Battistich, V., Solomon, D., Watson, M., & Schaps, E. (1997).
Caring school communities. Educational Psychologist, 32(3), 137-151.
There recently has been a renewed appreciation of the importance of social
context to effective schools. This article describes an ongoing program
of research on schools as caring communities. The research spans about a
decade and a half and involves a diverse set of elementary schools from
across the United States. The findings indicate that sense of school community
can be enhanced for both students and teachers, that it is associated with
a wide range of positive outcomes for both, and that the potential benefits
of enhancing school community may be greatest in schools with large numbers
of economically disadvantaged students. At the same time, it is noted that
enhancing community has the potential for producing negative as well as
positive outcomes, and that the content of the community values is of critical
importance. Overall, the concept of school as community appears to provide
a powerful framework for looking at educational practice and guiding educational
reform efforts.
Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., Scales, P. C., & Blyth, D. (1998).
Beyond the "village" rhetoric: Creating healthy communities for
children and adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 2(3), 138-159.
The role of community in child and adolescent development is emerging
as a significant area of theoretical inquiry, research, and application.
This article describes the development and utilization of a comprehensive
community change effort designed to increase the attention of all community
members toward strengthening core developmental processes for children and
adolescents. It describes the development of two theoretical constructs,
that of developmental assets and asset-building communities. It presents
a conceptual overview of both constructs, a descriptive account of the developmental
assets within a large aggregate sample of approximately 99,000 sixth to
twelfth graders, and a summary of change strategies shapng asset-building
movements in over 200 communities.
Kumpfer, K. L., & Turner, C. W. (1991). The social ecology model
of adolescent substance abuse: Implications for prevention. The International
Journal of the Addictions, 25(4A), 435-463.
A comprehensive theoretical model of adolescent substance abuse, the
Social Ecology Model, was developed. The model includes peer influence,
school bonding, self-efficacy, and family and school climate variables.
Several competing variations of the model were empirically tested using
a confirmatory multivariate methodology on a high school sample. Self-efficacy
and school bonding collapsed into a single factor, which was significantly
predicted by the family and school climate latent variables. These findings
suggest that prevention approaches should include interventions effective
in improving family and school climate for youths in addition to improving
self-efficacy, school bonding, and peer relations.
Leffert, N., Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Sharma, A. R., Drake, D.
R., Blyth, D. A. (in press). Developmental assets: Measurement and prediction
of risk behaviors among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science.
A problem-focused paradigm tends to dominate theory, research, and practice
and has been traditionally used to plan, organize, and implement prevention
policies, programs, and practices. An emerging paradigm focuses on conceptualizing
core elements of human development to enhance health and well-being. This
article describes the research instrument that has provided the primary
source of data for the developmental assets framework, Search Institute
Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes and Behaviors, a self-report survey
designed for 6th to 12th grade youth. The article also describes the research
tradition informing the developmental assets framework, a discussion of
how measurement and reporting was approached given its use in applied setting,
and an analysis of the utility of the developmental assets in predicting
adolescent risk behaviors.
Resnick, M. D., Harris, L. J., & Blum, R. W. (1993). The impact
of caring and connectedness on adolescent health and well-being. Journal
of Pediatric Child Health, 29(Suppl. 1), S3-S9.
This study of over 36,000 7th-12th grade students focused on protective
factors against the quietly disturbed and acting out behaviors, which together
represent the major social morbidities of adolescence. Multivariate models
developed separately for girls and boys repeatedly demonstrated the protective
function of caring and connectedness in the lives of youth, particularly
a sense of connectedness to family and to school. A sense of spirituality,
as well as low family stress (referring to poverty, unemployment, substance
use and domestic violence) also functioned as protective factors. Measures
of protective factors caring and connectedness surpassed demographic cariables
such as two parent vs single parent family structure as protective factors
against high risk behaviors. Interventions for youth at-risk must critically
examine the ways in which opportunities for a sense of belonging may be
fostered, particularly among youth who do not report any significant caring
relationships in their lives with adults.
Resnick, M. D., Bearman, P. S., Blum, R. W., Bauman, K. E., Harris,
K. M., Jones, J., Tabor, J., Beuhring, T., Seiving, R. E., Shew, M., Ireland,
M. Bearinger, L. H., & Udry, R. (1997). Protecting adolescents from
Harm: Findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health.
Journal of the American Medical Associatio, 278(10), 823-832.
The main threats to adolescents health are the risk behaviors they choose.
How their social context shapes their behaviors is poorly understood. The
study of 12,118 adolescents in grades 7-12 was designed to identify risk
and protective factors at the family, school, and individual levels as they
relate to four domains of adolescent health and morbidity: emotional health,
violence, substance abuse, and sexuality. Parent-family connectedness and
perceived school connectedness were protective against every health risk
behavior measure except history of pregnancy. Conversely, ease of access
to guns at home was associated with suicidality and violence. Access to
substances in the home was associated with use of cigarettes alcohol, and
marijuana among all students. Working 20 or more hours a week was associated
with emotional distress of high school students, cigarette use, alcohol
use, and marijuana use. Appearing "older than most" in class was
associated with emotional distress and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among
high school students; it was also associated with substance use and an earlier
age of sexual debut among both junior and senior high students. Repeating
a grade in school was associated with emotional distress among students
in junior high and high school and with tobacco use among junior high students.
On the other hand, parental expectations regarding school achievement were
associated with lower levels of health risk behaviors; parental disapproval
of early sexual debut was associated with later age of onset of intercourse.
Family and school contexts as well as individual characteristics are associated
with health and risk behaviors in adolescents. The results should assist
health and social service providers, educators, and others in taking the
first steps to diminish risk factors and enhance protective factors for
our young people.
