The relationship of individual and family factors to the psychological well-being of junior high school students living in urban poverty

Adolescence, Spring, 1998 by Laura G. De Haan, Shelley MacDermid

Life in urban cities has been compared to a war zone. Garbarino, Kostelny, and Dubrow (1991) cite increasing levels of gang violence, lack of basic health care, inadequate food, inferior schooling, and social isolation as factors that make the context of urban poverty stressful. One study found that, by the time urban children reached high school, 40% had witnessed a shooting, 33% had seen a stabbing, and 25% had witnessed a murder (Kotulak, 1990).

Poverty has also been associated with school dropout. rates (Sum & Fogg, 1991), as well as elevated levels of loneliness and depression in rural adolescents (Lempers, Clark-Lempers, & Simons, 1989). Economically disadvantaged adolescents report greater numbers of negative life events (Gad, Treadwell, & Johnson, 1980), and over 75% of all poor children and adolescents have below average basic skills in reading and math, with 50% in the lowest quintile (Sum & Fogg, 1991).

Clearly urban poverty places children and adolescents at risk for negative outcomes. Yet, over 65% of these adolescents are able to make the transition to young adulthood successfully and improve their economic circumstances (Sum & Fogg, 1991). It is important to discover what resources adolescents use to make this transition, and to determine the role of both individual and family factors in buffering against stress.

Several factors serve to cushion individuals against negative outcomes, perhaps the most important being the perceived support and consistent discipline of a nurturing family (Larzelere & Patterson, 1990; Lempers, Clark-Lempers, & Simons, 1989). Individual factors, such as completion of developmental tasks, may also alleviate the negative effects of urban poverty. For example, identity development, the formation of a consistent sense of sell may serve as an important protective factor for adolescents. Identity development has been shown to relate to several important outcomes for white, middle-class populations, such as adolescent autonomy (Dellas & Jernigan, 1991) and family functioning (Sabatelli & Mazor, 1985).

Despite the importance of identity, its development in urban adolescents has not been studied extensively. In fact, individual factors as a whole, regardless of their demonstrated importance in predicting resilience to stress (Sroufe & Rutter, 1984), have been largely ignored, with research instead focusing on structural family variables. These variables, such as number of parents or birth order, ignore the process factors (e.g., percept:ions of positive parental treatment) that are often found to be more predictive of adjustment (Bronfenbrenner, 1986).

Identity Development

Erikson (1963) considers identity formation to be the cornerstone of adolescent psychosocial development. Josselson (1987) offers this definition, "Identity, then is a dynamic fitting together of parts of the personality with the realities of the social world so that a person has a sense both of internal coherence and meaningful relatedness to the real world" (pp. 12-13). An alternative to identity achievement is identity diffusion, which occurs when adolescents are not able to commit to definite life choices. Erikson (1985) stresses that at least some role confusion is a "normative and necessary" experience for adolescents, but it can lead to a more dysfunctional state, such as an inability to fully experience intimacy, if an individual remains unable to move out of this period of indecision.

Several assumptions about the nature of identity are noted by Erikson. First, although identity development is particularly salient during adolescence, changes can and do occur earlier, in childhood, and later, in adulthood. Second, successful identity development depends in part on how earlier tasks during the life span have been resolved. Third, optimal identity formation can occur only when adolescents take an active role in their identity search and experience a normative period of moratorium, when they actively try out different roles without making a definite commitment. Fourth, identity development cannot be considered solely an individualistic process. Exploration and commitment are based in part on historical and contextual factors. Fifth, identity is neither static nor unidimensional. Erikson (1963) cites five facets of identity - sexual, religious, political, ideological, and occupational - and believes that individuals redefine these identities throughout the course of their lives.

One of the strengths of adolescents, according to Erikson, is their capacity for fidelity to individuals or institutions. Adolescents, as a result of their search for identity, may be eager to make a strong commitment, at least temporarily, to new belief systems. Even though the rationale behind these belief systems cannot always be articulated, it does not decrease the passion that adolescents are capable of expressing for individuals or ideas. This sense of commitment has been found to be an important part of ethnic (Phinney & Tarver, 1988) and religious (Gillespie, 1990; Markstrom-Adams & Hofstra, 1993) identity development, as well as global identity (Marcia, 1980; Waterman, 1985). Fidelity, similar to commitment in many ways, also includes a focus on expressing pride in being affiliated with persons or institutions, as well as placing high value on keeping promises and being faithful (Kitchener, 1983). It could also be argued that the development of a personal sense of fidelity serves as a protective factor for adolescents.