The contemporary transformation of american youth: An analysis of change in the prevalence of delinquency, 1991-2015.

Youth involvement in crime has declined substantially over the past few decades, yet the reasons for this trend remain unclear. We advance the literature by examining the role of several potentially important shifts in individual attitudes and behaviors that may help to account for the observed temporal variation in youth delinquency. Our multilevel analysis of repeated cross-sectional data from high school students in the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study indicates that changes in youth offending prevalence were not associated with changes in youth attachment and commitment to school, community involvement, or parental supervision after school.

Is Adolescent Employment Still a Risk Factor for High School Dropout?

Past cohorts of teenagers who spent long hours in jobs were more likely to drop out of high school than those who worked moderate hours or did not work at all. This article examines the association between employment intensity and dropout among adolescents in the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 who traversed high school during a time of decreased prevalence of both employment and dropout relative to earlier cohorts. Analyses reveal that a relatively small percentage of teenagers nowadays are characterized as either intensive workers or dropouts (around 11% each).

Childhood cigarette and alcohol use: Negative links with adjustment.

Children who initiate cigarette or alcohol use early-during childhood or early adolescence-experience a heightened risk of nicotine and alcohol dependence in later life as well as school failure, crime, injury, and mortality. Using prospective intergenerational data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), we investigate the association between early substance use initiation (cigarettes or alcohol) and age 11 school engagement, academic achievement, and wellbeing. The ongoing MCS tracks the development of a nationally representative sample of children in the United Kingdom (born 2000-2002) from infancy through adolescence.