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Journal of Family Issues

DOI: 10.1177/0192513X03258307 2004; 25; 571 Journal of Family Issues

Robert Crosnoe and Glen H. Elder, JR. Family Dynamics, Supportive Relationships, and Educational Resilience During Adolescence

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10.1177/0192513X03258307 ARTICLEJOURNAL OF FAMILY ISSUES / July 2004Crosnoe , Elder / FAMILY DYNAMICS

Family Dynamics, SupportiveRelationships, and EducationalResilience During Adolescence

ROBERT CROSNOEUniversity of Texas at Austin

GLEN H. ELDER, JR.University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

If problematic relationships with parents are an academic risk factor during adolescence,then nonparental sources of support (e.g., friends, siblings, and teachers) may be arenas ofcomfort that promote educational resilience in the face of such risk. In a series of structuralmodels using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the authors found thatnonparental relationships are more likely to be directly associated with academic behaviorthan to interact with parent-related risk. Protective interactions occur only among certainsubgroups. For example, close relationships with teachers and involvement with friends pro-tect against parent-related academic risk among Asian American adolescents, whereas sup-port from friends operates similarly for younger girls. In other subgroups, parental andnonparental relationships interact but not in a protective way. These patterns demonstrate thecomplex interplay of developmental ecology and larger social structures during the adoles-cent stage of life as well as the context-specific nature of resilience.

Keywords: resilience; life course; education; race; gender

Contemporary developmental research has cultivated a greater theoreticalrecognition of the complexity of the adolescent stage of life, drawing at-tention to the influence of interpersonal ties on adjustment, the interde-pendence of developmental settings, and the overarching role of socialstructure (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Elder, 1998). This theoreticalrichness has, in turn, engendered empirical research that bridges multiple

571

Authors’Note: The authors acknowledge support by the National Institute of Mental Health(MH 00567, MH 57549) and a Spencer Foundation Senior Scholar Award to Elder. Thisresearch is based on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health(J. Richard Udry, principal investigator), which was funded by Grant PO1-HD31921 fromthe National Institute of Child and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center,with cooperative funding participation by 17 other agencies. The authors would like to thankJeylan Mortimer for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.

JOURNAL OF FAMILY ISSUES, Vol. 25 No. 5, July 2004 571-602DOI: 10.1177/0192513X03258307© 2004 Sage Publications



domains on multiple levels to more fully gauge how young people comeof age. This study follows this trend by exploring the potential function-ality of the overlap among familial and extrafamilial relationships acrossdiverse social groups. Specifically, it examines whether support fromfriends, siblings, and teachers protects against the academic risk of emo-tionally distant relationships with parents and whether this risk-protectioninteraction differs by developmental stage, race/ethnicity, and gender.

Essentially, this study centers on the linkage between the parent-ado-lescent relationship and academic adjustment. This linkage has long beena research focus, but it can be studied in a more nuanced way. We viewit here within the developmental ecology of adolescence, the larger so-cial structure, and the intersection of the two. The motivation to pursuethis topic in this way is gleaned from life course theory (Elder, 1998;Settersten, 1999, which is usually applied to more temporally orientedquestions but is relevant to studies within one stage of life. This paradigmhighlights the importance of interconnected relationships with significantothers (linked lives), timing, and macro-structural context in organizingand shaping developmental trajectories. Drawing on this paradigm, rela-tionships that occur within major settings (e.g., the family, school, peergroup) overlap to influence adolescent adjustment, but the nature of thisoverlap differs by when it occurs in life and cannot be divorced from thelarger social structure (e.g., gender and race/ethnicity).

This study is also structured by a risk-protection framework borrowedfrom epidemiological research. Risk refers to individual or social factorsthat are associated with a greater likelihood of poor developmental out-comes, whereas protective factors decrease the association between riskfactor and outcome (Garmezy & Masten, 1986). In this study, the poten-tial risk factor is emotionally distant parent-adolescent relationships,whereas support from friends, siblings, and teachers serve as potentialprotective factors that may decrease the negative academic impact of thefamily risk factor. To embed this in more substantive terms, we introducetwo concepts that will undergird our presentation. An arena of comfort is asupportive interpersonal context that enhances the ability to cope withchallenges in other settings or, in other words, an interpersonal example ofa protective factor (Simmons & Blythe, 1987). The process by which pro-tective factors buffer against risk factors is the heart of educational resil-ience—success at school despite difficult circumstances. Bringing theseconcepts together, resilient youth do well despite distant relationshipswith parents, possibly because of nonparental arenas of comfort.

The empirical analyses derived from these conceptual frameworks ex-tend the work of Call and Mortimer (2001), who explored arenas of com-

572 JOURNAL OF FAMILY ISSUES / July 2004



fort for several social psychological outcomes among Midwestern youth.Here, we apply this framework explicitly to the educational realm, exam-ine how these processes play out across developmental stages, and locatethese processes within the contexts of race/ethnicity and gender. Further-more, we conduct this research with a nationally representative sample ofAmerican youth—the ongoing National Longitudinal Study of Adoles-cent Health.

In the following sections, we discuss the importance of social ties foradolescent academic outcomes, paying attention to age, race/ethnic, andgender differences. After describing our sample and methods, we presentresults from a series of structural models on the overlapping and sociallyembedded nature of adolescent relationships.

PARENTS, ADOLESCENTS,AND EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES

At the center of this study is the linkage between adolescent academicadjustment and emotional support from parents. In other words, we do notdelve into parents instrumental support or educational involvement but in-stead explore the academic implications of the affective quality of the par-ent-adolescent relationship. Such an approach is drawn from life coursetheory, which emphasizes how behavioral trajectories are intertwinedwith relationship trajectories and recognizes the connections among vari-ous social contexts.

The linkage between emotional support from parents and adolescentacademic performance is well-established. Warm and supportive relation-ships have been found to promote academic achievement and positive atti-tudes about education, whereas more distant or conflictual relationshipscan be tremendous stressors that disrupt proper functioning in school(Amato & Gilbreth, 1999; Call & Mortimer, 2001; Demo & Acock, 1996;Grotevant, 1998). Thus, in epidemiological terms, parent-adolescentemotional distance is an academic risk factor, its presence increasing theprobability of academic problems.

Sociological interpretations of the academic implications of parent-adolescent dynamics often draw on the concept of social capital, assertingthat close ties improve academic prospects by facilitating the transmissionof important resources from adult to child in the form of instrumentalassistance or pro-school attitudes, whereas distant ties block this trans-mission. Certainly, evidence supports this explanation (Coleman, 1988;Furstenberg, Cook, Eccles, Elder, & Sameroff, 1999). Although evidence

Crosnoe, Elder / FAMILY DYNAMICS 573



does support this scenario, a more social psychological explanation bettermatches our focus on affective bonds and emotional support. Close rela-tionships with parents serve as the secure foundation for adolescents’nav-igation of the external world. With such support, young people have moresecurity and confidence to meet challenges in other domains—negativepeer influences, school changes, academic pressures—and to success-fully complete the developmental tasks of adolescence—identity forma-tion, learning of responsibility, formulation of mature relationships(Dornbusch 1989). Without this secure base, however, adolescents areless able to cope with the rapid changes of their lives and adapt to newroles and environments (Csikszentmihalyi & Schneider, 2000; Simmons& Blythe, 1987).

