Social Integration, Stress, and Ambition in Transitions to Adulthood

摘要本研究探讨了青少年的压力暴露、社会融合和愿望如何影响他们成年后的幸福感。我们关注的是一个偏远农村地区的年轻人，那里的社区曾经依靠纸浆和造纸厂的工作来维持生计，近年来这些工厂都关闭了。我们的研究探讨了青少年的健康、偏差、教育和工作等结果如何与家庭、学校和社区相关的压力经历、整合和愿望有关。本研究以社会学中的压力过程文献为基础，同样考察了性别、年龄和社会经济差异对压力、社会融合和抱负的影响。最后，本研究考察了压力暴露与上述形式的幸福之间的联系程度，这取决于青年的社会融合水平和愿望。我们以现有的两波人口为基础，对2008年7年级和11年级的青少年进行了定量调查，并对24名7年级学生及其母亲进行了定性访谈。我们将从原来的青年参与者中收集另一波调查数据，并对原来的定性研究参与者进行随访访谈。我们的跨学科（例如，社会学，司法研究，家庭研究和教育）和混合方法方法将使我们能够深入和随着时间的推移，在面临独特的经济和发展挑战的未被充分研究的人群中，成功过渡到成年的相关经验。我们研究的更广泛的影响包括我们的本科生和研究生助理参与研究的各个阶段，从数据收集和管理到分析和传播。对学生的好处包括有各种机会完成高级、硕士和博士学位论文，以及与教师和社区领袖在研究和推广方面进行合作的许多其他可能性。高级教师研究人员将继续通过学术期刊和国家会议报告传播项目信息、结果和政策相关材料，学生跨学科合作将是优先事项。此外，我们的团队将继续建立和促进当地的合作伙伴关系，以实现设计、实施和评估创新干预措施的长期目标，促进面临独特经济挑战的农村社区向成人角色的成功过渡。为了与新罕布什尔大学卡西研究所“为家庭和社区建立知识”的使命保持一致，从该项目中收集的信息将成为演讲、讲座、政策简报和其他与促进当地和全国青年和年轻人福祉相关的公共服务活动的主题。该项目将通过促进压力和生命历程理论、研究和政策制定，促进科学探究和实践。

AbstractThis study examines how youths' stress exposure, social integration, and aspirations affect their well-being as they transition to adulthood. We focus on youth in an isolated rural region where communities that were once sustained by jobs in pulp and paper mills have experienced the closing of these mills in recent years. Our research explores how youth outcomes,such as health, deviancy, education, and work,are related to family-, school-, and community-related stress experiences, integration, and aspirations. Building on the stress-process literature in sociology, this research likewise examines how sex, age, and socioeconomic differences in well-being are linked to stress, social integration, and aspirations. Finally, this research examines the degree to which links between stress exposure and the above forms of well-being differ depending on youths' levels of social integration and aspirations. We build on an existing two-wave population-based quantitative survey of youth who were in 7th and 11th grades in 2008, and on qualitative interviews with a subsample of 24 7th graders and their mothers. We will collect an additional wave of survey data from the original youth participants, and conduct follow-up interviews with the original qualitative study participants. Our interdisciplinary (e.g., Sociology, Justice Studies, Family Studies, and Education) and mixed-method approach will allow us to examine in-depth and over time the experiences relevant for successful transitions to adulthood in an understudied population facing a unique set of economic and developmental challenges.The broader impacts of our study include our involvement of undergraduate and graduate student assistants across all phases of the research, ranging from data collection and management to analysis and dissemination. Benefits to students include various opportunities to complete senior, MA, and PhD theses and dissertations, and many other possibilities for collaboration on research and outreach with faculty and community leaders. Senior faculty researchers will continue to disseminate project information, results, and policy-relevant material via scholarly journals and national conference presentations, on which student co-authorship across disciplines will be a priority. In addition, our team will continue to establish and foster local collaborative partnerships with the long-term goal of designing, implementing, and evaluating innovative interventions that promote the successful transition to adult roles in rural Communities facing unique economic challenges. In keeping with the University of New Hampshire Carsey Institute's mission of "building knowledge for families and communities," the information gleaned from the project will be the subject of presentations, lectures, policy briefs, and other public service activities relevant to the promotion of youth and young adult well-being locally and nationally. The project will promote scientific inquiry and practice by contributing to stress and life course theory, research, and policy development.