Journal Article

Effects of Economic Stress on High School Students' Views of Work and the Future

Agbayani-Siewert, Pauline, Jones, Loring, Friaz, Guadalupe

1998

Overview

A sample of 500 students from a high school in an agricultural region of the Northwest responded to a questionnaire that examined their values and attitudes toward work and employment and assessed their status on two mental health measures. The authors hypothesized that such variables as parental employment status, receipt of public assistance, and socioeconomic status would affect work valuation and mental health status. Five major findings emerge from the data. First, employment status of the father did not affect how well respondents felt about their job preparation or their work involvement, but it did affect their feelings about their own likelihood of getting a job. Second, students who reported low levels of confidence in finding work had more mental health problems than adolescents with high confidence. Third, grade point average emerged as a powerful correlate with most of the work, socioeconomic, and mental health variables. Fourth, a differential effect was found for Latino students, who reported more mental health difficulties and felt less confident about finding a job after graduation. In addition, their socioeconomic status was lower than that of the white students. Finally, seniors tended to have fewer mental health concerns than younger students. This article discusses the practice implications of these findings.

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Subject: adolescence / Adolescents / Child development / Children & youth / Confidence / Cronbach's alpha / Employment / English as a second language / Families & family life / High School Students / Mental health / Pessimism / school / Secondary school students / Secondary schools / Socioeconomic factors / Socioeconomic Status / Student attitudes / Teenagers / Unemployment / Variables / work