Crucial to the life course approach is the appreciation of issues of tim-ing and macro-context, which suggest a potential variability in the familydynamics just described. For example, the influence of parents on adoles-cent behavior declines with age, as young people attempt to establish au-tonomy from the family (Crosnoe, 2000). Some evidence suggests thatAfrican American and Hispanic American youth benefit more academi-cally from supportive parenting, whereas Asian American adolescents aremore immune to harsh parenting (Deater-Deckhard, Dodge, Bates, &Pettit, 1996; Steinberg, Dornbusch, & Brown, 1992). Finally, girls tend tohave a greater emotional stake in their relationships with parents and, con-sequently, seem more reactive to parenting in positive and negative ways(Call & Mortimer, 2001; Windle, 1992). Thus, the parent-adolescentrelationship should be examined in relation to timing and context.

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS ASARENAS OF COMFORT

Prior research suggests that a lack of emotional support from parentshampers adolescent academic functioning. This risk factor is the given inthis study. Our main objective is to examine the arenas of comfort thatcounterbalance this risk. To do so, we look at relationships from three pri-mary settings of adolescent life: the peer group, family, and school. Canrelationships in these settings mitigate the potential consequences ofproblems in the parent-adolescent relationship?

This focus derives from the life course principle that young people de-velop within a system of social ties. When these ties are generally positive,they amplify social redundancy, creating a secure, interconnected base ofsupport for adolescents to live their lives and face new experiences in mul-




tiple domains. When supportive relationships mitigate the effects of un-healthy relationships, such overlap is developmentally functional in thatthe secure base necessary for successful development is not underminedby problems in any one domain (Elder & Conger, 2000; Rutter, 1985). Inthe case of this study, adolescents who grow up in the midst of family dis-cord might not be as academically successful as those from more func-tional families, but they will do better than expected if their lives are builton other sources of support. We define success of this kind in difficultcircumstances as educational resilience—nonparental arenas of comfortprotecting against the academic risk of problematic relationships withparents.

What interpersonal contexts promote educational resilience? We focuson relationships with friends, siblings, and teachers as potential arenas ofcomfort. All three loom large in the social worlds of adolescents, andemotional support from all three has been found to be associated with aca-demic behavior (Buhrmester, 1992; Crosnoe, 2000; Sanders & Jordan,2000). Again, the focus of this study is not on the main effects of these re-lationships on academic performance but instead on how they interactwith parent-adolescent relationships to influence academic outcomes.Past research has rarely taken such an approach, and so we have to basemuch of our argument on related topics.

Friendships become more prominent during adolescence, often sup-planting parents as significant others (Crosnoe, 2000). Because of this,support from friends may buffer against a lack of parental support. Indeed,evidence suggests that friendships help young people cope with lifestressors, such as divorce (Hetherington, 1989; Windle, 1992). On theother hand, Call and Mortimer (2001) reported that in their special sam-ple, support from friends did not moderate the impact of family problemson grades.

Sibling relationships are embedded in the same family system as par-ent-adolescent relationships and may be important for resilience (definedin terms of problems with parents). In general, we know less about sib-lings than other relationships. Although young people do not automati-cally turn to siblings in the absence of parental support (Dunn, 1992),those who rely on siblings during problematic family situations (e.g., di-vorce) are better adjusted (Hetherington, 1998; Jenkins & Smith, 1991).This dynamic could generalize to other family problems and to academicoutcomes.

Teachers can play an important role in the academic lives of youngpeople (Muller, Katz, & Dance, 1999). Because of their power to guide,support, and set standards and expectations, teachers may promote educa-




tional resilience in the face of problems between parents and adolescents.Muller (2001) found that support from teachers can protect against the ac-ademic problems associated with nonemotional family disadvantages,whereas Call and Mortimer (2001) found that such support can bufferagainst problems with parents in nonacademic ways. Such research sug-gests that close relationships with teachers may, to some extent, replacesupport that is missing at home.

Thus, past research suggests that emotionally supportive relationshipswith friends, siblings, and teachers may promote educational resilience byserving as arenas of comfort. This phenomena, however, requires a moresystematic treatment, such as recognizing that it may be highly contextspecific. For this reason, we draw on the life course principles of timingand macro-context and examine whether this phenomenon varies by de-velopmental stage, race/ethnicity, and gender.

If we know little about how personal relationships moderate family-related academic risks, then we know next to nothing about how suchmoderation differs by these three factors (or any other). Past research onrelated topics does little to guide us. For example, older adolescents tendto be more oriented to nonparental relationships (Crosnoe, 2000). Thissuggests that they have greater access to sources of emotional support,which increases the protective potential of nonparental relationships. Atthe same time, this suggests that older adolescents may be less affected byproblems with parents, which reduces academic risk and therefore lessensthe need for protection.

A similar confusion surrounds race/ethnicity and gender. White ado-lescents tend to have the most advantages (e.g., resources, status) that pro-mote school success, so that the power of any one domain to derail orenhance their educational trajectories is likely to be lower than for adoles-cents from more disadvantaged groups. Yet past studies have found thatthe ability of nonparental relationships to promote academic success var-ies sharply, and somewhat inconsistently, across minority groups com-pared to Whites (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998; Steinberg et al.,1992). Turning to gender, girls tend to need greater emotional support todo well in school, but they also have closer relationships across the board(Call & Mortimer, 2001; Kuttler, La Greca, & Prinstein, 1999). This sug-gests that the negative impact of distant parent-adolescent relationshipsmay be greater for girls but that girls may be more likely than boys to drawsupport from other sources that counterbalances this negative impact.

Because of the alternative expectations that arise from different read-ings of past research relevant to this topic, we treat our additional analysesas exploratory. Rather than looking at main effects of social relationships




on academic success within different groups, we study whether the inter-action of parental and nonparental relationships differs by developmentalstage, race/ethnicity, and gender.

FAMILY RISK, ARENAS OFCOMFORT, AND EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE

To summarize, this study has two main objectives, both of which arerelated to the proximate developmental settings of adolescence, themacro-structural context in which these settings exist, and the linkage be-tween these two levels. First, we seek to determine whether emotionallysupportive relationships with friends, siblings, and teachers serve as are-nas of comfort that promote educational resilience in problematic familyenvironments. Second, we explore whether this overlap of parental andnonparental relationships is more or less protective in certain populationsubgroups.

METHOD

SAMPLE

This research uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Ado-lescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative study of adoles-cents in Grades 7 through 12. A sample of schools was selected from a listof American high schools provided by the Quality Education Database.To ensure diversity, sampling was stratified by region, urbanicity, schoolsector, racial composition, and school size. Each high school in the samplewas matched to one of its feeder schools, with the probability of the feederschool being selected proportional to its contribution to the high school.More than 70% of the selected schools agreed to participate, with replace-ments selected from each community. This multistage design resulted in afinal sample of 132 schools in 80 communities.

