Contextual Support for Positive Youth Development: A Latent Transition Analysis

Background/ Purpose: Middle school is a time of transition when many children experience increased risk of reductions in their positive school engagement (Serbin, Stack, & Kingdon, 2013).  Increases in school disengagement, absenteeism and interpersonal conflict with teachers and peers, during this time period are associated with dropout (Alvarez, 2002). 

Research in the area of positive youth development has focused on the importance of promoting resilience by building both youth’s internal competencies and environmental supports that will help them successfully transition to high school.  While the interplay among various areas of individual’s competencies, for example, grit and self-reliance have received attention in the literature (Ivcevic & Brackett, 2014; Wolters & Hussain, 2014), little attention has been given to environmental supports and their relationship to positive youth development.

Methods:  Using four of the five dimensions of positive youth development identified by the America’s Promise Alliance (Scales et al., 2008): Safety Places, Caring Adults, Healthy Start, Effective Education, this study used Latent Transition Analysis to identify two profiles in an sample of 13,843 middle schoolers who completed the School Success Profile (Bowen & Richman, 2007). For the study, safe places were school and neighborhood; caring adults were teachers, parents, and neighbors; healthy start was physical health and effective education was students’ perception of the quality of the education they were receiving.  The outcome variables in the analyses were cutting school, cutting classes, tardiness, and fighting.  

Results:  The results of this analysis indicated that there were two profiles.  Of the 13,843 middle schoolers, approximately 77% were found in the first profile. The two profiles differ in the extent to which students in the profiles were engaged academically and not experiencing disciplinary problems. 

Conclusion and Implications: The results suggests that persons interested in reducing school absenteeism, tardiness, cutting classes, and fight need to target environmental factors as well as individual factors, as both affect students’ engagement in high risk behaviors.