Communities as Contexts for Adolescent Development

Abstract

Research on the relation between context and adolescent development has been driven by an awareness of increases in problem behaviors during adokscence and an interest in the role of contextualfactors that may affect adolescent outcomes. The present study focused on cross-sectional views of changes in youths over time and compared 12 different conmnunities as experienced by 9th through 12th graders, using the community as the main unit of analysis. The analyses demonstrated that very different percentages of youths in different types of community experience community strengths. In addition, similar types of youths (i.e., vulnerable, average, and high-asset youths) are affected differentially by the overall health of the community. In particular, vulnerable youths, those with few personal assets, benefit from living in healthier communities and these effects are visible across all types of communities. Analyses also revealed grade differences among different types of youths.

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