All students in this population completed the In-School questionnairein the 1994-1995 school year. Of these, a subgroup of students, selectedevenly across high school/feeder school pairs, was selected to participatein two waves of in-home interviews in 1995 and 1996. A total of 14,736adolescents participated in both in-home interviews. Our study sampleconsists of Add Health adolescents who meet four requirements: Theyparticipated in both waves of in-home interviews, had one parent inter-




viewed (parent data set, collected at Wave 1), are members of the fourmain ethnic groups (White, African American, Hispanic American, AsianAmerican), and were in Grades 7 through 11 in Wave 1 (to ensure that allyouth in the panel would be in school at Wave 2).

These criteria result in a study sample of 11,788 youth. Sample charac-teristics are presented in Table 1. A majority of the sample is White (56%)and female (51%). Sample adolescents are, on average, about 15 and 16years old and have a B+ grade point average. Table 1 also includes infor-mation on the same factors for the full Wave 1 sample. Comparisons be-tween the two groups reveal some bias due to attrition and selection crite-ria. Compared to the Wave 1 adolescents, the sample adolescents areyounger (recall that we excluded all Wave 1 seniors), better students, andcome from more advantaged backgrounds.

MEASURES

The dependent variable is drawn from the Wave 2 in-home question-naire, whereas all other measures are based on items in the Wave 1 in-home and parent questionnaires.

Off-track academic behavior. The scale for our dependent variableconsists of five items: whether the student has repeated the last grade inschool (1 = yes), whether the student has had trouble in the past schoolyear getting homework done (0 = never to 4 = everyday), the sum ofwhether the student has been expelled or suspended from school in thepast school year (1 = yes for each), whether the student has skipped school


TABLE 1Comparative Statistics for Study Sample

Versus All Add Health Adolescents in Wave 1

Mean (Standard Deviation)

Study Sample Wave 1 Adolescents

Female .51 (.50) .51 (.50)Age 16.01a (1.49) 16.16 (1.72)Intact family .53a (.50) .50 (.50)White .56a (.50) .50 (.50)Grade point average 2.78a (.77) 2.75 (.77)n 11,788 20,745

a. t tests indicate that two means differ significantly across groups (t > 1.96, p < .05).



in the past year, and the reverse-coding of the student’s grade point aver-age (the average of self-reported grades in English, math, social studies,and science in the past year, 1 = F/D and 4 = A). The correlations amongthese items range from .10 (p < .001) to .28 (p < .001). The five items arestandardized and summed to create the scale (M = –.16, SD = 2.63, α =.65). Statistics for each item in this measure are presented in Table 2.

We constructed this scale to move beyond mere measures of achieve-ment (e.g., school grades) and better gauge the social psychological expe-rience of schooling. Low scores on this scale group together a wide varietyof students, including high achievers and those who are just getting by.The high end, however, is more meaningful, identifying the group of stu-dents whose educational careers are in clear trouble.

Emotional distance between parent and adolescent. Our primary inde-pendent variable consists of five composite measures (all coded so thathigher values represent more problematic relationships). One, bondingwith adolescent, is based on parent report, whereas four, bonding tomother and father, communication with parents, activities with parents,and general family cohesion, are based on adolescent report. See Appen-dix A for a complete description of the construction of each of these five


TABLE 2Univariate Statistics for Off-Track Academic Behavior Measure

Frequency (%) Mean (Standard Deviation)

Held back in schoolNo 95.0Yes 5.0

Suspended/expelled from schoolNeither 85.1Either 10.6Both 1.3

Skipped classesNo 66.8Yes 33.2

Had trouble with homeworkNever 30.0Just a few times 41.7About once/week 16.3Almost everyday 8.3Everyday 3.7

Low grade point average 2.20 (.76)



composites. The composites are positively correlated (p < .001), and withthe exception of bonding to adolescent with cohesion, these correlationsare moderate to strong. After standardizing all five measures, we take theirmean for the final scale (M = –.04, SD = .52, α = .66).

Based on the work of Furstenberg et al. (1999), we combine severalcomposites together in this scale in order to tap, more broadly, the overallemotional tone of the parent-adolescent relationship. Some parent-ado-lescent relationships may be high on some factors and low on others, sothat the middle values on this scale may be somewhat ambiguous. Yet thehigh and low ends of the scale represent clear extremes. Theoretically, thismeasure draws on three well-established dimensions of parenting: affec-tive ties, shared activities, and security (Coleman, 1988; Hetherington,1989). Statistically, it combines adolescent and parent reports, which in-creases construct validity and reduces shared method variance (Conger,Reuter, & Conger, 1994).

Friendship. Three components of friendship are considered in thisstudy. Each adolescent was asked a battery of questions about specificfriends, a maximum of five female and five male friends. Involvement isthe sum of four items (1 = yes, 0 = no): whether, in the past week, the ado-lescent had gone to the friend’s house, hung out somewhere with thefriend, and talked on the telephone with the friend, and whether the ado-lescent had spent time with the friend during the past weekend (M = 2.10,SD = 1.07, α = .62). Support is a single item: whether, in the past week, theadolescent talked to the friend about a problem (M = .49, SD = .41).

For each item, scores are averaged across all listed friends. Therefore,if only one friend is named, then the support score for that friend serves asfriends support, but if 10 friends are named, then the average of supportacross the friends serves as friends’ support. The impact of friendshipmight differ depending on the number of friends that an adolescent has, oralternatively, there might be a critical threshold, where having one friendis the crucial distinction. To account for this, we code as zero on involve-ment and support all respondents who name no friends and include a thirdfriendship measure, the number of friends, which is the count of thefriends listed by the respondent (M = 3.05, SD = 2.59). These three com-ponents reflect Hartup’s (1993) call for studying both the qualities andquantity of friendships.

Sibling relationships. Adolescents were also asked questions aboutspecific siblings (maximum = 7). Sibling support refers to emotionalcloseness and is based on a single item: how often the adolescent feels




love for the specific sibling. Responses, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (veryoften), are averaged across siblings (M = 1.17, SD = 1.88). Slightly lessthan half of the sample has no siblings. To avoid excluding these adoles-cents, we code them as zero on support and include a measure for presenceof siblings (1 = yes, 0 = no), based on the count of siblings listed by the re-spondent. This measure is included only as a statistical control. Its inclu-sion converts the sibling support variable into an interaction term, mea-suring support if siblings are present.

Teacher relationships. This scale consists of three items: the extent towhich the adolescent has trouble getting along with teachers, believes thattheir teachers treat students fairly, and feels that teachers care about him orher. Responses to each item range from 1 to 5: almost every day to neverfor the first item, strongly disagree to strongly agree for the second, andnever to very much for the third. The average of the three serves as thecomposite measure (M = 3.72, SD = .76, α = .68). Like several past stud-ies, this measure does not refer to relationships with specific teachers butinstead taps the adolescent’s general feelings about the teachers in his orher school (Sanders & Jordan, 2000; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, &Darling, 1992).

Sociodemographic controls. Seven variables serve as controls: gender,age, parent education, race/ethnicity, parents educational expectations,adolescents’ educational expectations, and prior off-track behavior. SeeAppendix B for descriptive information on these control variables.

PLAN OF ANALYSIS

For hypothesis testing, we estimated a series of structural models(without latent constructs) in Amos 4.0. We used this package because itallowed us to account for measurement error, estimate missing data(through full information maximum likelihood), and compare parametersacross groups (Arbuckle & Wothke, 1999). All models are fully saturatedand can be interpreted like standard regressions.

