Examining the Association between Adolescent Relationship Patterns and Formal Social Exclusion

Background:  For adolescents, healthy and supportive social relationships are fundamentally important to their overall social-emotional development.  Research has shown that adolescents with positive relationships are more likely to exhibit better social skills, behavior, and improved psychological well-being.  Youth with strained or conflictual relationships with adults and/or peers can experience numerous internalizing and externalizing problems such as depression, low self-esteem, physical aggression, and other delinquent behaviors.  Youth who tend to have strained or conflictual relations can potentially also find themselves excluded from social groups through informal (e.g. interpersonal marginalization) or formal (e.g. official exclusion from a social system) means (Mathieson et al., 2008; Baumeister, 1999).  Consequently, adolescents who are officially marginalized through processes of formal social exclusion (school suspension, expulsion, and arrest) have been shown to experience immediate and long term negative social outcomes such as poor academic outcomes, unemployment, and contact with the juvenile and adult justice systems.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how an adolescent’s social relationships might influence their likelihood of experiencing a form of social exclusion such as suspension, expulsion, and juvenile arrest.  This study sought to add to the literature on adolescent social relationships by identifying and classifying patterns of adolescent relational quality across their social environment.   A second aim of this study was to test the premise of a general theory of social exclusion by examining which relational patterns are predictive of formal social exclusion.

Methods:  Data and Sample: Data for this study was drawn from Waves 1 and 3 (N=4,882) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health).

Measures: Six self-report indicators of relationship quality were included as part of a latent class analysis: parents, classmates, friends, teachers, and other adults.  Formal social exclusion was measured by three outcome variables indicating a respondents’ history of suspension, expulsion, and arrest.  Several sociodemographic (race, age, gender, SES), educational (truancy and GPA), and behavioral (violent and non-violent criminal behavior) control variables were included in the analyses. 

Results:  A latent class analysis revealed an interpretable five-class solution in terms of adolescent social relational quality.  Youth were classified into five relational sub-groups: (1) strained social relations, (2) moderate global relations, (3) poor school relations, (4) strained teacher relations only, and (5) positive global relations.  Per the premise of social exclusion theory, the results of logistic regression analyses indicated that there is an overall association between relationship quality and the three forms of social exclusion.  Relationship profiles with strained school-based relationships were found to have an increased likelihood for all forms of exclusion. 

Conclusions and Implications: This study serves to reinforce the importance of positive school-based social bonds and a positive school climate in determining adolescent social outcomes.  Schools with positive school climates encourage academic achievement, engagement, and connectedness among students and teachers.  School social workers can foster a positive school climate and support relationship building by training school faculty on how to address social-emotional concerns, assess personal biases, promote social inclusion, and develop trauma-informed restorative practices in the classroom.