Essay About Rates Of Student Employment And School Year

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ly among adolescents who hold part-time jobs during
the school year (Steinberg and Cauffman 1995).
Because rates of student employment are so much
higher in the United States than in other countries,
almost all of this research has involved American
samples. We do not know if these ®ndings are
generalizable to adolescents in other countries, because
the nature of work and its relation to schooling
varies considerably from country to country.
The results of research on student employment in
the United States have indicated that the impact of
work on adolescent socialization is to a great extent
dependent on the amount of time adolescents spend
on the job. In moderate amountsÐ10 or fewer hours
per weekÐa part-time job can be a useful means of
exposing adolescents to the world of work and helping
them learn to manage their time more responsibly.
When adolescents work longer hours, however, the
costs of employment may overshadow the bene®ts.
More speci®cally, studies indicate that employment
during the school year in excess of 20 hours per week
is associated with diminished performance in and
commitment to school, and increased drug and alcohol
use, and some research links long work hours to
increased delinquency. These negative correlates of
working are thought to accrue because long work
hours interfere with school and diminish parents
ability to monitor their teenagers, both of which have
been shown to be associated with poor school performance
and increased problem behavior. In addition,
adolescents who work long hours have large
amounts of discretionary income, which may pull
them away from school and toward more recreational
pursuits.
Research on the impact of neighborhoods on
adolescent socialization is relatively new. This work
has examined how adolescents attitudes and behavior
are shaped by variations in the communities in which
they live along such dimensions as the neighborhoods
income, employment rate, crime, and demography
(Brooks-Gunn et al. 1997). Most research to date has
found relatively few direct effects of neighborhood
conditions on adolescent socialization, however.
Rather, studies suggest that variations in neighborhoods
affect adolescent development primarily
through their impact on the family and peer group.
For example, adolescents living in disorganized neighborhoods
are themselves more likely to be involved in
antisocial activity because neighborhood disorganization
is associated with ineffective parenting and with
insufficient monitoring of peer group activities. This
sort of ®nding is consistent with the general view that
socialization is mediated primarily through interactions
with signi®cant others.
Despite widespread popular belief in the deleterious
effects of sex and violence in the mass media on the
socialization of adolescents, scienti®c evidence on the
impact of exposure to violent or sexual imageryÐin
television, ®lm, music, or computer gamesÐis sparse
and inconsistent. There is some research indicating
that exposure to televised violence may increase
aggression among younger children, but this issue has
not been adequately studied among adolescents. The
study of the in¯uence of other media (e.g., computer
games, music) or of other types of media content (e.g.,
sexual imagery) on adolescent socialization is virtually
nonexistent.
See also: Adolescence, Sociology of; Adolescent
Behavior: Demographic; Adolescent Development,
Theories of; Identity in Childhood and Adolescence;
Social Learning, Cognition, and Personality Development;
Socialization and Education: Theoretical
Perspectives; Socialization in Infancy and Childhood;
Socialization, Sociology of; Substance Abuse in
Adolescents, Prevention of
Bibliography
Brooks-Gunn J, Duncan G J, Aber J L (eds.) 1997Neighborhood
PoŠerty. Russell Sage Foundation, New York
Brown B 1990 Peer groups. In: Feldman S S, Elliott G R (eds.)
At the Threshold: The DeŠeloping Adolescent. Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 171±96
Coleman J S 1961 The Adolescent Society: the Social