In our basic modeling plan, we first included Wave 1 parent-adolescentdistance (along with the controls) as a predictor of Wave 2 off-track be-havior. Next, we added Wave1 friend, sibling, and teacher measures aspredictors. Finally, we included interaction terms for parent-adolescentdistance and all nonparental relationships. If an interaction term is signifi-cant (and in the proper direction), then that relationship can be viewed as




an arena of comfort (Garmezy & Masten, 1986; Simmons & Blythe,1987).

The second main question of this study was whether these processesdiffer by developmental stage (defined by school level), race/ethnicity,and gender. We do this with group modeling (Arbuckle & Wothke, 1999).For example, we first estimated a model in which the protective power ofteacher bonding (the interaction of bonding with parenting) is freely esti-mated for boys and girls. In the next step, we constrained this effect to beequal across genders. If the change in χ2/df between these steps was statis-tically significant, then we could conclude that this association differsacross the two groups.

RESULTS

RELATIONSHIPS FROM VARIOUSECOLOGICAL SETTINGS AND ACADEMIC BEHAVIOR

To begin, we offer a preliminary look at the overlap of relationships inthe ecology of adolescent development. Table 3 presents the correla-tions among the important relationship measures and off-track academicbehavior.

Parent-adolescent emotional distance is significantly correlated withother relationships: positively with support from friends and negativelywith support from siblings and teachers. It is also positively correlatedwith off-track behavior, meaning that problems at home coincide with ac-ademic problems. Two other patterns in these data are important. Friend-


TABLE 3Correlations Among Relationships and Academic Behavior

1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Parent-adolescent distance2. Number of friends .023. Friend involvement .01 –.14*4. Friend support .02* –.11* .32*5. Sibling support –.03* .05* –.00 .006. Teacher-bonding –.32* –.02* –.09* –.09* .03*7. Off-track behavior .23* .04* .09* .01 .01 –.31*

*Correlations significant at p < .05.



ship elements seem to go along with problems at home and school.Teacher bonding has the most consistent pattern, negatively correlatedwith all other relationships (except support from siblings) and with off-track academic behavior.

OVERLAPPING RELATIONSHIPS ANDEDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE

Having given a glimpse of the key relationships that constitute adoles-cent life, we now turn to the main objective of this study: to explore rela-tionship overlap by examining whether supportive nonparental relation-ships can serve as arenas of comfort. Table 4 presents results from a seriesof structural models relevant to this question.

Of course, this objective rests on the core idea that emotional distancein the parent-adolescent relationship is an academic risk factor. Our analy-ses indicate that it is (β = .08, p < .001 in Model 1). The strength of thisassociation is second in magnitude only to initial off-track behavior, butsome caution is needed when interpreting the size of the effect. One stan-dard deviation increase in parent-adolescent distance is associated with anincrease in off-track behavior of only 3% of a standard deviation. Giventhe severity of the behaviors cataloged in this academic scale, any increaseis problematic, but we stress that these effects are by no means large.

Inclusion of relationships from other ecological settings reduces thisrisk of parent-adolescent distance even more (β = .06, p < .001 in Model2), although it remains statistically significant. Of the potential arenas ofcomfort, teacher bonding has the strongest impact on off-track behavior(β = –10, p < .001; one standard deviation increase in bonding associatedwith 4% of a standard deviation decrease in off-track behavior). Whereasteacher bonding reduces off-track behavior, friendship-related factors allincrease academic problems. Sibling support has no relation to academicbehavior.

Our main focus is on conditional effects (see Model 3) or interactionsamong relationships. Significant and negative interactions would indi-cate that nonparental relationships are arenas of comfort that provide ref-uge from problems at home (in other words, they promote educationalresilience).

Only one interaction term is significant, but interestingly, it is positivein sign rather than negative. For this interaction between parent-adolescentdistance and teacher bonding, we can sum the main effect of parent-adolescent distance on off-track behavior with the interactive effect ofparent-adolescent distance and teacher-bonding (.30 + .18 = .48, b coeffi-





TABLE 4Results From Regressions Predicting

Off-Track Academic Behavior

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

b β b β b β

Individual characteristicsFemale –.28*** –.05 –.34*** –.06 –.06 –.34***

(.04) (.04) (.04)Age –.11*** –.05 –.12*** –.07 –.12*** –.07

(.01) (.02) .02Parent education –.03*** –.02 –.04*** –.04 –.04*** –.04

(.01) (.01) (.01)African American .19*** .03 .23*** .04 .23*** .04

(.06) (.05) (.05)Hispanic American .21*** .03 .27*** .04 .27*** .04

(.09) (.09) (.09)Asian American .18* .01 .26*** .02 .25*** .02

(.09) (.09) (.09)Parents educational –.02 –.00 –.03 –.01 –.03 –.01

expectations (.03) (.03) (.03)Adolescents educational –.14*** –.05 –.13*** –.05 –.13*** –.05

expectations (.02) (.02) (.02)Prior off-track behavior .43*** .49 .40*** .45 .40*** .45

(.01) (.01) (.01)Relationships

Parent-adolescent distance .42*** .08 .31*** .06 .30*** .06(.04) (.04) (.11)

Number of friends .03*** .03 .03*** .03(.01) (.01)

Friend involvement .10*** .04 .10*** .04(.02) (.02)

Friend support .18*** .03 .19*** .03(.06) (.06)

Presence of siblings .23 .04 .24 .04(.15) (.16)

Sibling support –.02 –.01 –.02 –.01(.04) (.04)

Teacher bonding –.34*** –.10 –.35*** –.10(.03) (.03)

Interaction termsNumber of friends –.01 –.01

(.02)Friend involvement .00 .01

(.04)

(continued)



cients used rather than β) (see Jessor, Van Den Bos, Vanderryn, Costa, &Turbin, 1995). For the sake of interpretation, this sum can stand as the co-efficient for the association between parent-adolescent distance and off-track behavior for adolescents high in teacher bonding (e.g., for thisgroup, one unit increase in parent-adolescent distance is associated with18% of a standard deviation increase in off-track behavior). In otherwords, a supportive relationship with a teacher does not serve as an arenaof comfort but instead appears to exacerbate risk in the family setting.

Thus, emotional distance from parents is a significant academic riskfactor for adolescents. This effect is small in magnitude, although it stillexceeds the effects of family background, race/ethnicity, and academic at-titudes. Nonparental relationships can influence academic behavior, inpositive and negative ways, but do not protect against this parent-relatedrisk. Life course theory suggests an extension of these analyses. This theo-retical paradigm guides research on individual adjustment toward empha-sizing timing and macro-context. In this vein, we now turn to the questionof whether patterns of interactions among parental and nonparental rela-tionships differ by developmental stage (defined by school level), race/ethnicity, and gender.


