The purpose of this study was first to compare 18-19-year-old male abstainers with alcohol consumers, and especially light consumers, regarding degree of sociability as indicated by their (in)security in the company of others, their number of close friends, intimate conversations with friends and their popularity in school. Secondly, we analysed the importance of antecedents to and covariates of abstinence. In addition, the significant antecedents and covariates gave us information as to abstinence patterns. The study was based on a survey of all Swedish males, 18-19 years old, conscripted for military service in 1969-70. Data had been collected by means of questionnaires and psychological interviews, giving measures of each respondent's social background, psychiatric/psychological and psychosomatic health status, substance use, deviant behaviour and degree of sociability. Poor sociability was more common among the abstainers than among all the other categories of drinkers, including the light consumers. The conscripts' social background, and especially their fathers' drinking habits, had the strongest effects in explaining abstinence. Sixty-two per cent of all abstainers had non-drinking fathers, compared to 28% of the light consumers. As to the majority of abstainers, this indicates a link between the social background of temperance and their own reported abstinence. Their poor sociability could be a consequence of abstaining at a young age when abstinence is uncommon. Those who abstained despite a drinking father showed a worsening psychological status, suggesting a link between psychologically impaired health, poor sociability and abstinence. Though the abstainers were the least sociable, the difference between the abstainers, the light consumers and the moderate consumers in other categories were generally small.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Academic success across the transition from primary to secondary schooling among lower-income adolescents: understanding the effects of family resources and gender.
Department of Psychology, Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West PY-170, Montreal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada. Lisa.Serbin@Concordia.CA
Successful academic performance during adolescence is a key predictor of lifetime achievement, including occupational and social success. The present study investigated the important transition from primary to secondary schooling during early adolescence, when academic performance among youth often declines. The goal of the study was to understand how risk factors, specifically lower family resources and male gender, threaten academic success following this "critical transition" in schooling. The study involved a longitudinal examination of the predictors of academic performance in grades 7-8 among 127 (56 % girls) French-speaking Quebec (Canada) adolescents from lower-income backgrounds. As hypothesized based on transition theory, hierarchical regression analyses showed that supportive parenting and specific academic, social and behavioral competencies (including spelling ability, social skills, and lower levels of attention problems) predicted success across this transition among at-risk youth. Multiple-mediation procedures demonstrated that the set of compensatory factors fully mediated the negative impact of lower family resources on academic success in grades 7-8. Unique mediators (social skills, spelling ability, supportive parenting) also were identified. In addition, the "gender gap" in performance across the transition could be attributed statistically to differences between boys and girls in specific competencies observed prior to the transition, as well as differential parenting (i.e., support from mother) towards girls and boys. The present results contribute to our understanding of the processes by which established risk factors, such as low family income and gender impact development and academic performance during early adolescence. These "transitional" processes and subsequent academic performance may have consequences across adolescence and beyond, with an impact on lifetime patterns of achievement and occupational success.
Owing to physical inaccessibility persons with mobility restrictions and other functional limitations often face problems in public environments, leading to restrictions in activity and participation. To investigate general accessibility and perceived problems of accessibility to the public environment in a town centre, as well as visiting preferences to public facilities, among teenagers with functional limitations.
An interview questionnaire specific to a south Swedish town was constructed and used with 33 Swedish teenagers with functional limitations.
To a varying degree, all 33 teenagers commented on accessibility problems, e.g. concerning uneven surface material outdoors, steps at entrances, heavy doors and restricted space indoors. The results also indicated that teenagers with functional limitations to a high extent want to visit the same environments as other teenagers, but that it is often impossible owing to accessibility problems. Furthermore, because of accessibility problems, many of the teenagers were dependent on personal assistance.
Inaccessibility results in dependence, which might affect personal development negatively, and much effort are required in order to ensure activity and societal participation. Efficient priorities in public environment accessibility matters and discussions with the actors involved require valid and reliable data on local accessibility problems.
In this study we made an effort to identify the kinds of strategies adolescents deploy in achievement context in an unselected sample of Swedish adolescents. The participants were 880 14-15-year-old comprehensive school students (399 boys and 481 girls) from a middle-sized town in central Sweden. Six groups of adolescents were identified according to the strategies they deployed. Four of them, i.e. optimistic, defensive pessimistic, self-handicapping and learned helplessness strategies, were similar to those described previously in the literature. The results showed that membership in the functional strategy groups, such as in mastery-oriented and defensive pessimist groups, was associated with well-being, school adjustment and achievement, and low levels of norm-breaking behaviour. By contrast, membership in the dysfunctional, for example self-handicapping and learned helplessness strategy groups, was associated with low levels of well-being, and of school adjustment, and a higher level of norm-breaking behaviour.
