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Critics of the college-for-all ethos argue that it encourages low-achieving adolescents to develop unrealistically high expectations. This argument posits that low-achievers waste time and money, and risk disappointment and self-recrimination, pursuing college when they are unlikely to complete it. The present study uses two national data sets—Add Health and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979—to test the proposition that expecting to earn a bachelor's degree (BA) puts low-achieving students at risk of disadvantageous early adult outcomes. Youth reported their educational expectations in high school, and their income-to-needs ratios and depressive symptoms were measured approximately a decade later. Results in both data sets suggest that the expectation of a BA was advantageous for all students, regardless of achievement level. Low-achievers who expected to earn a BA had higher educational attainment, higher income-to-needs ratios, and fewer depressive symptoms than low-achievers who did not expect to earn a BA. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Racial discrimination has serious negative consequences for the adjustment of African American adolescents. Taking an ecological approach, this study examined the linkages between perceived racial discrimination within and outside of the neighborhood and urban adolescents' externalizing and internalizing behaviors, and tested whether neighborhood cohesion operated as a protective factor. Data came from 461 African American adolescents (mean age = 15.24 years, SD = 1.56; 50 % female) participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Multilevel models revealed that perceived discrimination within youth's neighborhoods was positively related to externalizing, and discrimination both within and outside of youth's neighborhoods predicted greater internalizing problems. Neighborhood cohesion moderated the association between within-neighborhood discrimination and externalizing. Specifically, high neighborhood cohesion attenuated the association between within-neighborhood discrimination and externalizing. The discussion centers on the implications of proximal stressors and neighborhood cohesion for African American adolescents' adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a study of 1,344 urban adolescents, the authors examined the relation between participation in organized sports and juvenile delinquency. They compared youth who participated in sports to those who only participated in nonathletic activities and to those who did not participate in any organized activities. They also examined the indirect relations between sports and delinquency via 2 peer-related constructs—deviant peer affiliations and unstructured socializing. Finally, they examined the extent to which gender and prior externalizing problems moderated the direct and indirect relations between sports participation and delinquency. The authors found that the odds of nonviolent delinquency were higher among boys who participated in sports when compared to boys who participated only in nonathletic activities but not when compared to boys who did not participate in any organized activities. Deviant peer affiliations and unstructured socializing mediated the relation between sports participation and boys' nonviolent delinquency. Moreover, prior externalizing problems moderated the mediated path through peer deviance. The authors did not, however, find direct, mediated, or moderated relations between sports and boys' violent delinquency nor between spurts and girls' violent or nonviolent delinquency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests whether young adolescents' achievement and behavior are associated with their mother's entry into post-secondary education (PSE) during their middle childhood years. It also examines five family processes that may link maternal PSE to development in middle childhood (income, home learning environment, mother's educational expectations for child, maternal presence, and family affective climate). The sample selects low-income families from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979. Propensity score weighting adjusts for mothers' self-selection into PSE. We find that adolescents whose mothers entered PSE in their middle childhood scored higher than their peers on math, but similarly on reading, behavior problems, delinquency, and substance use. There were no associations between mothers' PSE entry and the proposed mediators. • Mothers who return to school may boost child achievement but impair behavior. • This study examined low-income families in a national, longitudinal sample using propensity score weighting. • We examined adolescents whose mother entered post-secondary education in their middle childhood years • They scored slightly higher than matched peers on math but the same on reading and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]