Friend support .08 .01(.11)

Presence of siblings .04 .01(.27)

Sibling support –.04 –.01(.07)

Teacher bonding .18*** .03(.05)

R2 .30 .33 .33

NOTE: Model 1 is baseline model. Model 2 includes main effects for relationship variables.Model 3 includes interaction terms for all relationship variables (with parent-adolescent dis-tance). b coefficients are unstandardized (with standard errors in parentheses), and β coeffi-cients are standardized.*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

TABLE 4 (continued)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

b β b β b β



EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE AND SCHOOL LEVEL

The developmental nature of adolescent relationships and academicadjustment requires that we take into account issues of timing. The role ofvarious relationships, and the interactions among these roles, may differas adolescents move through this stage of life. A true life course studywould trace these patterns across time, a procedure that is not possiblewith the current data. Instead, we attempt to capture the spirit of this lifecourse principle in our study of educational resilience by breaking downour basic model for high school and middle school students.

The top portion of Table 5 presents descriptive statistics, by schoollevel, for the key variables in the model. High school students have ahigher mean level of parent-adolescent distance than do middle schoolstudents, and they also seem to be more peer oriented than their middleschool counterparts. The bottom portion of Table 5 presents results fromgroup modeling of our basic model by school level. For the most part, thetwo groups are quite similar. Initially, parent-adolescent distance was asignificant academic risk factor for both, although this risk becomesnonsignificant for middle school students once other factors are taken intoaccount. Turning to conditional effects, the pattern seen for high schoolstudents replicates the pattern for the full sample, but the finding from thefull sample on teacher bonding (the interaction suggesting that teacherbonding strengthens the association between parent-adolescent distanceand off-track behavior) does not hold for the middle school students.

Thus, for the most part, the overlap between parental and nonparentalrelationships, when it does occur, does not seem to promote educationalresilience at either stage. Timing is important, however, for the unex-pected overlap, discussed above, between relationships with parents andteachers, which occurs only in later adolescence.

EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCEAND ADOLESCENT RACE/ETHNICITY

Macro-contexts are important to understanding the role of the inter-change between parent-related risk and nonparental arenas of comfort.According to life course theory, the relation between individual develop-ment and linked lives is embedded in macro-contexts. The social struc-tural elements of race/ethnicity and gender are representative of macro-contexts in American society. Again, these data are not equipped tocontextualize developmental or relationship trajectories within race/ethnicity or gender, but they do allow the exploration of how overlap in




developmental settings varies by structural location. To pursue this, weperform race/ethnic-specific analyses of our main model (see Table 6).

The top portion of Table 6 contains mean differences by race/ethnicity.As expected, White and Asian American youth are less likely to be offtrack in school than are African American and Hispanic American youth.


TABLE 5Results From Regressions Predicting

Off-Track Academic Behavior, by School Level

High School (n = 8,532) Middle School (n = 3,045)

Mean Mean

Descriptive statisticsOff-track behavior –.11a –.37bParent-adolescent distance –.01a .13bNumber of friends 3.19a 2.55bFriend involvement 2.17a 1.91bFriend support .52a .41 bSibling support 1.16 1.10Teacher bonding 3.71 3.74

Group Modeling b β b β

Main effectsParent-adolescent distance .24*** (.11) .05 .33 (.22) .06Number of friends .02* (.01) .03 .03 (.02) .06Friend involvement .05* (.02) .03 .16*** (.04) .03Friend support .15* (.17) .02 .08 (.11) .01Presence of siblings .18 (.19) .01 .53 (.31) .09Sibling support –.02 (.05) –.03 –.08 (.05) –.06Teacher bonding –.38*** (.05) –.11 –.37*** (.06) –.11

Interaction termsNumber of friends –.01 (.02) –.00 –.04 (.04) –.02Friend involvement –.00 (.04) –.00 .03 (.08) .01Friend support .17 (.12) .01 –.16 (.21) –.01Presence of siblings .14 (.32) .02 –.38 (.55) .04Sibling support –.08 (.08) –.03 .14 (.14) .05Teacher bonding .22***a (.06) .04 .01b (.09) .00

R2 .33 .34

NOTE: Controlling for gender, age, parent education, race/ethnicity, parents educational ex-pectations, adolescents educational expectations, and prior off-track behavior. b coefficientsare unstandardized (with standard errors in parentheses), and β coefficients are standardized.Coefficients with different subscripts differ significantly (p < .05) across school level, ac-cording to one-way ANOVA for means an ∆χ2/df for interactions.*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.



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Asian American and Hispanic American youth tend to be more distantfrom parents, with African American youth having the least distant re-lationships. Other personal relationships show no clear pattern of race/ethnic differences. Asian American adolescents have the most friends andreceive the most support from teachers. Whites spend the most time withfriends. African American adolescents lag behind the others in student-teacher relationships. Hispanic American youth lag behind the others insupport from siblings.

Does the ability of nonparental relationships to serve as arenas of com-fort differ by race/ethnicity? The bottom portion of Table 6 contains re-sults from group models relevant to this question. Results for Whites rep-licate those of the full sample; parent-adolescent distance is a slight riskfactor, no nonparental relationship reduces this risk, and teacher bondingappears to increase this risk.

Results from three minority groups, however, offer some intriguingdifferences. Before adding the interaction terms, parent-adolescent dis-tance was a significant academic risk factor for all groups, although thisrisk became nonsignificant in subsequent steps of analysis. Friendshipshave a dualistic interaction with parental distance among African Ameri-can adolescents. The negative interaction term for friends support in thisgroup (b = –.48, p < .05, 1 unit increase in support associated with a 18%standard deviation decrease in off-track behavior) suggests that emotion-ally supportive friendships promote educational resilience. On the otherhand, the positive interaction for involvement in this group (b = .20, p <.05, 7% standard deviation increase in off-track behavior) suggests thatsuch involvement is associated with the academic influence of parent-adolescent distance being even more problematic.

Hispanic American youth also have a significant interaction betweensupport from friends and parent-adolescent distance, but unlike AfricanAmerican youth, it is positive in sign and larger in magnitude (b = .62, p <.05, 24% standard deviation increase in off-track behavior for every oneunit increase in support). Like involvement with friends for AfricanAmerican youth and teacher bonding for African American and Whiteyouth, support from friends does not counterbalance the parent-relatedrisk but instead appears to strengthen this risk. For Asian American youth,we see a significant interaction term for teacher bonding (b = –.54, p < .05,20% standard deviation decrease in off-track behavior) and involvementwith friends (b = –.47, p < .05, 17% standard deviation decrease in off-track behavior). Unlike all other groups, these interactions, which aresomewhat moderate in size, suggest that support from nonparental adults




and friends can be arenas of comfort when emotional support is lacking athome.

Of course, issues of timing, as well as linked lives, may be contex-tualized within the larger social structure, and so we also performed by-race/ethnic analyses within school levels. The results of these analyses arefar too voluminous to present in tabular form, but we can summarize thegeneral pattern. Analyses for high school students show basically thesame pattern of results as seen in Table 6. Analyses of middle school stu-dents, however, show some differences.

Among White youth in middle school, no nonparental relationshipsinteracted with parent-adolescent distance in a positive or negative way,unlike White high school students, for whom we saw an interaction forteacher bonding. For African American adolescents in middle school, theprotective role of friends’ support is the same as for their counterparts inhigh school, but the problematic role of involvement with friends andteacher bonding, seen among older students, does not occur. In addition,the interaction of friends’ support and parent-adolescent distance for His-panic American students, seen in the full model, only held in high school.Unfortunately, we could not break up Asian American youth by schoollevel, due to a lack of statistical power.

