Establishing Independence in Low‐Income Urban Areas: The Relationship to Adolescent Aggressive Behavior

Although adolescents in poor urban areas often assume independent, adult-like roles, relatively little is known about the relationship between these roles and other adolescent behaviors. This research examines the association between independent roles occurring within different contexts (e.g. family, peer, work) and aggressive behavior among 516 low-income, urban middle school students. Overall, adolescent employment is related to increases in aggressive behavior. However, associations that familial and peer independent roles have with aggression differ by the extent of youth involvement in paid work. Greater engagement in familial independent roles is associated with decreased aggression among employed adolescents, but with increased aggression among unemployed youth. Also, peer independent roles are related to significantly greater increases in aggression among unemployed, compared with employed, adolescents. Key Words: adolescence, aggression, independent roles, social contexts, urban youth. Several studies have shown how attributes of different social contexts influence youth aggressive behavior. Adolescents engage in less aggression when their parents monitor and supervise the youth's behavior (Dishion & Loeber, 1985; Herrenkohl et al., 2000; Patterson & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1984; Wan; 1993), and youth behave more aggressively when affiliating with delinquent and aggressive peers (Herrehkohl et al.) or when living in a violent neighborhood (Simcha-Fagan & Schwartz, 1986). Research also provides insight into the different trajectories of aggression experienced by young people who acquire aggressive behavior during early adolescence compared with middle or late adolescence (Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2001; Moffitt, 1997; Tolan & Thomas, 1995). In contrast, little is known about the relationship between a youth's participation in independent roles and adolescent aggressive behavior. The lack of focus on these roles is particularly limiting to our understanding of aggression among low-income urban youth because these adolescents often perform adult-like independent activities at an early age (Burton, Allison, & Obeidallah, 1995; Dilworth-Anderson, Burton, & Turner, 1993). In this study, we explore the relationship between different kinds of independent roles and aggressive behavior among young adolescents living in low-in-come Baltimore City neighborhoods. ADOLESCENTS' EMERGING INDEPENDENCE As young people approach adolescence, they begin to establish independence in a variety of ways within diverse social contexts. Young adolescents start to spend more unsupervised time with peers, take on more adult-like responsibilities such as working and baby-sitting, and begin to make important contributions to family life by cooking and doing chores. Although all youth experience greater autonomy and responsibility during adolescence, markers of independence are particularly characteristic of the adolescent period for young people living in this country's central cities. As a way of meeting families' economic and caregiving needs, poor youth often care for younger siblings, work for pay, and help with meal preparation and other chores (Call, Mortimer, & Shanahan, 1995; Dilworth-Anderson et al., 1993; Goodnow, 1988; White & Brinkerhoff, 1981). Findings from a longitudinal study of over 600 low-income Baltimore City school children indicated that, by the time they were 13 or 14 years old, most adolescents regularly performed household chores, 94% had worked for pay at some time, and about 15% had held a semiskilled job. In addition, doing chores between the ages of 7 and 11 was related to an increased likelihood of doing paid work at age 13 or 14 (Entwistle, Alexander, Oison, & Ross, 1999). Poor youth also initiate dating and become involved in sexual relations at an earlier age than do economically advantaged youth (Larson, Spreitzer, & Snyder, 1976; Santelli, Lowry, Brener, & Robin, 2000; Simmons, Black, & Zhou, 1991). …