Mimi V. Chapman, Ph.D.
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.
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.
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.
Bowen, G. L., & Richman, J. M. (1995). The School Success Profile. Chapel
Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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.
Carlson, E. B. (1997).
Trauma assessments: A clinician’s guide. New York: Guilford
Press.
Coulton, C. J., Korbin, J., Su, M., & Chow, J.
(1995). Community level factors and
child maltreatment rates. Child
Development, 66(5), 1262-1276.
Durant, R. H., Getts, A., Cadenhead, C., Emans, S. J.,
& Woods, E. R. (1995). Exposure to
violence and victimization and depression, hopelessness, and purpose in life
among adolescents living in and around public housing. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics,
16(4), 233-237.
Garbarino, J. (1992). Children and families in the
social environment (2nd ed.) New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Garbarino, J. (1994). Growing up in a socially toxic
environment: Childhood in the 1990s [Videotape]. Available from National Council on Family
Relations, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Garbarino, J., Dubrow, N., Kostelny, K., & Pardo,
C. (1991). What children can tell us about living in danger. American Psychologist, 46(4), 376-382.
Gil,
E. (1996). Treating abused adolescents.
New York: Guilford Press.
Gonzales, N., Cauce, A. M., Friedman, R. J., &
Mason, C. (1996). Family, peer, and neighborhood influences on academic
achievement among African-American adolescents: One year prospective effects. American
Journal of Neighborhood Psychology, 24(3), 365-387.
Herman, J. L., Perry, J. C., & van der Kolk, B. A.
(1989). Childhood trauma in borderline
personality disorder. American
Journal of Psychiatry, 146(4), 490-495.
Hurrelmann, K., Engel, U., Holler, B., &
Nordlohne, E. (1988). Failure in school,
family conflicts, and psychosomatic disorders in adolescence. Journal of
Adolescence, 11(3), 237-249.
Jackson, A. W., Felner, R. D., Millstein, S. G.,
Pittman, K. J., & Selden, R. W. (1993).
Adolescent development and educational policy: Strengths and weaknesses
of the knowledge base. Journal of
Adolescent Health, 14(3), 172-189.
Klebanov, P. K., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Duncan, G. J.
(1994). Does neighborhood and family
poverty affect mothers’ parenting, mental health, and social support? Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56(2),
441-455.
Louis
Harris & Associates. (1997). School
Success Profile No. 628173.
Richman, J. M., Rosenfeld, L. B., & Bowen, G. L.
(1998). Social support for adolescents
at risk of school failure. Social
Work, 43(4), 309-322.
Simons, R. L., Johnson, C., Conger, R. D., &
Lorenz, F. O. (1997). Linking
neighborhood context to quality of parenting: A study of rural families. Rural Sociology, 62(2), 207-230.
Wilson, J., & Raphael, B. (Eds.). (1993). International handbook of traumatic stress
syndromes. New York: Plenum Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1995).
Jobless ghettos and the social outcomes of youngsters. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder, & K. Luscher
(Eds.), Examining lives in context (pp. 527-543). Washington D.C.:
American Psychological Association.