To summarize, nonparental relationships can protect against parent-related risk, but this protection depends, to some extent, on timing, themacro-context of race/ethnicity, and the interaction between relation-ships. For African American youth, friends’ support protects againstproblems at home. For Asian American youth only, close relationshipswith teachers are protective. At the same time, in some circumstances,nonparental relationships are associated with parent-adolescent distancebeing an even stronger risk factor, as in the case of friendship involvementamong older African American youth, teacher bonding among olderWhite and African American youth, and friends’ support among olderHispanic American youth.

EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE ANDADOLESCENT GENDER

A second element representative of the larger social structure, gender,could also be an important macro-context for the interactions betweenparental risk and nonparental protection. Consequently, we performed thesame sets of analyses for gender as for race/ethnicity. Table 7 contains theresults of these analyses. As expected, girls have fewer academic prob-lems. Although boys and girls do not differ in emotional distance from




parents, girls receive more emotional support from friends, siblings, andteachers.

Multivariate analyses show some interesting gender differences. Be-fore adding the interactions, parent-adolescent distance was a risk factorfor both groups, but this risk became nonsignificant for girls in the final


TABLE 7Descriptive Statistics and Selected Results From Group Modeling

of Off-Track Behavior, by Gender

Boys (n = 5,767) Girls (n = 6,021)

Descriptive Statistics Mean Mean

Off-track behavior .23a –.54bParent-adolescent distance –.04 –.03Number of friends 3.05 3.04Friend involvement 2.12a 2.07bFriend support .37b .61aSibling support 1.12b 1.23aTeacher-bonding 3.68b 3.76a

Group Modeling b β b β

Main effectsParent-adolescent distance .25 (.17) .05 .40** (.15) .09Number of friends .04* (.01) .03 .03* (.01) .03Friend involvement .10*** (.03) .04 .11* (.03) .05Friend support .16* (.08) .02 .21 (.05) .03Presence of siblings .36 (.22) .06 .10 (.23) –.02Sibling support –.05 (.05) –.03 .00 (.05) .01Teacher-bonding –.31*** (.04) –.09 –.39*** (.04) –.12

Interactions termsNumber of friends .03 (.02) –.01 –.01 (.02) –.00Friend involvement .01 (.06) .01 .01 (.05) .00Friend support .38*a (.17) .03 –.21*b (.10) .03Presence of siblings .25 (.38) .03 –.15 (.32) –.02Sibling support –.11 (.10) –.03 .02 (.09) .01Teacher bonding .28*a (.07) .05 .08b (.06) .02

R2 .32 .30

NOTE: Controlling for age, parent education, race/ethnicity, parents educational expecta-tions, adolescents educational expectations, and prior off-track behavior. b coefficients areunstandardized (with standard errors in parentheses), and β coefficients are standardized.Coefficients with different subscripts indicate significant gender difference (p < .05), accord-ing to one-way ANOVA for means an ∆χ2/df for interactions.*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.



model. Turning to interactions, support from friends offers the greatestcontrast between boys and girls. For girls, the negative interaction term forsupport from friends (b = –.21, p < .05) suggests that this factor is an arenaof comfort that counterbalances parent-related risk, but the opposite istrue for boys (b = .30, p < .05). The problematic role of teacher bondingdiscussed above only holds among boys (b = .28, p < .001), but teacherbonding does not interact significantly with parent-adolescent distancefor girls.

Again, we reestimated this group model by school level. The resultsjust described for boys hold only in high school. Analysis of middleschool boys reveals no meso-system level interactions, protective or oth-erwise. For girls, we see significant interactions in middle school only.The protective interaction of friends’ support seen in the full sample alsooccurs among younger girls, but a nonprotective interaction (e.g., increas-ing risk) also occurs in this group for support from siblings.

To summarize, girls tend to enjoy more support than boys in non-parental relationships, but in general, they do not necessarily derivegreater protection from these relationships. Only supportive friendshipsserve as arenas of comfort for girls and only in middle school. No personalrelationship serves as an arena of comfort for boys at either school level,and some actually operate in the opposite direction. Thus, boys and girlsare more alike than different in the overlap of relationships in their lives,but their differences also depend on their developmental stage (if schoollevel is a proxy for stage).

CONCLUSION

A key developmental task of adolescence is to establish independencefrom parents, but this independence should develop within a supportivefamily environment. The absence of close relationships with parents is ac-ademically problematic for adolescents, just as it is for children, whetherit results from the traits and behaviors of the parent, adolescent, or both.Yet adolescents are also active participants in a larger social world that ex-tends far beyond their families. This expanded interpersonal world pro-vides potential relationships to counterbalance what is lacking at homeand to reinforce what is right at home. In applying the life course perspec-tive to educational resilience, our goals have been to explore the nature ofthese overlapping relationships during adolescence, to determine whethersuch overlap promotes educational resilience, to examine the role of tim-ing in conditioning the protective function of this overlap, and to con-




textualize this constellation within the larger structures of race/ethnicityand gender.

Like past studies, we have shown that families can be a source of aca-demic risk. Such risk involves more than socioeconomic disadvantage butalso a lack of emotional bonding between parents and adolescents. Youngpeople who lack support at home, in the form of an absence of emotionalties and positive interactions, are more likely to get off track in school, inthe form of lower engagement, attachment, and achievement, even con-trolling for differences in family background, parents’ and adolescents’attitudes about education, and prior academic behavior. Thus, the aca-demic importance of this home-school connection encompasses the veryfoundation of the parent-adolescent relationship—its ability to serve as apsychological base for the navigation of extrafamilial contexts. If thisbase is undermined, then adolescents may lack the confidence and consci-entiousness to meet challenges, pursue tough goals, and cope with adver-sity. Lacking these abilities, they might be overwhelmed by school and, inturn, disengage.

Unlike most studies, we have also explored how this parent-related riskcan be counterbalanced by alternate sources of emotional support. In gen-eral, supportive nonparental relationships are related to academic out-comes in positive (e.g., teacher bonding) and negative (e.g., friends) ways,but they do not serve as arenas of comfort. These findings mirror those ofCall and Mortimer (2001) on school grades in a special sample of adoles-cents. Yet this pattern of findings is not the final word. Unlike Call andMortimer, we worked with nationally representative data (AddHealth)that allowed a more nuanced exploration of these processes that can bettercapture the guiding principles of the life course perspective. For our pur-poses, this nuance refers to variability in these processes that is related totiming and macro-context. This nuance is at the heart of the phenomenonof resilience during the adolescent stage of the life course.

In some cases, nonparental personal relationships are directly relatedto academic outcomes. These associations do not mean that they are are-nas of comfort, no matter what their positive effects may be. To be anarena of comfort, a nonparental relationship has to reduce the impact of arisk factor (parent-adolescent distance) on a developmental outcome (aca-demic behavior). For the most part, nonparental relationships do not serveas arenas of comfort, except in specific examples. These examples arehighly context specific—related to the intersection of timing, macro-con-texts, and type of relationship. For example, the overlap among parentaland nonparental relationships is most functional for Asian Americanyouth and for girls in middle school.




