Whereas sociologists have long recognized that adolescence marks the start of the socioeconomic career, the importance of this period has been attributed to school performance, aspirations and significant others' influence that support educational attainment to a greater or lesser degree. The underlying premise of this study is that adolescent…

Data from the Youth Development Study, a prospective longitudinal study that followed approximately 1,000 Minnesota ninth graders for seven years, indicate that performing volunteer work as a teenager had a strong negative relationship to being arrested as a young adult. Age dependencies in the nature and effect of volunteer work are discussed.…

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 11,506 high school students were used to test a gendered and age-graded sequential stress theory in which delinquency can play an additive and intervening role in adolescents' movement from early anger through rebellious or aggressive forms of behavior to later depressive symptoms…

LISREL analysis of Toronto (Canada) survey data suggests that the search for adolescent role exits such as early marriage or parenthood was most strongly related to family strains and absence of parental controls, followed by female gender plus maternal unemployment, feelings of depression, father's socioeconomic status, identification with…

Views delinquent behavior as a defense against low self-esteem brought on by poor performance in school. This contention was tested for boys in two age groups (11 to 14, and 15 to 18 years). Findings supported the study's view for older boys but not for the younger age group. (APM)

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data indicate that sense of personal control increased from age 14 to 22. Dropping out of school hampered development; teen pregnancy did not. Adolescent sense of control and further adult development correlated positively with cognitive skill and parental education. Low perceived control predicted subsequent…

Analysis of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data on 5,477 girls attending mixed-sex secondary schools found that early puberty and physical development that was advanced relative to age were related most strongly to "party" deviance (drinking, smoking, disorderly conduct), but also to minor and serious delinquency.…

Analysis of 5 waves of panel data on over 2,000 males from 10th grade to 5 years after high school found that self-esteem was quite stable over time and was related to shared decision making in the family and intrinsic motivation in school. Findings were mixed with respect to the work sphere. Contains 131 references. (SV)

Data from the longitudinal study Monitoring the Future indicate that individuals' work values change substantially from late adolescence through young adulthood, with "average trajectories" of work values suggesting growing realism with age. Work value trajectories were systematically tied to social origin and early experience, with…