Session: Sources of Strengths: Social Environments that Promote Positive School Outcomes for Students (Research that Promotes Sustainability and (re)Builds Strengths (January 15 - 18, 2009))

Symposium Theme: For all youths, but especially those from low socioeconomic families or neighborhoods or members of non-dominant race or ethnicity groups, success in elementary, middle and high school is a critical developmental outcome. Research has revealed that graduating high school is associated with a range of positive outcomes in adulthood including lower likelihood of mental health hospitalization, suicide, criminality, substance abuse, living in poverty or becoming a pregnant or parenting adolescent, and a higher likelihood of longer life expectancy, being gainfully employed, earning a higher lifetime average income, and parenting and financially supporting children. Research has identified sources of strengths in lives of youth that promote positive youth development, including success in school. Many of these sources of strengths are found in the social environment microsystems in which youth reside: at school, at home, in the neighborhood, and in peer group relationships. We have evidence that identifies some of the positive youth development promotive factors in the lives of youth that influence school outcomes; yet, further work is needed to unpack and understand the complexity of the social environment across those key microsystems that impact school outcomes. The proposed symposium applies a range of rigorous and advanced research methods to investigate the complex sources of strengths within the social environments of youth that promote positive youth development, specifically success in school.

Methods: The five presentations that are included in this symposium represent a range of rigorous research methods. Those methods include longitudinal analysis, latent class analysis, structural equation modeling, and qualitative methods. These studies also include the use of data merged from multiple sources, empirical tests of mediational processes, and a sample of students who have been under-researched (Latinos). Further, these five studies examine a range of promotive environmental micro- and meso-system factors including the mediated influences of socially supportive relationships from parents, teachers, and friends; the longitudinal influence of parents who set high expectations for school performance; the county-level and state-wide impact of the health status of students on academic achievement; and the voices of youth of color in how they experience social support from teachers.

Implications: Each presentation offers important implications for policy, programming and practice in the area of school success. Three of the studies present empirical and qualitative findings that can inform school social work practice help teachers engage students in socially supportive relationships. Two of the studies present detailed findings about the influence of parent-student interactions that promote school success, information that can inform policy and programming around school-family connections and practice efforts to promote effective parent-student interactions. One presentation offers findings that link the health status of students with school district level academic performance, a finding that asserts the importance of policies and programming which create access to healthcare for all students.