Among Asian American youth, a supportive relationship with a teach-ers can be an arena of comfort that mitigates the academic risk of an emo-tionally distant relationship with parents. If, as Chao (1994) suggested,the training components of Asian American parenting is crucial to the suc-cess of Asian American youth, then the absence of such disciplined guid-ance and management may derail academic trajectories among theseyouth. Teachers are authority figures who can offer support and guidanceand are likely to stand in when parent-adolescent relationships breakdown. In other words, due to the unique nature of parenting in this popula-tion, teachers may be more capable of filling voids in the lives of AsianAmerican adolescents. In this group, involvement with friends also ap-pears to be an arena of comfort for these adolescents. According toSteinberg et al. (1992), peer involvement is often more positive, in aca-demic terms, among Asian American youth because their peer groups areoften organized around academic activities. Such a phenomenon couldexplain how just spending time with friends, not necessarily receivingsupport from friends, could lessen the academic risk of problems at home.

For younger girls, a supportive friendship can also be an arena of com-fort. Girls tend to be more oriented toward interpersonal relationships andto develop stronger emotional ties with friends (Crosnoe, 2000). For thesereasons, they may be more likely to draw on one source of support whenanother is lacking and to derive more emotional sustenance from relation-ships with age mates in troubled times than boys. As they get older, thefunctionality of this overlap may decrease as their vulnerability to prob-lems at home decrease or as their peer relationships develop into romanticrelationships.

The main premise of this study was that parental and nonparental rela-tionships would condition each other in a functional way. The phenomenajust described capture such functionality. Such functional overlap wasrare; overlap itself was more common. Instead, we often saw what ap-peared to be dysfunctional overlap—potential protective factors related toa stronger association between risk and the academic outcome. In otherwords, we also saw examples of arenas of discomfort. We are hard-pressed to explain such examples, but we can offer some speculation.

The most glaring example of this arena of discomfort phenomenoncenters on teacher bonding. Supportive relationships with teachers weredirectly related to lower off-track behavior in practically every groupstudied. We hypothesized that this source of support would also reducethe association between the parent-related risk and academic behavior,but it did not. In fact, teacher bonding appeared to increase this associa-tion. How could this be? One possibility is that boys, especially older




boys, may receive greater attention and support from teachers becausethey have a history of academic problems, which, of course, are probablyrelated to their family problems. Such support may translate into morepositive feelings about teachers. Our analyses cannot tease out thebidirectional nature of relations in such a scenario. We should stress againthat although these interactive effects contradict our expectations, thedirect effects of teacher bonding are in line with past research.

Other unexpected findings (e.g., arenas of discomfort) concernsfriendship. Among African American youth, spending more time withfriends exacerbates the impact of parent-related risk, whereas having sup-portive friendships assuages its impact. Heavy involvement with friendsmay take away from school-related activities, whereas emotional supportfrom friends can bolster youth in facing challenges, including academicones. Such findings add to the expanding literature on the role of peers inthe educational experiences of African American youth, suggesting thatthe emotional tone of peer dynamics needs to be considered along withoft-studied peer values. For older Hispanic American youth, however,support from friends is related to a greater association between risk andoutcome. Because Hispanic American families tend to be more orientedtoward family relationships, their drawing of support from friends mightreveal a degree of interpersonal conflict that is related to their overallfunctioning.

Each ethnic group has its own patterns of relationship overlap, andthese patterns may be embedded in the different experiences of eachgroup and the meaning that they attach to the family and to academics. Ingeneral, the risk of emotional distance between parents and adolescents ismore intractable among White and Hispanic American youth and moremalleable among African American and Asian American youth.

The lack of malleability of parent-related risk among Whites may berelated to their economic advantages. In this group, the disadvantage ofweak bonds with parents may lie more in the instrumental support that islost (e.g., parents’ investments and knowledge of education), which maybe harder to replace than psychological resources. For Hispanic Americanyouth, the reasons for this lack of protective overlap are probably quitedifferent. Hispanic American youth are often economically disadvan-taged and, of all groups studied here, have the most academic difficulties.They, like Asian American youth, also represent an incredibly heteroge-neous population, including many immigrants with varying languageskills. The cultural divide that separates many Hispanic American youthfrom other groups and from the American school system may be even




harder to bridge when they lack a firm foundation of instrumental andemotional support at home.

The greater malleability of parent-related academic risk, in positiveand negative ways, among African American youth largely centers ontheir peer relationships. Such patterns of arenas of comfort and discom-fort suggest that that the importance of their relationships with parents liesin social support—parents making adolescents feel secure and worthy inthe face of a school system that often alienates them. Friends may providealternate sources of support that mirror this ability of parents, even thoughexcessive peer orientation can be problematic. Among Asian Americans,relationship overlap is more often functional than not. The unique orienta-tion of Asian American youth, their friends, and parents to schooling andschool success may increase the likelihood of ecological interactions pro-moting healthy outcomes.

Of course, the interactions presented here, although statistically signif-icant, are small in magnitude. No interaction explained more than onefourth of a standard deviation in the dependent variable of off-track be-havior. The magnitude of these associations begs the question of whetherthey are substantively meaningful. We contend that they are. These asso-ciations arise from a conservative analytical framework that measures achange in academic behavior—behavior that may very well be firmly en-trenched by adolescence—over a 1-year period. Still, they are strongerthan the associations for more status-related factors, such as family back-ground. We also argue that in light of the problematic nature of the behav-iors cataloged in our dependent variable, any significant reduction in off-track behavior is meaningful.

This study has built on past research, especially that of Call andMortimer (2001), by focusing on educational resilience (as opposed togeneral resilience or resilience in other domains) and by drawing on alarger, more representative sample that allows for intragroup analyses ofdevelopmental stage, race/ethnicity, and gender. We encourage others tobuild on this research in several ways.

One clear avenue for future research is to explore other dimensions ofpersonal relationships. Here, we examined the affective tone of parent-adolescent relationships and the supportive features of three types of non-parental relationships. Although we certainly did not measure the parent-adolescent relationship simplistically, we could have also examined otheraspects of this relationship, such as parental hostility and parental non-residency, or other aspects of the family system, such as conflict betweenparents. Other nonparental relationships could also be important to resil-ient pathways, such as those with mentors (e.g., ministers, coaches, Big




Brothers or Sisters), romantic partners, and grandparents. In looking atsuch relationships, researchers should also take into account the interac-tions between the qualities of the relationship and the characteristics andbehaviors of those involved in the relationship.

Furthermore, our treatment of resilience could certainly be expanded.We examined resilience here by proxy, as the reduction of risk. Resiliencecan be measured more directly by, for example, creating a category ofhigh-achieving youth from problematic family environments and thenpredicting membership in this category. Moreover, the importance ofschool level demonstrated here reinforces the benefits of longitudinal ap-proaches to resilience. The nature of relationships change with age, asdoes the role of young people in school. Modeling trajectories across mul-tiple time points, especially in relation to social context, is the best way tounderstand resilience.

Resilience during the early stages of the life course is a complex phe-nomenon. With few exceptions, risk and protective factors are not univer-sal but vary in relation to different domains, proximate ecological con-texts, and social structural factors. This study only hints at the challengesof studying how some young people cope with risk. The complexity ofresilience, as captured here, illustrates the more general complexity of theadolescent life course. We can only understand the resilient pathways ofyoung people by viewing them as dynamic, intertwined with the experi-ences of significant others, and embedded in the structure of the largersociety.




