms, and harm avoidance symptoms) in 266 African American school children (M = 9.98 years old; 55% girls). Structural equation modeling results indicated that high ethnic pride was associated with high parental acceptance. High perceived parental acceptance, in turn, was related to children reporting low levels of social anxiety symptoms and high levels of harm avoidance. In addition, high parental control was related to high anxiety sensitivity. Anxiety sensitivity partially mediated the relation between parental control and separation anxiety symptoms, such that parental control was both directly and indirectly related to separation anxiety symptoms. Parental control was indirectly related to physical symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and harm avoidance symptoms through its direct link to anxiety sensitivity. The study’s results increment knowledge about factors influencing specific dimensions of anxiety in African American children.     

Developmental Trajectories of Victimization

ABSTRACT

Using a modified version of Olweus' victimization (Student Questionnaire, 1993) scale, 1,241 children in Grades 5 to 7 from diverse socioeconomic neighborhoods were classified into four distinct trajectories of victimization: non-victims, late onset victims, stable victims, and desisters. MANCOVAS investigated how changes in victimization across different trajectories corresponded to variations in intraand interpersonal functioning. Risk factors including anxiety and low friendship quality lead to subsequent victimization and these problems increased with continued victimization. Engaging in fewer aggressive behaviors, having high quality friendships, and experiencing low levels of anxiety were identified as factors that protect adolescents from future victimization. The discussion focuses on the possible mechanisms contributing to the maintenance or changes in levels of victimization, and how interventions can reduce peer victimization in schools.     

Perceived Parenting,Self-Esteem,and General Self-Efficacy of Iranian American Adolescents

We examined whether Iranian American adolescents’ perceptions of parental support, parental knowledge, and parental psychological control relate to general self-efficacy directly, and indirectly through positive esteem and self-deprecation. To investigate this, self-report surveys were collected from 158 Iranian American adolescents attending Iranian American youth groups, Armenian private school, and one public school. Results indicated that positive esteem, self-deprecation, mother and father knowledge, and mother and father psychological control were directly related to general self-efficacy. Furthermore, the parenting variables were indirectly related to general self-efficacy through either positive esteem or self-deprecation.     

Modeling growth in boys' aggressive behavior across elementary school: links to later criminal involvement, conduct disorder, and antisocial personality disorder

The present study used general growth mixture modeling to identify pathways of antisocial behavior development within an epidemiological sample of urban, primarily African American boys. Teacher-rated aggression, measured longitudinally from 1st to 7th grade, was used to define growth trajectories. Three high-risk trajectories (chronic high, moderate, and increasing aggression) and one low-risk trajectory (stable low aggression) were found. Boys with chronic high and increasing trajectories were at increased risk for conduct disorder, juvenile and adult arrest, and antisocial personality disorder. Concentration problems were highest among boys with a chronic high trajectory and also differentiated boys with increasing aggression from boys with stable low aggression. Peer rejection was highest among boys with chronic high aggression. Interventions with boys with distinct patterns of aggression are discussed.     

Trajectories of school engagement during adolescence: implications for grades, depression, delinquency, and substance use

Using longitudinal data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, the authors assessed 1,977 adolescents across Grades 5 to 8 to determine if there were distinctive developmental paths for behavioral and emotional school engagement; if these paths varied in relation to sex, race/ethnicity, and family socioeconomic status (SES); and whether links existed between trajectories of school engagement and grades, depression, substance use, and delinquency. Four trajectories for behavioral school engagement and four trajectories of emotional engagement were identified using a semiparametric mixture model. These trajectories were distinct with regard to initial levels of and changes in engagement, as well as to their shapes. Trajectories varied in regard to sex, SES, and race/ethnicity. Different trajectories of behavioral and emotional engagement were linked to grades, depression, delinquency, and substance use. Directions for future research and application are discussed.     

Expanding Knowledge of Parental Involvement in Children's Secondary Education: Connections with High School Seniors' Academic Success

This paper analyzes data from the parent and student components of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 to investigate family educational involvement in secondary education. It examines connections between parental involvement practices and the educational outcomes of high school seniors. Utilizing multiple involvement indicators for the 8th and 12th grades, the study concludes that the nature of relationships between parental involvement and 12th grade educational outcomes depends on the type of parental practices and educational outcomes considered. Parental involvement indicators are not associated with achievement growth between the 8th and 12th grades. However, a number of parental involvement indicators are associated with seniors' enrollment in an academic high school program and with their coursework in core academic subjects. High levels of educational expectations, consistent encouragement, and actions that enhance the learning opportunities of children are the family practices that are positively associated with the above educational experiences of high school seniors. The relationships between parental involvement and educational outcomes exist regardless of students' socioeconomic or race/ethnic background and regardless of whether parental practices are measured in the middle grades or in high school.