The role of adolescent social inclusion in educational attainment among vulnerable youth

BACKGROUND

Completing high school enables access to educational and employment opportunities associated with better physical and mental health and improved quality of life. Identifying modifiable factors that promote optimal educational trajectories for youth experiencing disadvantage is an important research focus. Social inclusion has been theorised to play a role in promoting better educational outcomes for this priority population, however limited research has examined this relationship.

METHOD

This study used three waves of data from the state-representative Australian arm of the International Youth Development Study (IYDS) (youngest cohort, N = 733; 54% female, 95% Australian born) to examine the extent to which vulnerability in primary school (Grade 5; Mage = 10.97, SD = 0.38) and social inclusion in mid-adolescence (Year 10; Mage = 15.50, SD = 0.53), were associated with school completion in young adulthood (post-secondary; Mage = 19.02, SD = 0.43).

RESULTS

Regression models identified an interaction between social inclusion and vulnerability (OR = 1.37, 95% CI [1.06, 1.77], p = .016), indicating that the association between vulnerability and school completion varied as a student's level of social inclusion increased. Higher social inclusion was beneficial for youth with lower levels of vulnerability but did not appear to influence school completion for the most vulnerable students.

CONCLUSIONS

For many young people, promoting social inclusion may support engagement in education and play a protective role. However, further research is needed to better understand the role of social inclusion for highly vulnerable youth, particularly the mechanisms via which social inclusion may have differential effects on school completion.

Sexting Among Australian Adolescents: Risk and Protective Factors

Although consensual sending of sexts between adolescents is considered developmentally appropriate, it may also entail a range of negative consequences. Current sexting research lacks a comprehensive theoretical framework identifying a range of risk and protective factors underpinning adolescent consensual sending of sexts across individual, interpersonal, and distal levels. Further, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of how the importance of these factors may vary across adolescent age. This study investigated the utility of the Social Development Model to predict a range of risk and protective factors across individual, family, peer, school, and community-level factors. The sample included 1302 teenagers from Victoria, Australia (M_age = 14.54, SD = 1.14, 50.8% girls). Results indicated that 146 (11.7%) participants sent a sext (76 boys and 70 girls). Logistic regression analyses revealed that the Social Development Model accounted for 45.8% of variance in sexting, with greater likelihood of sending sexts being associated with older age, prior sexual activity, school sector, physical activity, lifetime substance use, greater depressive symptoms, sensation seeking, and perceived substance availability in the community. Multigroup analyses revealed that lifetime substance use was associated with a greater likelihood of sending sexts among younger teens. Among older adolescents, adaptive coping was associated with reduced engagement in sexting, while higher parental overcontrol and family conflict increased the odds of sending sexts. Overall, sexting is associated with a range of modifiable factors potentially amenable to intervention.

Modeling Adolescent Social Inclusion to Improve School Completion

Enhancing social inclusion in young people could increase engagement in education, yet few longitudinal studies have examined this relationship. This study aimed to identify whether social inclusion in an Australian adolescent sample predicted high school completion three years later. Using state-representative data from the International Youth Development Study, two waves of the youngest cohort (51.6% female and 94.6% Australian born) during mid-adolescence (n = 825, M_age = 15.99, SD = 0.39) and post-secondary school (n = 809, M_age = 19.03, SD = 0.44) were analyzed. Factor analysis identified a 4-factor structure that represented an overarching social inclusion construct: (1) Citizenship, (2) Connectedness to Community, (3) Connectedness to Family, and (4) Connectedness to and Participation in School. Multivariate regression analyses indicated higher social inclusion levels in mid-adolescence predicted an increased likelihood of high school completion three years later. The implementation of strategies that incorporate the enhancement of social inclusion may improve educational outcomes for young people.