Adolescents' Love Lives: Heterogeneity in Relationship Status Trajectories and Links with Affect.

Romantic experiences are more fluid and heterogeneous during middle adolescence than at any other life stage, but current understanding of this heterogeneity and flux is limited because of imprecise measurement. A sample of 531 adolescents (55% female; 28% non-Hispanic White; 32% Black; 27% Hispanic; 14% Other) recruited from an ongoing birth cohort study (Mean age = 16.7 years, SD = 0.358), was administered bi-weekly diaries over 52 weeks to prospectively record transitions in and out of romantic and sexual relationships and to assess links with positive affect (frequency of happiness) and negative affect (frequency of sadness). Relationship statuses considered included not only dating, but also liminal and asymmetrical statuses such as talking/flirting and crushes. Latent profile analyses revealed six relationship status trajectories, or love life profiles, based on the number of intra-year partners and on the extent of involvement in each of the relationship statuses. Approximately half of teens either were in stable dating relationships or uninvolved romantically during the year; however, half experienced variable levels of flux in their love lives. Relationship instability, not romantic involvement per se, was associated with higher levels of sadness and lower levels of happiness. Snapshots of teen romantic involvement based on one or two points in time obscure the extent of relationship heterogeneity and flux and how relationship status trajectories are associated with positive and negative affect.

Adolescents' Partner Search in the Digital Age: Correlates and Characteristics of Relationships Initiated Online.

Digital technology and social media platforms have transformed the ways adolescents communicate and cultivate romantic relationships, but few studies consider whether relationships initiated online are less salutary than those formed in person. A sample of 531 adolescents (Mean age = 16.7 years, SD = 0.358; 55% female) was recruited from an ongoing birth cohort study and administered bi-weekly diaries over a year to evaluate the circumstances associated with adolescents' romantic relationship formation and relationship quality. Two-thirds of respondents initiated one or more romantic relationships during the study, of which 15% were initiated online. Girls who did not fit in well at school and who had difficulty making friends were more likely to initiate romantic relationships online than their more sociable peers who fit in well at school; for boys, however, access to mobile devices increased the odds that romantic relationships were initiated online. The diaries captured considerable flux in the evolution of romantic relationships, but there was limited evidence that relationships initiated online involved greater risks, with the notable exception of greater age asymmetry.

Using Paradata to Evaluate Youth Participation in a Digital Diary Study.

We analyze recruitment, access and longitudinal response paradata from a year-long intensive longitudinal study (mDiary) that used a mobile-optimized web app to administer 25 bi-weekly diaries to youth recruited from a birth cohort study. Analyses investigate which aspects of teen recruitment experiences are associated with enrollment and longitudinal response patterns; whether compliance behavior of teens who require multiple invitations to enroll differs from that of teens who enroll on the first invitation; and what personal and social circumstances are associated with different longitudinal compliance patterns. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) is used to derive longitudinal compliance classes. mDiary's person-survey response rate of 70 percent is noteworthy considering reports that response rates for smartphone studies trail those administered via telephone or personal computers. Conditional on agreeing to participate, teens with texting capability were over six times as likely to enroll as their peers lacking access, and they also completed 6-7 more diaries. Youth who required multiple prods to register not only were less likely to enroll than their peers who registered at the first invitation, but also tended to attrite early. Compared with teens who completed all 25 surveys, those who attrited early had less access to texting capability, home Internet service, and had low-education mothers. Consistent with studies of adults, nonparticipants were disproportionately black males from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Using Bi-Weekly Surveys to Portray Adolescent Partnership Dynamics: Lessons From a Mobile Diary Study.

Partnership formation is an important developmental task for adolescents, but cross-sectional and periodic longitudinal studies have lacked the measurement precision to portray partnership stability and flux and to capture the range of adolescent partnership experiences. This article assesses the promises and challenges of using bi-weekly mobile diaries administered over the course of a year to study adolescent partnership dynamics. Descriptive findings illustrate the potential of bi-weekly diaries for both capturing the longitudinal complexity and fluidity of adolescent partnerships as well as for reducing retrospection biases. Results also underscore several challenges, including those posed by missing data, and highlight several strategies for maximizing participant engagement and reliably tracing adolescent partnerships.

Boundary crossing in first marriage and remarriage.

Owing to secular increases in divorce rates, remarriage has become a prevalent feature of American family life; yet, research about mate selection behavior in higher order marriages remains limited. Using log-linear methods to recent data from the 2008-2014 American Community Survey, we compare racial and ethnic sorting behavior in first and subsequent marriages. The two most frequently crossed boundaries - those involving White-Asian and White-Hispanic couples - are more permeable in remarriages than in first marriages. Boundaries that are crossed with less frequency - those between minority groups and the White-Black boundary-are less permeable in remarriages than in first marriages. Collectively, these findings suggest that racial and ethnic sorting processes in remarriage may reify existing social distances between pan-ethnic groups. Racial and ethnic variations in how the relative permeability of boundary changes between first and higher-order marriages underscore the importance of considering a broad array of interracial pairings when assessing the ways in which changes in family structure and marital sorting behavior promote integration.

Age at migration, family instability, and timing of sexual onset.

