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J Youth Adolescence (2012) 41:156166 DOI 10.1007/s10964-011-9665-3
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
School Disengagement as a Predictor of Dropout, Delinquency, and Problem Substance Use During Adolescence and Early Adulthood
Kimberly L. Henry Kelly E. Knight
Terence P. Thornberry
Received: 2 November 2010 / Accepted: 8 April 2011 / Published online: 27 April 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract Over the past 5 years, a great deal of attention has been paid to the development of early warning systems for dropout prevention. These warning systems use a set of indicators based on ofcial school records to identify youth at risk for dropout and then appropriately target intervention. The current study builds on this work by assessing the extent to which a school disengagement warning index predicts not only dropout but also other problem behaviors during middle adolescence, late adolescence, and early adulthood. Data from the Rochester Youth Development Study (N = 911, 73% male, 68% African American, and 17% Latino) were used to examine the effects of a school disengagement warning index based on ofcial 8th and 9th grade school records on subsequent dropout, as well as serious delinquency, ofcial offending, and problem substance use during middle adolescence, late adolescence, and early adulthood. Results indicate that the school disengagement warning index is robustly related to dropout as well as serious problem behaviors across the three developmental stages, even after controlling for important potential confounders. High school dropout mediates the effect of the warning index on serious problem behaviors in early adulthood.
Keywords School disengagement Delinquency
Substance use Urban Development
Risk and protective factors
Introduction
Academic underachievement is far more common in American society than one would hope. National educational statistics indicate that only 34% of 8th-grade students are procient in math (U.S. Department of Education 2010), only 32% of 8th-grade students are procient in reading (U.S. Department of Education 2010), and only 69% of students graduate from high school on time, with a regular diploma (Editorial Projects in Education Research Center 2009). The truly negative implications of academic underachievement become apparent once they are disaggregated by race and ethnicity. African American, Latino, and American Indian prociency rates in math and reading are less than half that of White students and the graduation rate among historically underserved minority students...