Shannon E. Cavanagh

Family Instability and Children's Early Problem Behavior

This study investigated the association between family instability and childrens problem behavior during the transition to first grade. In a sample (n = 1,015) drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we found that a quarter of sample members experienced at least one family transition between birth and age 6. Instability was also related to family structure at birth: those born into cohabiting parent families experienced the most instability, followed by those born into single mother families and finally, those in two-biological married parent families. Children who experienced instability had higher teacher and observer reports of problem behaviors than those from stable family structures. Finally, differences in problem behavior associated with family instability varied by family structure at birth and the emotional, social and material resources in the family.

ADOLESCENT FRIENDSHIPS AS ACADEMIC RESOURCES: THE INTERSECTION OF FRIENDSHIP, RACE, AND SCHOOL DISADVANTAGE

Research on adolescent friendships has typically treated these social ties differently from friendships at other stages of life or from other relationships during adolescence. To draw parallels among these literatures, this study focuses on two largely neglected aspects of adolescent friendships: their role in positive adjustment and the way in which this role varies by social structural and institutional context. In an analysis of data from 9,223 adolescents in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we found that those who had friends who liked school or did well in school had fewer academic problems than did those whose friends were less academically oriented. This potential protective role of friends did not differ by race, but it did differ by level of school disadvantage. Moreover, this moderating role of school disadvantage differed by race. These results suggest that adolescent friendships serve as social capital, the value of which is context-specific.

Family Structure History and Adolescent Adjustment

As patterns of union formation and dissolution in adult lives become complex, the living arrangements of American children are becoming increasingly fluid. With a sample (N = 12,843) drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study attempted to capture this complexity by mapping out childrens family structure histories across their early life course, investigating the implications of these arrangements for their general adjustment, and finally, identifying family processes that explained these associations. The findings suggest that a sizable minority of young people experience dynamic family structure arrangements. Moreover, family structure at adolescence best predicted later emotional distress, and family structure at adolescence plus an indicator of cumulative family instability across childhood best predicted current marijuana use. More so than indicators tapping social control, levels of family connectedness and parent—adolescent relationship quality were key conduits for these associations.

Maternal Education, Early Child Care and the Reproduction of Advantage

The social and human capital that educational attainment provides women enables them to better navigate their children’s passages through school. In this study, we examine a key mechanism in this intergenerational process: mothers’ selection of early child care. Analyses of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development revealed that maternal education was positively associated with configurations of child-care characteristics (i.e., type, quality, quantity) most closely linked to children’s school readiness. This association was not solely a function of mother’s income or employment status, persisted despite controls for many observable confounds (e.g., maternal cognitive and psychological skills, paternal characteristics), and, according to post-hoc indices, was fairly robust in terms of unobservable confounds.

Family Instability, School Context, and the Academic Careers of Adolescents

An emerging literature suggests that the increasingly complex family histories of American children are linked with multiple domains of adolescent development. Much of this scholarship focuses on associations at the individual level. Here, the authors consider whether key dimensions of the school context, specifically the aggregate level of family instability and the academic press within schools, moderate the link between family instability and young people’s course-taking patterns in mathematics in high school. Using the school-based design and the retrospective reports of family structure in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the linked academic transcript data in the Adolescent Health and Achievement Study (n = 6,545), the authors find that students from unstable families do more poorly when they attend schools with a high proportion of academically oriented students. The prevalence of family instability in a school does not moderate the individual experience of family instability in predicting course-taking patterns.

Peers, Drinking, and the Assimilation of Mexican American Youth

Drinking alcohol, a normative behavior during adolescence in the United States, has significant consequences for health and well-being in adolescence and beyond. Highly social in nature, it is also a domain in which to assess the implications of the assimilation of immigrant youth into American peer culture. Using a Mexican American sample drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 1,034), this study found generational differences in adolescent drinking behaviors, with more recent immigrants less likely to drink or binge drink. It also found generational differences in the social ecology of friendship groups, with first- and second-generation youth in friendship groups with higher concentrations of coethnic and other immigrant youth who engaged in less party behaviors. These differences did not explain generational differences in adolescent drinking behaviors but did condition the drinking behaviors of second-generation Mexican Americans. More specifically, second-generation youth with more White friends and friends who engaged in more party behaviors were more likely to binge drink than all others.