This study investigates the long-term effects of parental divorce on adolescent psychological adjustment and well-being, and to what extent the effects are accounted for by parental psychological distress. Data were collected among 8,984 Norwegian adolescents (13-19 years) and their parents. Outcome variables were symptoms of anxiety and depression, subjective well-being, and three areas of school problems. Parental divorce was found to be associated with both higher mean levels and larger variances in adolescent problems. Divorce and parental distress contributed independently to adolescent distress, supporting the notion of "double exposure" effects. The prevalence of adolescents with substantial distress symptoms was 14% among those with non-distressed non-divorced parents and 30% among those with divorced and distressed parents. In general effects remained when controlling for demographic factors. Long-term effects of divorce on symptoms of anxiety and depression were stronger among girls than among boys.
The purpose of this article was to describe adolescent coping after the death of a loved one. Data were obtained by two self-report questionnaires filled in by 14-16-year-old pupils in two secondary schools in Finland. The sample consisted of 89 adolescents (70% girls) who had each experienced the death of a loved one. The instrument used in the study was developed by Hogan and DeSantis. The article reports the responses to two open-ended questions. The data were analyzed using content analysis. The most important factors that helped adolescents cope with grief were self-help and support from parents, relatives and friends. However, the official social support system was not experienced as very helpful. No one reported help, for example, from school health services. According to the adolescents, fear of death, a sense of loneliness and intrusive thoughts were factors that hindered coping with grief. Some respondents felt that parents or friends were an additional burden on them. The results are discussed in terms of identifying the different impact of social support, the importance of self-help and professional help. Knowledge of factors that have an effect on adolescent coping with bereavement is important for families, effective nursing practice, school health services and parents.
In a study of a total high-school population, 2300 students aged 16-17 years were screened for depression (BDI, CES-DC). Those with a self-evaluation indicating depression, together with controls matched for sex, age, and class were interviewed (DICA-R-A). The 177 pairs, where both individuals were interviewed and the control had no lifetime diagnosis of depression, were analysed in the form of paired differences for psychosocial factors and compared within diagnostic groups. The psychosocial factors were measured with the ISSI subscales and six attitude questions about family climate (KSP). Adolescents with an episode of major depression during part of the last year did not differ from their controls. Those with long-lasting depressive symptoms, i.e. dysthymia with or without episodes of major depression, had a more limited social interaction and were not satisfied with it. They also evaluated their family climate and attachment network as being more inadequate than did their controls. Depressed adolescents with comorbid conduct disorder had a more negative evaluation of availability and adequacy of both social interaction and attachment network than their controls. This group had a very negative view of their family climate. Since this is a case-control study conclusions cannot be drawn about cause and effect.
The purpose of this review was to summarize the research on adolescent gambling with implications for research and prevention or intervention.
The methodology involved a comprehensive and systematic search of "adolescent or youth gambling" in three diverse electronic databases (MedlineAdvanced, PsycINFO, and Sociological Abstracts) and three peer-reviewed journals (International Journal of Gambling Studies, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, and Journal of Gambling Issues).
The search resulted in 137 articles (1985-2010) focusing on gambling among youth aged between 9 and 21 years: 103 quantitative, 8 qualitative, and 26 non-empirical. The study of adolescent gambling can be summarized as follows: (a) it is conducted by a relatively small group of researchers in Britain, Canada, and the United States; (b) it is primarily prevalence-focused, quantitative, descriptive, school-based, and atheoretical; (c) it has most often been published in the Journal of Gambling Studies; (d) it is most often examined in relation to alcohol use; (e) it has relatively few valid and reliable screening instruments that are developmentally appropriate for adolescents, and (f) it lacks racially diverse samples.
Four recommendations are presented for both research and prevention or intervention which are as follows: (1) to provide greater attention to the development and validation of survey instruments or diagnostic criteria to assess adolescent problem gambling; (2) to begin to develop and test more gambling prevention or intervention strategies; (3) to not only examine the co-morbidity of gambling and alcohol abuse, but also include other behaviors such as sexual activity; and (4) to pay greater attention to racial and ethnic differences in the study of adolescent gambling.