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epor

ted

lack

of

bond

ing

with

ado

lesc

ent

(M =

1.8

1, S

D =

.64,

α=

.74)

Mea

n of

par

ents

ass

essm

ent o

f ho

w w

ell h

e or

she

get

s al

ong

with

ado

lesc

ent,

the

exte

nt to

whi

ch h

e or

she

mak

es d

e-ci

sion

s ab

out t

he a

dole

scen

ts li

fe w

ith th

e ad

oles

cent

, the

deg

ree

to w

hich

he

or s

he c

an tr

ust t

he a

dole

scen

t, an

d sa

t-is

fact

ion

with

his

or

her

rela

tions

hip

with

the

adol

esce

nt (

1 to

5 =

alw

ays

to n

ever

for

firs

t thr

ee it

ems,

str

ongl

y ag

ree

to s

tron

gly

disa

gree

for

fou

rth)

.A

dole

scen

t-re

port

ed la

ckof

bon

ding

with

par

ents

(M =

1.7

5, S

D =

.66,

α=

.88)

For

fath

ers,

ado

lesc

ents

rat

e ho

w c

lose

they

fee

l to

thei

r fa

ther

s, h

ow lo

ving

thei

r fa

ther

s ar

e, h

ow s

atis

fied

they

are

with

the

com

mun

icat

ion

with

ado

lesc

ent,

and

how

sat

isfi

ed th

ey a

re w

ith th

e re

latio

nshi

p (a

= .8

9). F

or m

othe

rs, a

do-

lesc

ents

ans

wer

sam

e ite

ms,

plu

s ho

w m

uch

they

fee

l tha

t the

ir m

othe

rs c

are

abou

t the

m a

nd h

ow o

ften

thei

r m

othe

rsta

lk w

ith th

em w

hen

thin

gs g

o w

rong

(α=

85)

. Tak

e th

e m

ean

for

each

par

ent,

and

then

the

mea

n ac

ross

par

ents

, if

have

info

rmat

ion

for

both

(1

= v

ery

muc

h, 5

= n

ot a

t all)

.A

dole

scen

t-re

port

ed la

ck o

fco

mm

unic

atio

n w

ith p

ar-

ents

(M

= 2

.16,

SD

=1.

18,α

= .7

0)

For

each

par

ent,

adol

esce

nts

rate

how

oft

en th

ey ta

lked

with

par

ents

, in

the

past

mon

th, a

bout

som

eone

the

adol

esce

ntw

as d

atin

g, a

per

sona

l pro

blem

the

adol

esce

nt w

as h

avin

g, s

choo

l or

grad

es, a

nd th

ings

that

wer

e go

ing

on a

t sch

ool.

Take

the

sum

for

eac

h pa

rent

, and

then

the

mea

n ac

ross

par

ents

, if

have

info

rmat

ion

for

both

(0

= y

es, 1

= n

o).

Ado

lesc

ent-

repo

rted

lack

of s

hare

d ac

tiviti

es w

ithpa

rent

s (M

= 3

.58,

SD

=1.

04,α

= .6

4)

For

each

par

ent,

adol

esce

nts

resp

ond

whe

ther

, in

the

last

mon

th, t

hey

had

gone

sho

ppin

g, p

laye

d a

spor

t, go

ne to

a r

eli-

giou

s ev

ent,

gone

to a

mov

e or

oth

er c

ultu

ral e

vent

, or

wor

ked

on a

pro

ject

with

thei

r pa

rent

s. T

ake

the

sum

for

eac

h,an

d th

en th

e m

ean

acro

ss p

aren

ts, i

f ha

ve in

form

atio

n fo

r bo

th (

0 =

yes

, –1

= n

o).

Ado

lesc

ent-

repo

rted

lack

of f

amily

coh

esio

n (M

=2.

00, S

D =

.70,

α=

.78)

Ado

lesc

ents

ass

ess

the

degr

ee to

whi

ch th

ey f

eel t

hat t

he p

eopl

e in

thei

r fa

mili

es u

nder

stan

d th

em, t

heir

fam

ily h

as f

unto

geth

er, a

nd th

eir

pare

nts

pay

atte

ntio

n to

them

(1

= v

ery

muc

h, 5

= n

ot a

t all)

.

599



AP

PE

ND

IX B

Des

crip

tion

s an

d D

escr

ipti

ve S

tati

stic

s fo

r C

ontr

ol V

aria

bles

Con

trol

Var

iabl

eD

escr

ipti

on

Gen

der

(51%

fem

ale,

49%

mal

e)Se

lf-r

epor

ted

gend

er (

1 =

fem

ale,

0 =

mal

e)

Age

(M

= 1

6.01

,SD

= 1

.49)

Self

-rep

orte

d ag

e, in

yea

rs

Pare

nt e

duca

tion

(M =

5.4

8, S

D =

2.2

3)Pa

rent

al r

epor

t of

educ

atio

nal a

ttain

men

t (1

= e

ight

h gr

ade

or le

ss; 2

= m

ore

than

eig

hth

grad

e, le

ss th

an h

igh

scho

olgr

adua

tion;

3 =

voc

atio

nal i

nste

ad o

f hi

gh s

choo

l; 4

= h

igh

scho

ol g

radu

ate;

5 =

com

plet

ed a

GE

D; 6

= v

ocat

iona

lsc

hool

aft

er h

igh

scho

ol; 7

= s

ome

colle

ge; 8

= c

olle

ge g

radu

ate;

9 =

pro

fess

iona

l tra

inin

g). T

he in

terv

iew

ed p

aren

ts(m

ostly

mot

hers

) ga

ve in

form

atio

n fo

r se

lf a

nd s

pous

e. W

e to

ok th

e m

ean

of b

oth

if b

oth

avai

labl

e or

the

valu

e of

one

if o

nly

one

avai

labl

e.R

ace/

ethn

icity

(56

% W

hite

,22

% A

fric

an A

mer

ican

,17

% H

ispa

nic

Am

eric

an,

5% A

sian

Am

eric

an)

Self

-rep

orte

d ra

ce/e

thni

city

(fo

ur d

umm

y va

riab

les)

Pare

nts

educ

atio

nal e

x-pe

ctat

ions

(M

= 1

.30,

SD =

.71)

Pare

nt r

espo

nse

to: H

ow d

isap

poin

ted

wou

ld y

ou b

e if

ado

lesc

ent d

id n

ot g

radu

ate

from

col

lege

? (1

= n

ot d

isap

poin

ted

to 3

= v

ery

disa

ppoi

nted

).

Ado

lesc

ents

edu

catio

nal

expe

ctat

ions

(M

= 4

.46,

SD =

1.0

1)

Ado

lesc

ent r

espo

nse

to: O

n a

scal

e of

1 to

5, w

here

1 is

low

and

5 is

hig

h, h

ow m

uch

do y

ou w

ant t

o go

to c

olle

ge?

Prio

r of

f-tr

ack

beha

vior

(M =

–.3

0, S

D =

3.0

0)

See

expl

anat

ion

for

Wav

e 2

off-

trac

k be

havi

or in

text

.

600



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