Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2003-07
Wishing to work: New perspectives on how adolescents’ part-time work intensity is linked to educational disengagement,substance use,and other problem behaviours
This study examines interrelations among students’ educational engagement,
desired and actual school-year employment, substance use, and other problem
behaviours. Cross-sectional findings from representative samples of 8th-, 10th-, and
12th-grade students in the United States, totalling over 300,000 respondents
surveyed during the years 1992–1998, include the following: Large
majorities of adolescents wish to work part-time during the school year, although
most in earlier grades are not actually employed. Those who desire to work long
hours tend to have low grades and low college aspirations; they are also more likely
than average to use cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. Students’
preferences for part-time work emerge at younger ages (i.e., earlier
grades) than actual work, and the preferences show equal or stronger
correlations with educational disengagement and problem behaviours.
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