A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Secondary Education in the Life of American Adolescents

Andrew Fuligni

Adolescence can be a time of great change in the lives of American youth. As they move from elementary to secondary school, they are exposed to new interests and activities that can compete with academics for their time and attention. To understand the role of school in adolescent lives, one must examine it within the context of these different interests and activities.

Perhaps the most revealing way of understanding the place of secondary school in students' lives is to compare the amount of time adolescents spend in school and other academic endeavors with the time they spend in nonacademic activities. Other ways include examining adolescents' attitudes and values regarding education, the nature of parental involvement in their education, and the extent to which adolescent peer groups support academic achievement. Finally, the place of schooling in adolescents' lives must be understood against the backdrop of risk behavior that is prevalent among teenagers in American society.

Adolescents' Use of Time

While schooling is obviously an important part of the lives of teenagers, it is only a small part. In one study, high school students were shown to spend 29 percent of their waking time either on class work or studying on their own (see table 6), while leisure activities, such as socializing with friends, playing sports and games, and watching television accounted for 40 percent of their time. Adolescents spent the remainder of their time doing chores, working in jobs, and engaging in other personal maintenance activities (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984). Clearly, schooling and other academic activities represent only a small part of an adolescent's life in American society.

Academic Activities

American teenagers spend about 180 days of the year in school; the typical secondary school day lasts approximately 6.5 hours, resulting in a total of 1,171 hours per year, although this amount can vary from state to state by as much as 150 hours, or 5 weeks per year (U.S. Department of Education [USED] 1993a). Even these data, however, can be deceptive. One study found that out of the approximately 31 hours students spent in school each week, only two-thirds of those hours were actually spent in classes (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984).

Accurate estimates of the amount of time adolescents spend studying outside of classes are difficult to obtain. Some studies include the amount of time students study in school, while others document only out-of-school studying. In most studies, however, the amount of time rarely exceeds 10 hours per week. Time spent studying also appears to increase as children get older. In a study of students in the fifth through ninth grades, students spent only 6 hours per week doing homework (Leone and Richards 1989). In a 1984 study by Csikszentmihalyi and Larson, Chicago high school students (freshmen through seniors) indicated that they studied an average of 7 hours per week outside of school (see table 6). In another study, 11^th-grade students in Minneapolis reported studying approximately 10 hours per week outside of school (Fuligni and Stevenson 1995).

Table 6—Activities on which adolescents spent their time

Attending classes outside school is not very prevalent in the United States. In the study of 11^th-graders in Minneapolis, only 3 percent of the students attended academic-oriented classes after school, and only 7 percent of the students had tutors. Enrollment in nonacademic classes, such as those in music or language, was not much greater; only 16 percent of 11^th-grade students reported attending these classes. These low rates of participation resulted in an average of only half an hour per week in all of these after-school classes and lessons for the teenagers (Fuligni and Stevenson 1995).

Socializing with Friends

Socializing with friends is clearly the activity of choice for American teens. The data show that when their daily activities are analyzed in terms of time spent with peers, family, or alone, adolescents spend slightly more than half of their time with their peers. By comparison, they spend 27 percent of their time alone, 19 percent with family members, and 2 percent with other individuals, such as other adults (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984). Eleventh-graders in Minneapolis reported spending almost 18 hours per week with their friends outside school, which was 80 percent more than the time they spent studying. Dating is also prevalent among American teens. More than two-thirds of the Minneapolis high schoolers said that they were currently dating someone, resulting in an average of 4.5 hours per week in dating activities (Fuligni and Stevenson 1995).

Employment

Along with an extensive involvement in peer groups, working in part-time jobs while attending school is a time-consuming experience for American youth. Approximately 60 percent of high school sophomores and 75 percent of high school seniors report having some type of paid employment (Bachman and Schulenberg 1993; Steinberg and Dornbusch 1991). The extent of this employment often goes beyond what many would consider to be part-time. More than half of employed students report working 20 or more hours each week (Steinberg and Dornbusch 1991). In a national sample of teenagers, 15 percent of male seniors and 9 percent of female seniors reported working more than 30 hours each week (Bachman and Schulenberg 1993).

