| Recent demographic family changes, including a rise in single parent families, have led to increasing concern for children who grow up without both biological parents in the home. I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the influence of various family structure types (such as two-biological parent, single parent, and stepparent families) on school engagement during adolescence. I take a life course approach by considering the entire family structure trajectory, from birth through adolescence, when predicting three indicators of school engagement: school grades, educational expectations, and suspension or expulsion. This dissertation contributes to the family structure literature by using measures of family structure status, duration of exposure to parental figures, and changes in parental roles to model the family structure trajectory.;As expected, results show significant negative effects on school engagement for adolescents living in nonintact families. In addition, exposure to biological mother absence and instability in the mother role both have long-term negative consequences for adolescents. I also find that race and ethnicity serve to moderate the effects of the family structure trajectory; for example, African American adolescents seem to recover relatively quickly from a family structure change, and Hispanic and Asian adolescents show few family structure effects. Finally, examination of the mediating influence of family and parental resources shows that family income (and, to a lesser extent, parents' educational aspirations for their children) help to explain family structure disadvantage, but only for adolescents living with single mothers. Overall, this dissertation shows that consideration of the entire family structure trajectory can help to illuminate how family structure influences adolescent school engagement. |
