Search

Compares American and German educational system structures, emphasizing organizational and curricular features of school- and work-based preparation for the labor market. The countries have fundamentally different school to work transition models which significantly affect their students. The article makes recommendations for improving both systems by borrowing from one another. (SM)

This paper presents data on psychosocial stress and sources of social support in adolescence obtained from a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of 1,717 West German adolescents between the ages of 13 and 16. Structural changes in the life phase of adolescence are discussed and typical symptoms of psychosocial stress in adolescence are identified. Data on problem behaviors such as delinquency, aggression, drug abuse, and psychosomatic complaints are discussed as they relate to measures of the quality of adolescents' relationships with friends, parents, and teachers. The focus of this paper is on the effectiveness of teachers and other professionals (psychologists, social workers, career counselors, ministers) in helping adolescents deal with problems. Among the sources of stress identified in the paper are discrepancies between adolescents' school performance and their parents' expectations and the adolescents' feelings of inadequacy in keeping up with their peers. Potential preventive and remedial interventions are considered, including preventive youth and family policies, teachers as counselors, peer counseling, and the introduction of professional counselors into schools. (NB)

Adolescence is considered a transitory phase in the life course. Failure in school during adolescence can carry with it the risk of an occupational and social downward mobility in the future life course in comparison to the family of origin. The stress associated with this risk can have detrimental effects on the social and emotional climate within the family and can manifest itself in psychosomatic symptoms. To examine this issue, 1,717 adolescent students in West German schools were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing psychosomatic disorders, failure in school and the risk of downward mobility, social conflict with parents, and emotional conflict with parents. The results support the hypotheses that psychosomatic frequency is reinforced when adolescents experience failure in school and when they experience social and emotional conflict in their relationships with their parents. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that these effects were interconnected. Failure in school had a direct effect on the frequency of psychosomatic disorders, and an indirect effect on disorders by influencing social and emotional conflicts in the family. The underlying causes for the tensions between adolescents and their parents are conceived in the social and economic opportunity structures of the society. (NB)

This report's central theoretical assumption is that adolescents are in risk of problem behavior if they are not sufficiently equipped with the social and psychological competencies to cope with culturally and socially defined developmental tasks specific to their ages. The first chapter describes the socio-structural factors which have changed the phase of adolescence during the last 30 years in West Germany. Special emphasis is given to the continued extension of the time spent at school and the growing tendency to postpone employment within the life course. The second chapter reports the findings of case studies which analyze the biographic importance of school-time for individual life courses during adolescence. A qualitative longitudinal study over 7 years is presented in which research was undertaken into how 40 adolescents aged 14 to 21 perceived the social and structural changes in their living conditions, in particular their educational and vocational opportunities, and how they ranked their school-time in relation to their individual biographies. Findings are discussed which revealed that school was primarily judged to be of instrumental value for acquiring the marks of adult status. The third chapter examines the role of school in the social support network of adolescence. A survey study of 2,000 students aged 14 to 21, designed as a 5-year longitudinal study starting in 1986, is described as a follow-up to the case studies which will examine school-related problems and the potentials for intervention that school systems can offer to adolescents. It is explained that the survey study will evaluate programs for social work and integrated youth services in school. (Author/NB)

A study analyzed the school plans and status expectations of West German adolescents. The study was based on (1) an analysis of official statistical documents, (2) a standardized questionnaire survey of 1,717 adolescents aged 12-17 years, and (3) a longitudinal qualitative analysis of interviews carried out with 40 adolescents over a period of 8 years. The West German secondary school system differs from that of most other industrial nations through its high degree of formal segregation of the various school types with corresponding differences in curriculum tracks. The study tested the proposition that this formally stratified secondary school system generates a process of social selection and accompanying restrictions on subsequent career perspectives. In addition, the study tested the proposition that, in all school types, substantial uncertainty regarding status expectations is manifest among those students who are threatened by relegation due to poor scholastic performance. The study proved that this status uncertainty correlates with an above-average incidence of dissatisfaction and health complaints. In West Germany, the development of uncertainty with regard to the outcomes of education and the resulting pressure for more academic attainment coupled with the threat of downward social mobility is of historic importance. The psychosocial costs of this situation can be felt in all social classes: the lower social classes are threatened with unemployment, whereas the higher social classes are threatened with not being able to maintain their high social status. (KC)

Family socialization is a social mechanism of the reproduction of social inequality from one generation to the next. The argument about the "class-specific socialization," which stopped in the 1970s, is being taken up again with this discussion and developed further towards a theory of socio-structural and situation-specific socialization. Also considered are the effects of family socialization on children's success in school. It seems clear that the motivational, cognitive, linguistic, and social demands made in school are probably less developed in disadvantaged families. Although all students, regardless of social origin, have the right to be accepted to all educational courses, the connection between family origin and selection in school--a discrimination against children from working-class families and favoritism of children whose parents are civil servants or employees--becomes apparent. In the Federal Republic of Germany, this process can very clearly be observed for this is--unlike other western industrial countries--an externally differentiated system of the "Sekundarstufe I" with organizationally separated types of school after the fourth grade. (BZ)

A general frame of reference for a comprehensive model of socialization is presented. This model considers different levels of theoretical analysis and a methodological combination of investigations of the "objective" social reality with "subjective" interpretations of reality as it is in the Federal Republic of Germany. The meta-theoretical model of the subject in socialization research, the principles of theory construction in this discipline, and pluralistic methodological procedures are discussed. An interdisciplinary approach is needed which will provide for a division of labor between sociology, psychology, and educational science within the framework of an integrative program of research. (BZ)

Objectively speaking, there has been great historical progress in the educational and developmental opportunities for children and adolescents. However, this progress is not reflected either in an actual improvement of the "qualify of life" or in the subjectively perceived chances of education of adolescents in and out of school. Empirical support for this proposition comes in the observation that symptoms of stress do not only appear in students whose achievements are rated as poor. In this paper an attempt is made both to discuss factors of stress in 14- to 18-year-old students in and out of school and at the same time to point out the adolescent's own subjective perception of some of those factors by means of an empirical investigation. Factors external and internal to school must be seen as standing in a close relation of interaction to each other. The kind and intensity of mental and social stress is explained by combining an "objective" analysis with a "subjective" one. School is looked at both as a system of social order, organization and interaction, and as a realm of experience and a social environment for students. On the basis of these considerations, the conception of "stress" is discussed in the context of a meta-theoretical model of the subject who is productively managing his or her reality. (Author/BZ)