The oft-reported implications of working long hours are lower academic achievement, greater delinquent behavior, and more frequent use of drugs and alcohol (Steinberg and Dornbusch 1991). It is difficult, however, to determine which is cause and which is effect between youth employment and problematic adjustment. Some investigators have suggested that at least part of the association is due to selection effects: that certain types of students, such as those performing poorly in school, are more likely than others to work long hours in part-time jobs (Bachman and Schulenberg 1993).

Organized Activities

Extracurricular activities are a major part of the lives of high schoolers in the United States. Nearly all the 11^th- grade students in the Minneapolis study (93 percent) said they participated in these activities. Some students made a major investment in these activities: more than a third of them participated in five or more different activities (Fuligni and Stevenson 1995).

Sports are perhaps the most common organized activities in which American adolescents become involved. More than half of American sophomores participate in school-sponsored athletics (USDE, 1993b). The rate of participation becomes even greater when both in-school and out-of-school sports are considered. More than 80 percent of Minneapolis 11th-graders said that they participated in some type of sports activity, either at school or outside school. On average, students spent about 8 hours per week in sports at their high schools and an additional 5 hours per week in out-of-school sports (Fuligni and Stevenson 1995).

A recent report suggests, however, that constructive activities or programs available to early adolescents (aged 10 to 15 years) after school are often quite limited (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development Task Force on Youth Development and Community Programs 1992). The availability of these activities can vary greatly according to location and neighborhood. Many adolescents from lower income families have little access to these activities and are left with few options in the after-school hours. Young adolescents from poor families are more likely to be unsupervised: according to the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, 17.2 percent of the eighth-graders from the lowest socioeconomic group were left home alone for 3 hours after school as compared to 9.3 percent of the students from the highest socioeconomic group (USED 1992; Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development Task Force on Youth Development and Community Programs 1992).

Factors Influencing Adolescents' Use of Time

Amidst these general trends, teenagers' use of their time shows some important demographic variations. Gender is one determinant. Females tend to spend more time engaged in academic activities than do males. For example, 11^th-grade females in Minneapolis reported studying 11 hours per week, while 11^th- grade males indicated that they studied only 9 hours per week (Fuligni and Stevenson 1995). Sports participation, however, is more common among males than among females. Among a national sample of sophomores in 1990, 63 percent of the males participated in high school athletics as compared to only 41 percent of the females (USED 1993b). In past years, more teenage males than females tended to be employed. Recently the rates of employment have become fairly equal, although a difference remains in the number of hours worked per week. For example, in a national sample, approximately 47 percent of (employed) male seniors worked more than 20 hours per week, compared with 38 percent of female seniors (Bachman and Schulenberg 1993).

Youth employment also varies according to students' ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Among a national sample of high school seniors, 60 percent of African-American male students and 67 percent of Hispanic male students had jobs, compared with 75 percent of white male students (Bachman and Schulenberg 1993). Overall, part-time jobs are more common among white, middle-class teenagers than among minority students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, perhaps because the availability of employment is greater in their neighborhoods. However, when they do find work, adolescents from families of lower socioeconomic status tend to work longer hours than their employed, middle-class counterparts (Fine, Mortimer, and Roberts 1990).

Conclusion

Although few comprehensive studies on adolescents' use of time in the United States exist, the data that are available point to the fact that schooling and academic activities consume only a moderate part of adolescents' lives. Socializing with friends and working in part-time jobs appear to occupy larger portions of adolescents' time in American society. It is likely that schooling and academics compete directly with these activities for the time and attention of American youth.

Adolescents' Attitudes and Values

Academic Motivation and Interest in School During Early Adolescence

The transition into adolescence and secondary school seems to have a generally negative impact on academic interest and motivation among teenagers, triggering an apparent decline in achievement. For example, a longitudinal study of a large group of students documented a sharp decline in adolescents' confidence in their mathematics abilities and their interest in learning mathematics between the sixth and seventh grades, when students were making the transition from elementary to junior high school (Eccles and Midgley 1990).

