The longitudinal relation between community violence exposure and academic engagement among urban minority male adolescents: An ecological developmental approach /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Elsaesser, Caitlin Mara, author.
Imprint:2015.
Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2015
Description:1 electronic resource (169 pages)
Language:English
Format: E-Resource Dissertations
Local Note:School code: 0330
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10773122
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:University of Chicago. degree granting institution.
ISBN:9781321890099
Notes:Advisors: Deborah Gorman-Smith Committee members: David Henry; Curtis McMillen; Michael Schoeney.
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Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 76-11(E), Section: A.
English
Summary:Exposure to community violence is a serious problem among low-income, urban minority youth. Urban youth are exposed to high rates of violence, and these experiences are associated with serious behavioral and mental health consequences. However, the long-term relation between community violence exposure and academic functioning is unclear. The present study draws on the Ecodevelopmental and the Social Development Models to contribute to the understanding of this relationship. Using longitudinal data gathered from a sample of minority male adolescents living in impoverished urban neighborhoods, this study was designed to address three specific questions: 1) What is the relative importance of specific dimensions of exposure to violence (frequency, severity, form, breadth and relationship to perpetrator/victim) for later academic engagement? 2) What is the temporal ordering of the relation between community violence exposure and academic engagement over the course of mid-adolescence? 3) Does the pattern of relation between community violence exposure and academic engagement vary by level of family functioning over the course of adolescence?
The study sample included 273 urban ethnic minority males (33.4% Latino and 65.6% African-American), with assessments at three time points during mid-adolescence. Results indicate that youth are exposed to high rates of violence, with over 70% at each wave reporting at least one past-year event of community violence exposure. Youth had high levels of academic engagement, but academic engagement decreased over the course of the study. With respect to the first research question, of all the dimensions of community violence exposure assessed, none were predictive of later academic engagement, after controlling for baseline academic engagement. For the second research question, results suggested that at time 1 (mean age 13.5), community violence exposure predicted lower academic engagement at time 2 (mean age 14.8), but academic engagement did not predict higher risk for violence exposure between these two time points. Between time 2 and time 3 (mean age 15.8), it was academic engagement that predicted lower community violence exposure, but community violence exposure was unrelated to lower academic engagement. Finally, results from the third question indicated that parental monitoring moderated these relations such that academic engagement at time 2 only led to lower risk for community violence exposure at time 3 in the presence of families with high levels of monitoring.
The results of this dissertation have important implications for the field of social work. Results underscore the importance of targeting risk behaviors during mid-adolescence, a developmental period when engagement in school decreases and exposure to violence is high. This study's findings also highlight the importance of considering the developmental course for the relation between academic engagement and community violence exposure, and suggest specifically that practitioners might target promoting positive school experiences at the transition to high school to reduce risk for violence exposure. More broadly, results emphasize the interconnectedness of developmental domains, and that interventions might be most effective when targeting multiple areas of development.