engleski

Family economic hardship and adolescent emotional, behavioral and school functioning

Based on the conceptual framework for effects of poverty on child and youth mental, emotional, and behavioral health (Yoshikawa et al., 2012), we examined a specific mediating path between family economic hardship and different domains of adolescent functioning. The direct and indirect, via adolescent security in the family system, effects of family economic hardship on the emotional, behavioral and school functioning of adolescents were explored. Participants in the study were early adolescents and their mothers (N=387). Adolescents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 2001), the Security in the Family System scale (Forman & Davies, 2005) and provided information about their school achievement, while their mothers completed questions about their family economic hardship. The results indicate that family economic hardship is more strongly related to school functioning than to emotional and behavioral functioning of adolescents. Family economic hardship was negatively related to adolescents’ feeling of security in the family system. The results showed that family economic hardship is both directly and indirectly, via security in the family system, linked to various domains of adolescent functioning. The findings of the study point to different pathways through which family economic hardship affects adolescents’ emotional, behavioral and school functioning. The results are discussed in the context of timing, depth, and duration of family economic hardship in adolescents’ lives, and the mechanisms through which family economic hardship affects adolescents’ functioning.

family economic hardship; adolescents; school achievement; emotional problems; behavioral problems

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