While differences between the grading practices of teachers in elementary and junior high school, can account for part of the decline in actual achievement (Eccles 1991), two other explanations have been offered to account for the drop in both achievement and motivation. The first argues that simply shifting schools disrupts children's academic achievement and motivation (Simmons and Blyth 1987). Moving to a new school can be a source of stress for many children, as they may feel uprooted from an environment in which they felt comfortable and placed in one that is foreign to them. This stress can be exacerbated by other changes, such as the onset of puberty, that take place during early adolescence.

A second explanation for the decline in adolescents' motivation and interest in school focuses on the secondary school environment (Eccles and Midgley 1990). This explanation argues that there is a mismatch between the developmental needs of early adolescents and the learning environments they encounter in secondary school. Psychologists generally believe that as children move into adolescence, they increasingly need supportive opportunities to develop their autonomy. However, students entering secondary school do not find these supportive opportunities; instead, they often encounter a large, impersonal learning environment that leads to their alienation from the learning process. For example, in one large study, both objective observers and the students themselves rated seventh-grade mathematics teachers less supportive, friendly, and fair than sixth-grade mathematics teachers. In addition, the seventh-grade teachers rated their students less trustworthy than did sixth-grade teachers (Eccles and Midgley 1990).

Adolescents' Beliefs in the Importance of Education

While students' interest in academics tends to decline as they enter adolescence, teenagers nevertheless retain the general belief that education is important for their future. Practically all adolescents acknowledge the correlation between receiving a good education and success after high school. For example, virtually all adolescents in a large study of high school students indicated that they believed that getting a good education would help them to get the kind of job they would like in the future (Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown 1992).

The fact that adolescents recognize the importance of education is supported by evidence that most students hope to continue their education beyond high school. In a national sample of high school sophomores, fully 90 percent of the students aspired to further their education after high school; 59 percent of the students aspired to receive either a bachelor's or postgraduate degree (USED 1993b).

However, this belief in the value of schooling may not satisfactorily explain variations in students' actual level of achievement. This explanation requires an examination of adolescents' perceptions of the implications of doing poorly in school. Although most students acknowledge that doing well in school will benefit their adult lives, they may not all agree on the consequences of not doing well. A recent study of high school students found that, the more students believed that poor performance in school would compromise their future, the better their performance (Steinberg, Dornbush, and Brown 1992). In other words, adolescents who believed they could do well as an adult even if they did not have a good education were more likely to receive lower grades. This study also found that Asian-American students, who generally attain a higher level of achievement than their peers, were most likely to believe in the negative consequences of academic failure.

Individuality and Ability

Like most societies, the United States has always valued academic success. Therefore, understanding adolescents' attitudes toward education and achievement requires an understanding of the American ethic of individuality. Growing up in the United States, adolescents rapidly acquire the societal values of individual choice and autonomy. These values often spill over into the academic domain, where many psychologists believe the motivation for doing well in school must come from the individual students themselves. In order to do well in school, students must like academics and choose education as a worthwhile endeavor (Spence 1985).

In American society, students' innate ability is seen as a very important determinant of their academic success (Holloway 1988). Some studies have indicated that American parents are more likely to endorse innate intelligence as a source of students' academic achievement than are parents in other countries, such as those in East Asia. For example, when asked to allocate 10 points to various sources of children's academic success, American mothers gave an average of 3.4 points to natural ability, as opposed to Japanese and Chinese parents, who gave approximately 2.5 points (Stevenson and Lee 1990). American mothers were also more likely to agree that their children were born with their mathematics and reading ability. Other observers have suggested that as children enter adolescence, they are increasingly likely to emphasize natural ability as a reason for doing well in school (Stipek and Iver 1989). There has been little research, however, into this progression into the high school years.

Conclusion

While their interest in and motivation for academic achievement declines as they enter secondary school, most teenagers still retain a general belief in the value of receiving a good education. Two areas that merit further investigation are adolescents' ideas regarding the possibility of succeeding in life without doing well in school, and the role of the American belief in individual choice and the importance of innate ability. Both areas have been highlighted as important for adolescent achievement, but thus far have generated little substantive research.

Continued

-###-

[The Perception of Ability Differences in the U.S. Education - References]

[Secondary Education in the Life of American Adolescents - Part 2]