The Social Context of Adolescent School Performance
Mimi V. Chapman, Ph.D.

The Social Context of Adolescent School Performance is designed to examine the intersection of neighborhood influences, family environment, traumatic life events, and adolescent depressive symptoms and school performance. Data is being collected at the Youth Counseling League (YCL), a program of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services. This article presents the study rationale and methodology.

	School performance has long been seen as a predictor for future life chances.  The consequences of school difficulties have become greater as advanced training increasingly becomes necessary to sustain a basic level of living (Hurrelman, Engel, Holler, & Nordlohne, 1988).  School failure, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It is a complex problem with a variety of possible antecedents and often masks mental health problems. With its complex causes and consequences, poor school performance is an area in which social workers are often asked to intervene. The study described in this article uses an ecologically based empirical model to address the multiple dimensions of adolescent school performance. 
Ecological theory posits that developing adolescents both mold and are molded by their environment.  Although adolescents make free choices about behavior, this theory stresses the important roles societal structures and significant interpersonal relationships play in shaping those choices (Garbarino, 1992).  Adolescents growing up in the shadow of a new century must negotiate a variety of changes in the social context.  As family structures change, many adolescents must look beyond their parents and siblings for support.  School experiences may provide an environment for developing adolescents to interact with a variety of adults, form bonds with peers, and experience mastery over topics that will prepare them for adult life.
Many educational institutions are under severe strain, making it difficult for adults in the school environment to reach out to teens needing support (Jackson, Felner, Millstein, Pittman, & Selden, 1993).  Certainly, peers create an important context in which teens seek to solidify a permanent identity, but the ability of peers to provide the type of support needed to succeed in school is questionable (Richman, Rosenfeld, & Bowen, 1998).  Television reportedly fills at least 3 hours of each school day for over 50% of adolescents in the United States, a finding that raises concerns about the level of involvement between teens and other caring individuals, be they peers or adults (Louis Harris & Associates, 1997). 
As adolescents confront the task of identity formation, they often experiment with new roles and behaviors in life domains outside of family and school.  This widening sphere of interactions makes neighborhood another potentially powerful influence on adolescent outcomes.  Unfortunately, many neighborhoods no longer provide the support and informal monitoring that once afforded youth with role models and supported parents in imparting prosocial values to their adolescent children.  Violence, decreased social connections, and other changes have eroded once strong neighborhoods (Wilson, 1995).  Although families have traditionally been seen as mediators between their offspring and the larger world, the task of monitoring and shielding adolescents from what some call a
“socially toxic environment” has become increasingly difficult (Garbarino, 1994).
On balance, the literature suggests that adolescents may be experiencing an impoverished support network in many life domains.  This changing context makes negotiating adolescence a risky endeavor in the best of circumstances.  Consider then the difficulties faced by youth coming to this developmental phase with a history of traumatic life events occurring prior to or during their teenage years.   Trauma has been linked to school failure, depressive symptoms, and disruptive behavior, but the influence of past trauma is often obscured by the presenting symptoms (Carlson, 1997; Gil, 1996).  Research to date suggests that failing to attend to traumatic experiences may result in symptoms associated with decreased academic and social functioning, greater levels of mental health difficulties, and increased drug and alcohol abuse (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1991; Herman, Perry, & van der Kolk, 1989; Wilson & Raphael, 1993).  Significantly, each of these outcomes has also been linked to neighborhood context and family environment variables (Brook, Nomura, & Cohen, 1989; Durant, Getts, Cadenhead, Emans, & Woods, 1995; Gonzales, Cauce, Friedman, & Mason, 1996).  Neighborhood context and family environment have also been linked in the literature (Coulton, Korbin, Su, & Chow, 1995; Klebanov, Brooks-Gunn, & Duncan, 1994; Simons, Johnson, Conger, & Lorenz, 1997).  Taken together, these findings suggest a pattern of inter-relationships among neighborhood context, family environment, and traumatic experiences in producing outcomes such as depressive symptoms and school failure.

Study Aims
This study uses a cross-sectional design to test an empirical model of hypothesized associations among neighborhood influences, family environment, traumatic life events, and adolescent depressive symptoms and school performance.

Methods
Study participants come from the Youth Counseling League (YCL), a program of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services.  A consecutive referrals sample is being used.  All clients coming to YCL during the data collection period are being invited to participate in the research project as part of the routine assessment process.  Completion of an on-line survey, The School Success Profile (Bowen & Richman, 1995), and a traumatic life events checklist are being used to gather data on the study variables. In order to attain the largest possible sample, data collection will extend over a full year. Following multiple training and protocol revisions and discussions with YCL staff, data collection for this project began on December 6, 1999.

The study’s principal investigator is Mimi V. Chapman, Ph.D.

References

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Brook, J. S., Nomura, C., & Cohen, P. (1989).  A network of influences on adolescent drug involvement: Neighborhood, school, peer, & family. Genetic, Social, & General Psychology Monographs, 115(1), 123-145.

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Coulton, C. J., Korbin, J., Su, M., & Chow, J. (1995).  Community level factors and child maltreatment rates.  Child Development, 66(5), 1262-1276.

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