Cied Part C
Cied Part C
Cied Part C
Theses/Dissertation One:
Theses/Dissertation Two:
1. Amanda Williams
2. 2013
3. Risk and Resilience Models of Community Adversity and Long-Term Adjustment
4. Oklahoma State University
5. The story told throughout this research follows Conger et al.’s (1992) model of
communities affecting youth via their parents; however, the present study contributes
important insight into the features of communities that provide the greatest protection for
family well-being and the long-term psychological adjustment of children. Community
connectedness and integration were primary predictors in each model so it is important to
revisit the nature of those constructs. Community connectedness refers to the bonds
community members form with their neighbors and the feelings of security these bonds
provide. These relationships at the community level are directly related with parents’
nurturance and involvement with their children as well as the overall quality of the
parent-child relationship. The combination of social organization and positive parenting
practices have been identified as strong protective factors in previous studies (Earls &
Carlson, 2001; Mancini, Bowen, & Martin, 2005; Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, &
Cutrona, 2005), particularly among African American youth (Simons et al.; Rankin &
Quane, 2002). However, in terms of adolescent depressive’s symptoms in the present
research, this combination was only significant for White youth. For youth who were
female, African American, or raised in less disadvantaged contexts, higher levels of
adversity actually drew parents and children together improving their relationship and
benefiting adolescent mental health. Community adversity is linked with adolescent
depression and, for vulnerable youth in more adverse communities, their relationship
with their parents might become a risk-activated protective factor improving as a direct
result of the broader contextual risk and benefiting adolescent mental health (Masten et
al., 2009). Positive parenting is good for all children, but when living in impoverished,
crowded, and racially dispersed neighborhoods, parenting is uniquely boosted by
adversity and even more essential for positive youth development (Masten et al.).
Parents’ mental health status is predictive of their children’s mental health (Hammen,
Shih, & Brennan, 2004) and in the present research parents’ involvement with
community organizations significantly increased parental happiness (albeit small
increases). In turn, parental happiness significantly improved trajectories of depressive
symptoms from adolescence to adulthood. The importance of family stress models
(Conger et al., 1992) for adolescent well- being cannot be overstated as youth are
consistently affected by communities via their parents. The present research adds
important new information about parent effects as well as direct community effects on
human agency during a critical developmental turning point. Elder and Hitlin (2007)
went to great lengths to operationalize the ambiguous construct of agency during
adolescence identifying planfulness, self-efficacy, and optimism as key indicators of
adolescents’ capacity and awareness of their own ability to direct their life course. Study
findings indicate this capacity is a significant protective factor for mental health across
the lifespan, particularly for females who are consistently at greater risk for depression
than males (Essau, Lewinsohn, Seeley, Sasagawa, 2010).