Changes in Young Children’s Family Structures and Child Care Arrangements

Family structure change can disrupt the settings of children’s daily lives. Most scholarship focuses on disruption in the home environment. Moving beyond the home, this study explores the association between changes in family structure and changes in several dimensions of early child care. With longitudinal data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1,298), first-difference models reveal that family structure transitions are associated with changes in the type and quantity of early care as well as the number of care arrangements used, especially during the latter part of infancy. Given prior evidence linking these child care dimensions to behavioral and cognitive outcomes, these results suggest a policy-relevant mechanism by which family change may create inequalities among children.

Instability in Parent–Child Coresidence and Adolescent Development in Urban South Africa

There is widespread recognition of the importance of family stability for child development. South Africa presents an interesting context in which to study the consequences of family instability because of the traditionally fluid nature of household composition due to labor migration, child fostering, and non-marital fertility. More recently, the HIV pandemic has added another source of instability. Within South Africa, however, patterns of instability differ markedly across racial groups. We use the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) data to examine the implications of changes in parent-child coresidence for educational and sexual development of young South Africans. We show that changes in maternal and paternal coresidence have implications for the timing of sexual initiation for both black and coloured adolescents. Maternal and paternal transitions also lead to poorer educational outcomes for coloured adolescents, but parental disruptions are not significantly related to educational outcomes for blacks. These findings suggest that the implications of coresidential instability vary by race, reflecting racial differences with respect to cultural, social, and economic conditions.

Indicators of the peer environment in adolescence

Contents: Preface-Indicators of Child and Youth Well-Being: Completing the Picture. B. Brown, Introduction: About the Chapters. Part I: Health Indicators. D.P. Hogan, M.E. Msall, Key Indicators of Health and Safety: Infancy, Pre-School, and Middle Childhood. M.W. Stagner, J.M. Zweig, Indicators of Youth Health and Well-Being: Taking the Long View. Part II: Education Indicators. T. Halle, M. Reidy, M. Moorehouse, M. Zaslow, C. Walsh, J. Calkins, N.G. Margie, A. Dent, Progress in the Development of Indicators of School Readiness. A. Flanagan, D. Grissmer, What Do National and State NAEP Scores Tell Us About the Achievement of American K-12 Students. Part III: Social and Emotional Development Indicators. M. Ripke, A.C. Huston, J. Eccles, J. Templeton, The Assessment of Psychological, Emotional, and Social Development Indicators in Middle Childhood. J.L. Roth, C.J. Borbely, J. Brooks-Gunn, Developing Indicators of Confidence, Character, and Caring in Adolescents. J. Eccles, B. Brown, J. Templeton, A Developmental Framework for Selecting Indicators of Well-Being During the Adolescent and Young Adult Years. Part IV: Social Context of Development Indicators. G.D. Sandefur, A. Meier, The Family Environment: Structure, Material Resources, and Child Care. K.M. Harris, S. Cavanagh, Indicators of the Peer Environment in Adolesence. D. Mayer, J. Ralph, Key Indicators of School Quality. J.D. Morenoff, R.J. Sampson, Constructing Community Indicators of Child Well-Being. Part V: Child and Youth Indicators in Practice. T. Corbett, Social Indicators as Policy Tool: Welfare Reform as a Case Study. D. Murphey, Creating Community Capacity to Use Social Indicators. Part VI: Social Indices of Child Well-Being. K.C. Land, V.L. Lamb, S.K. Mustillo, Child and Youth Well-Being in the United States, 1975-1998: Some Findings From a New Index. N.G. Bennett, H-H. Lu, Methodological Issues Surrounding the Construction of an Index of Child Well-Being.

Family Instability and Exposure to Violence in the Early Life Course

Family instability has been linked with a host of outcomes across the early life course. This study extends this literature by connecting instability with violence in the community by examining the associations among family structure, family structure change, and secondary exposure to violence during adolescence across diverse segments of the population. Using longitudinal data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods study, we found that living with a single parent and experiencing family structure changes were associated with secondary exposure to violence. Multiple group models suggest that partner change translated into more exposure for boys than girls. Findings also suggest that family instability may lead to more secondary exposure to violence for African American youth.