Data from the Youth Development Study on adolescents who worked in high school were used to examine mental health, work stress, and work/school interactions. The quality of high school work experiences had significant consequences for mental states during high school, but had little effect on long-term mental health. (Contains 70 references.) (SK)

Among approximately 1,000 students interviewed yearly, 9th-12th grade, formation of occupational values was unrelated to employment itself or hours of work. However, opportunity to learn useful skills at work was consistently related to increasingly stable intrinsic and extrinsic value dimensions. As with adults, the conditions of work are what…

Review of research on adolescent employment found the following: (1) employment patterns were relatively unchanged in 40 years; (2) emerging literature challenges the assumption that "floundering" is necessarily bad; and (3) increasing amounts of work negatively affect school performance. Methodological issues include selection bias, sampling…