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Successfully transitioning to adulthood requires a successful transition from high school into college or the workforce. Yet for many emerging adults, this transition is not successful, leading to disengagement from school and work. Dual enrollment, where high school students enroll in college coursework, may help to facilitate this important life transition. This study applied propensity score matching to statewide administrative data to investigate the effects of dual enrollment on college and early labor market outcomes. We found a significant effect of dual enrollment on 2-year and 4-year college enrollment, degree attainment, and early labor market earnings 6 years after high school, with stronger effects for students who are traditionally underrepresented (e.g., Black and Other race students and students eligible for free and reduced price meals). This study highlights the potential for targeting dual enrollment programs toward underrepresented students to improve the transition into college and the workforce for emerging adults.

Group mentoring is an increasingly popular intervention, but is still under-studied. This article reports findings from a qualitative study of the Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP), a combined group and one-on-one mentoring program for early adolescent girls. Protégés ( n = 113) were interviewed post-program about changes they made as a result of the program and mechanisms of those changes. Girls reported making changes in four major domains as a result of YWLP: (a) Academics (e.g., study habits), (b) Relational Development (e.g., trusting people), (c) Self-Regulation (e.g., thinking before acting), and (d) Self-Understanding (e.g., being yourself). Relational development and self-understanding were the most frequently reported types of change. Protégés reported mentors as contributing to changes in academics more often than the mentoring group. They reported the mentoring group as the change mechanism more often than mentors for relational development. Protégés reported the mentors and mentoring groups about equally as the mechanisms of change for self-regulation and self-understanding. The findings support prior research on group mentoring and suggest that social and relational skills are a developmental domain in which group-based mentoring programs for early adolescent girls may be particularly effective at intervening.

This study tests whether subtyping justice-involved adolescent girls into violent and delinquent (VAD), delinquent only, and low subgroups is predictive of adult health and offending. We use data from the Gender and Aggression Project to examine young adulthood functioning among women ( N = 114) who were incarcerated during adolescence. After controlling for age, initial official-reports of offending, and baseline scores on the outcome of interest, the VAD subgroup experienced the worst functioning in young adulthood. Compared with the delinquency only subgroup, the VAD subgroup recidivated at higher rates and reported more internalizing psychopathology and physical health discomfort. Findings indicate that justice-involved girls should not be treated as a homogeneous group and prevention and intervention services should focus on girls who are most at risk in adolescence.

The current study explores the potential of one-on-one mentoring facilitated within a structured group format for developing connection and sustaining mentor-mentee relationships with early adolescent girls. Results from a mixed-methods study using survey and observational data reveal that college student mentors and their seventh grade mentees report moderate-to-high satisfaction with the group experience, with no mean differences between groups. Yet there were significant differences between groups in the group members’ (mentees) satisfaction with their one-on-one mentoring relationships. Although all groups demonstrated high levels of some positive social processes related to connectedness (e.g., fun), groups in which mentees’ reported higher levels of satisfaction with their one-on-one relationships engaged in more higher level positive social processes (e.g., caretaking). Groups in which mentee’s reported lower satisfaction with their one-on-one relationships demonstrated more negative social processes (e.g., disengagement). Implications for after-school settings are discussed.