HDFS 4051 Final

Secondary School

The schools attended by adolescents, usually including a lower secondary school and an upper secondary school.

Comprehensive High School

The form of the American high school that arose in the 1920s and is still the main form today, which encompasses a wide range of functions and includes classes in general education, college preparation, and vocational training.

United States Secondary School

• passed laws requiring school attendance through early teens around 1890-1920

Developing Countries Secondary school

Education is for middle class after childhood

Cirriculum

Past: broad liberal arts

Current: comprehensive high school

Secondary school in European countries

3 types

College prep, vocational school, professional school

College- Preparatory School (Europe)

school that is similar in many ways to the American high school, the goal is general education rather than education for any specific profession. However, in Europe these schools do not include classes in recreational subjects such as music and physical education. In most European countries, about one-half of adolescents attend this type of school.

Vocational School

adolescents learn the skills involved in a specific occupation such as plumbing or auto mechanics. Usually, about one-fourth of adolescents in European countries attend this type of school.

Professional School

devoted to teacher training, the arts, or some other specific purpose. About one-fourth of European adolescents usually attend this type of school.

Secondary Education in developing countries

• Gender Gap (favors boys)

• Poorly funded and overcrowded

• insufficiently trained teachers

• exclusive private and funded universities for the elite only

School Size

Best school size: 500-1,000 students

Best Class size: varies, small classes are best for those with academic difficulties

School Climate

The quality of interactions between teachers and students, including how teachers interact with students, what sort of expectations and standards they have for students, and what kinds of methods are used in the classroom.

Micheal Rutters Research on School Climate

Students better off when teachers are supportive and involved, yet apply firm discipline when needed

Family Involvement in School

• reflects parenting style

• Authoritative has most favorable associations

• Neglectful has least favorable associations

Friends influence in school

• influence is greater than parents

• encouragement and support for doing well

Peers

• “big fish little pond effect”

• hide achievement from peers

Work Influence

• More than 10 hours a week can be detrimental and have negative impacts

• effects beyond self-selection

Leisure

• time spent socializing is negatively associated with grades

  • organized activities are positively associated with grades

Cultural Beliefs and school

High school: not as highly valued by America as other countries

• want children to be well rounded

• Highly valued by Asian Cultures

Socioeconomic Status Differences

• Positive association between SES and grades, test scores, and highest level of education completed

Immigrant Paradox

The research finding that the more generations an immigrant family has been in the United States, the worse the children do in school.

Ethnic Differences

Performance Ranking

1. Asian American

2. White

   1. African American and Lation

Asian American Performance outcomes

•Strong emphasis on educational achievement

•Believe success is due to effort

•More likely to have academically oriented friends

African American and Latino Performance Outcomes

•More likely to live in poverty

•Believe can succeed in career without academic achievement

Gender differences

• girls achieve higher grades than boys and are less likely to drop out

• Reasons include: girls enjoy the school environment more and have more supportive relationships

Extremes of Achievement

Gifted Adolescents, AP classes, Socially isolated in regular classrooms

Gifted Students

Students who have unusually high abilities in academics, art, or music.

Precocity

Adolescents who are gifted usually showed signs of precocity, meaning that their gifts were evident at an early age. Typically, they could read, write, and do simple math at an earlier age than normal.

Independence

Gifted children and adolescents tend to prefer to work independently. They need less instruction and support than other children and adolescents do.

Drive for Mastery

Children and adolescents who are gifted display an intense drive to master the area of their gifts. They are capable of focusing for long periods on the topic or challenge before them.

Excellence in Information Processing

Gifted children and adolescents excel at information processing .This means that they process information faster, learn more quickly, make fewer reasoning errors, and use more effective learning strategies, some of which they may develop themselves.

Adolescents with disabilities

Learning disabilities: difficulty in reading, writing, math

• often correlates with social and emotional difficulties

Attention-Deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Disorder characterized by difficulty in maintaining attention on a task along with a high activity level that makes self-control problematic.

• more common in boys

• prescribed medication

High school dropouts

• ethnic differences in drop out rates

• School problems – low grades, repeated grade

• Personal characteristics – aggressive, learning disabilities

• Family factors – low income, parents dropped out

• School characteristics – unsupportive teachers, large school

Characteristics of College Students

• 70% of high school graduates attend college, girls more likely than boys, asian Americans most likely ethnic groups

• Gender differences in majors

• Currently takes 5 or 6 years to complete a 4 year degree

Educational Success in College

• Nearly Half drop out

Factors related to retention:

• Previous academic performance

• Ethnic background

• Family SES

Programs to enhance retention

• peer mentoring programs

• special programs for first year students

Students college learning experiences 4 student subcultures

Most students blend the four types

Collegiate: fellowship and partying

vocational: gain skills to get a job

academic: drawn to knowledge and ideas

rebel: engaged with ideas but critically detached

From family to friends in developed countried

Experience sampling method (ESM) studies

• time with family decrease

• time with same-gender friends stays the same

• time with other gender friends increases

Prefer Friends over family

• Same-gender friends during adolescence

• Romantic partners during emerging adulthood

Family and Friends in Traditional Cultures

Gender differences

• involvement with peers and friends greater for boys

• involvement with same-sex adults greater for girls

More time spent with families than in the west

Time with Friends, Higher Highs, Lower Lows

Positive Emotions:

• friends mirror their emotions and feel free and open with their friends

Negative emotions

• Emotionally Vulnerable

Intimacy in Adolescent and emerging adult friendships

–Harry Stack Sullivan’s theory

• Early adolescence – empathy allows stronger friendships

• Provide honest evaluations

–Require trust and loyalty

Friends Influence: Risk behavior

correlation between adolescents risk behavior for themselves and their friends, perceive friends similar to themselves

Selective association

The principle that most people tend to choose friends who are similar to themselves.

Support and Nurturance

Friends Influence, based on Thomas Berndts theory

Informational support, instrumental support, companionship support, esteem support

Informational Support

Between friends, advice and guidance in solving personal problems.

Instrumental Support

Between friends, help with tasks of various kinds.

Companionship Support

Between friends, reliance on each other as companions in social activities.

Esteem Support

The support friends provide each other by providing congratulations for success and encouragement or consolation for failure.

Cliques

Small groups of friends who know each other well, do things together, and form a regular social group.

Crowds

Large, reputation based group of adolescents, help adolescents locate themselves within social structure

Relational aggression

A form of nonphysical aggression that harms others by damaging their relationships, for example by excluding them socially or spreading rumors about them.

Developmental Changes in Crowds

Aids in identity formation, helps make sense of complex social contexts, most influential during adolescence, Dexter Dunphy’s model of changes in cliques and crowds

Dexter Dunphy’s model of changes in cliques and crowds

Stage 1: same-sex cliques

Stage 2: other-sex spend more time near each other

Stage 3: clique leaders form romantic relationships

Stage 4: mixed-gender cliques

Stage 5: pair off in more serious relationships

Crowds in American minority cultures

-Same types of crowds as White adolescents

-Adolescents perceive fewer crowd distinctions in other ethnic groups than they do in their own.

Crowds across cultures

-One adolescent peer crowd

-Dormitory for relaxing

-Men’s house – adolescent boys and widowed or divorced men

dormitory: In some traditional cultures, a dwelling in which the community’s adolescents sleep and spend their leisure time.

men’s house: In some traditional cultures, a dormitory where adolescent boys sleep and hang out along with adult men who are widowed or divorced.

Bullying

In peer relations, the aggressive assertion of power by one person over another,

–Components: aggression, repetition, power balance

–Negative effects

- Physical and psychological symptoms

–One-fourth of bullies also victims

–Cyberbullying

Changing forms of adolescent love

before 1970s: dating

Current: going out with, hanging out, informal, often friends first

Reasons for forming love relationships

-Recreation

-Learning

-Status

-Companionship

-Intimacy

-Courtship

Dating scripts

Males have proactive script: A relationship script, more common for males than for females, that includes initiating the relationship, deciding where they will go, controlling the public domain (e.g., driving the car and opening the doors), and initiating sexual contact

Females have reactive script: : A romantic script, more common for females than males, that focuses on the private domain (e.g., spending considerable time on dress and grooming), responding to the partner’s gestures in the public domain (e.g., being picked up, waiting for him to open the doors), and responding to his sexual initiatives.

Sternbergs theory of love

–Three fundamental qualities

• Passion: physical attraction and sexual desire

• Intimacy: feelings of closeness and emotional attachment

• Commitment: pledge to love someone over the long run

–Forms of love

• Liking

• Infatuation

• Empty love

• Romantic love

• companionate love

• Fatuous love

• Consummate love

Liking

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the type of love that is based on intimacy alone, without passion or commitment.

Infatuation

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the type of love that is based on passion alone, without intimacy or commitment.

empty love:

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the type of love that is based on commitment alone, without passion or intimacy.

romantic love:

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the type of love that combines passion and intimacy, but without commitment.

companionate love:

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the type of love that combines intimacy and commitment, but without passion.

fatuous love:

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the type of love that involves passion and commitment without intimacy.

consummate love:

In Sternberg’s theory of love, the form of love that integrates passion, intimacy, and commitment.

Marriage cross cultural similarities:

High ranking of mutual attraction, dependable character

Marriage cross cultural differences:

eastern and middle eastern cultures values chastity

Arranged marriages

seen as uniting two families, based on wealth, status, and religion.

Expectations of Marriage in the east

commitment first, passion if it develops, and intimacy is modest.

Sexual Harassment

A wide range of threatening or aggressive behaviors related to sexuality, from mild harassment such as name-calling, jokes, and leering looks to severe harassment involving unwanted touching or sexual contact.

-High in adolescence

-LGBT and early maturing girls targeted at higher rates

-Sexual and romantic joking and teasing common

-Difficult to identify border between harmless and harassment

Sexual Coercion

An act of sexual aggression in which a person, usually a woman, is forced by a romantic partner, date, or acquaintance to have sexual relations against her will.

