TY - JOUR
T1 - Adolescent Work Intensity, School Performance, and Academic Engagement
AU - Staff, Jeremy
AU - Schulenberg, John E.
AU - Bachman, Jerald G.
N1 - Funding Information:
The first author gratefully acknowledges support from a Mentored Research Scientist Development Award in Population Research from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD054467). The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the sponsors.
Funding Information:
Earlier versions of this manuscript were presented at the 2007 Johann Jacobs Foundation conference Transition from School to Work and at the 2008 Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence. This article uses data from the Monitoring the Future study, which is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R01 DA01411).
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Teenagers working more than 20 hours per week perform worse in school than youth who work less. There are two competing explanations for this association: (1) that paid work takes time and effort away from activities that promote achievement, such as completing homework, preparing for examinations, getting help from parents and teachers, and participating in extracurricular activities, and (2) that the relationship between paid work and school performance is spurious, reflecting preexisting differences between students in academic ability, motivation, and school commitment. Using longitudinal data from the ongoing national Monitoring the Future project, this research examines the impact of teenage employment on school performance and academic engagement during the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades. The authors address issues of spuriousness by using a two-level hierarchical model to estimate the relationships of within-individual changes in paid work to changes in school performance and other school-related measures. Unlike in prior research, the authors compare youth school performance and academic orientation when they are actually working in high-intensity jobs to when they are jobless and wish to work intensively. Results indicate that the mere wish for intensive work corresponds with academic difficulties in a manner similar to actual intensive work.
AB - Teenagers working more than 20 hours per week perform worse in school than youth who work less. There are two competing explanations for this association: (1) that paid work takes time and effort away from activities that promote achievement, such as completing homework, preparing for examinations, getting help from parents and teachers, and participating in extracurricular activities, and (2) that the relationship between paid work and school performance is spurious, reflecting preexisting differences between students in academic ability, motivation, and school commitment. Using longitudinal data from the ongoing national Monitoring the Future project, this research examines the impact of teenage employment on school performance and academic engagement during the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades. The authors address issues of spuriousness by using a two-level hierarchical model to estimate the relationships of within-individual changes in paid work to changes in school performance and other school-related measures. Unlike in prior research, the authors compare youth school performance and academic orientation when they are actually working in high-intensity jobs to when they are jobless and wish to work intensively. Results indicate that the mere wish for intensive work corresponds with academic difficulties in a manner similar to actual intensive work.
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U2 - 10.1177/0038040710374585
DO - 10.1177/0038040710374585
M3 - Article
C2 - 20802795
AN - SCOPUS:77955897250
SN - 0038-0407
VL - 83
SP - 183
EP - 200
JO - Sociology of Education
JF - Sociology of Education
IS - 3
ER -