-Due to verbal pressure, alcohol or drugs, or physical force

-Different views between males and females

Contraception use and nonuse

–Pregnancy outside marriage more positive in traditional cultures than in developed countries

–Reasons for inconsistent contraceptive use

• Unplanned and infrequent intercourse

• Cognitive development – developing ability to anticipate consequences

• Believe it affects mood or pleasure

Pregnancy in adolescence

–Of teen pregnancies in America:

-30% end in abortion

-14% end in miscarriage

-5% put up for adoption

–Teen birth rates declined in the last decade

Consequence of early parenthood for mothers

•High risk for pregnancy and delivery problems

•Twice as likely to drop out of school, less likely to attend college

•Less likely to get married, more likely to get divorced

•Possible for eventual success

Consequence of early parenthood for fathers

•More likely to get divorced

•More likely to have low-level of education, low-paying job

•More likely to use drugs and alcohol, violate law

Traditional forms of work

Hunting fishing and gathering:

• hunting and fishing by adolescent boys

• gathering done by women

Farming and care of domestic animals:

• Care of animals done by adolescents and preadolescents

• mostly done by men and their sons

Child care and housework

• Girls care for younger siblings

• Household work done by women and their daughters

Industrial Work

• Gain skills and contacts that could lead to better job

• Brutal work, miserable pay, long hours

• Adolescents earn one-third to one-half the pay of adults

Debt bondage:

Arrangement in which a person who is in debt pledges his labor or the labor of his children as payment.

commercial sexual exploitation:

The practice of coerced or forced sex work for purposes of economic gain.

Adolescent work before 1900

17th to 18th centuries

• Boys worked on farm

• Girls cared for domestic animals and did household work

18th to 19th centuries (industrialization)

• Work in factories, coal mines, processing plants

• Farming declined to less than 40%

• Long hours, dangerous conditions, health hazards

Age of Adolescence

(1890 to 1920)

• Laws restricted times and places children and adolescents could work

Work and Psychological functioning

Up to 10 hours per week

• Not related to increased psychological symptoms

• Little effect on sleep

More than 10 hours a week

• Disrupts sleep, eating, exercise

Work and Problem Behavior

More likely to use alcohol, cigarettes, other drugs

• Scholars disagree if correlation or causation

Occupational deviance: Deviant acts committed in relation to the workplace, such as stealing supplies.

• More than 60% of adolescents

• Possible causes: boredom, no personal investment, little supervision

The case in favor of adolescent work

Benefits of work

• Gain responsibility

• Develop new occupational skills

• Beneficial relationships with adults in workplace

The forgotten half

• those not attending college

• Loss of high-wage sectors caused decline in income

• The nearly half of young Americans who enter the workplace following high school rather than attending college.

New basic skills

Skills identified by Murnane and Levy that are required for high school graduates who wish to be able to obtain the best jobs available in the new information-based economy.

• Reading and doing math at ninth-grade level or higher

• Solving semistructured problems

• Communicating effectively orally and in writing

• Using a computer for word processing and other tasks

• Collaborating in diverse groups

Occupational Training in United States

Job Corps

• Improves occupational prospects for noncollege emerging adults in low-income areas

• Benefits

•More hours worked and more money earned

•Improved literacy and numeracy skills

•Less likely to be arrested

• Expensive

Apprenticeships

An arrangement, common in Europe, in which an adolescent “novice” serves under contract to a “master” who has substantial experience in a profession, and through working under the master, learns the skills required to enter the profession.

Donalds super theory

The development of occupational goals

§Crystallization (ages 14 to 18) – learn about interesting occupational fields

§Specification (ages 18 to 21) – focus on specific occupation; begin to pursue education

§Implementation (ages 21 to 24) – enter job itself

§Stabilization (ages 25 to 35) – establish self in career

§Consolidation (age 35 and up) – seek advancement

Influence on occupational goals

•Realistic

•Investigative

•Social

•Conventional

•Enterprising

•Artistic

Realistic.

High physical strength, practical approach to problem solving, and low social understanding. Best occupations: those that involve physical activity and practical application of knowledge, such as farming, truck driving, and construction.

Investigative.

High on conceptual and theoretical thinking. Preference for thinking problems through rather than applying knowledge. Low on social skills. Best occupations: scholarly fields such as math and science.

Social.

High in verbal skills and social skills. Best professions: those that involve working with people, such as teaching, social work, and counseling.

Conventional.

High on following directions carefully, dislike of unstructured activities. Best occupations: those that involve clear responsibilities but require little leadership, such as bank teller or secretary.

Enterprising.

High in verbal abilities, social skills, and leadership skills. Best occupations: sales, politics, management, running a business.

Artistic.

Introspective, imaginative, sensitive, unconventional. Best occupations: artistic occupations such as painting or writing fiction.

Work in emerging adulthood

• Seek identity based work

• Exploration vs meandering

  • find jobs to pay bills until something better comes along

Unemployement

• concentrated among black and latino adolescents

  • obtain less education

• Approach to fix unemployment trend

  • upgrade education

  • improve access to work programs

  • improve acess to employement