This study builds on and extends previous research on nativity variations in adolescent health and risk behavior by addressing three questions: (1) whether and how generational status and age at migration are associated with timing of sexual onset among U.S. adolescents; (2) whether and how family instability mediates associations between nativity and sexual debut; and (3) whether and how these associations vary by gender. We find that first- and second-generation immigrant youth initiate sexual activity later than native youth. Foreign-born youth who migrate after the start of adolescence exhibit the latest sexual onset; boys' sexual behavior is particularly sensitive to age at migration. Parental union stability is protective for first- and second-generation youth, especially boys; however, instability in co-residence with parents accelerates sexual debut for foreign-born girls, and dilutes protections from parental marital stability. Use of a non-English language at home delays sexual onset for immigrant girls, but not boys.

Birthing, Nativity, and Maternal Depression: Australia and the United States.

This study analyzes two birth cohort surveys, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n=3944) and Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (n=7700), to examine variation in maternal depression by nativity, duration of residence, age at migration, and English proficiency in Australia and the United States. Both countries have long immigrant traditions and a common language. The results demonstrate that US immigrant mothers are significantly less depressed than native-born mothers, but maternal depression does not differ by nativity in Australia. Moreover, the association between duration of residence and maternal depression is not linear: recent arrivals and long-term residents exhibit the highest depression levels. Lack of English proficiency exacerbates maternal depression in Australia, but protects against depression in the United States. Differences in immigration regimes and welfare systems likely contribute to the differing salience of nativity for maternal depression.

Adolescent Partnership Quality and Emotional Health: Insights from an Intensive Longitudinal Study.

Prior research has documented an association between adolescents' romantic experiences and poor emotional health. However, lack of intensive longitudinal measurement and an emphasis on negative affect have limited understanding about the extent to which adolescent relationship quality influences the emotional health of adolescents in partnerships, including the potential benefits of high-quality partnerships. Previous research has also been limited in its ability to account for factors that select adolescents into lower or higher quality partnerships. Using biweekly intensive longitudinal data from the mDiary Study of Adolescent Relationships linked to six waves of birth cohort data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this paper uses multilevel mixed-effects models to address three questions: (1) How are changes in partnership quality (defined as validation, frequency of disagreements, and global quality) associated with changes in both positive and negative affect; (2) Do observed associations persist net of factors that potentially select adolescents into lower or higher quality partnerships (e.g., childhood family experiences); and (3) Do associations between partnership quality and affect differ by gender? Results show that higher quality partnerships are associated with both decreases in negative affect and increases in positive affect. There were no significant gender differences on average. The study's findings highlight the importance of partnership quality as a key source of temporal variation in adolescents' emotional states.

Age at Immigration and the Adult Attainments of Child Migrants to the United States.

Immigrants' age at arrival matters for schooling outcomes in a way that is predicted by child development theory: the chances of being a high school dropout increase significantly each year for children who arrive in a host country after the age of eight. The authors document this process for immigrants in the United States from a number of regions relative to appropriate comparison regions. Using instrumental variables, the authors find that the variation in education outcomes associated with variation in age at arrival influences adult outcomes that are important in the American mainstream, notably English-language proficiency and intermarriage. The authors conclude that children experience migration differently from adults depending on the timing of migration and show that migration during the early years of child development influences educational outcomes. The authors also find that variation in education outcomes induced by the interaction of migration and age at arrival changes the capacity of children to become fully integrated into the American mainstream as adults.

MINORITY HIGHER EDUCATION PIPLINE: CONSEQUNCES OF CHANGES IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS POLICY IN TEXAS.

This paper uses administrative data for the two most selective Texas public institutions to examine the application, admission and enrollment consequences of rescinding affirmative action and implementing the top 10% admission regime. We simulate the gains and losses associated with each policy regime and also those from assigning minorities the application, admission and enrollment rates for white students. Challenging popular claims that the top 10% law restored diversification of Texas's public flagships, our analyses that consider both changes in the size of high school graduation cohorts and institutional carrying capacity show that the uniform admission regime did not restore Hispanic and black representation at UT and TAMU even after four years. Simulations of gains and losses at each stage of the college pipeline across admission regimes for Hispanics and blacks confirm that affirmative action is the most efficient policy to diversify college campuses, even in highly segregated states like Texas.

Race and Ethnic Differences in College Achievement: Does High School Attended Matter?

This paper uses 10 years of enrollment data at four Texas public universities to examine whether, to what extent, and in what ways high school attended contributes to racial and ethnic differences in college achievement. Like previous studies, we show that controlling for observable pre-college achievement variables (e.g. test scores, class rank) shrinks, but does not eliminate, sizable racial differences in college achievement. Fixed-effects models that take into account differences across high schools that minority and nonminority youth attend largely eliminate, and often reverse, black-white and Hispanic-white gaps in several measures of college achievement. Our results, which are quite robust across universities of varying selectivity, illustrate how high school quality foments race and ethnic inequality in postsecondary achievement. Leveling inequities in the quality of high schools that minority students attend is a long-run agenda, but remediation programs that compensate for instructional shortfalls at low performing high schools may help close achievement gaps in the interim.

Policy Transparency and College Enrollment: Did the Texas Top 10% Law Broaden Access to the Public Flagships?

By guaranteeing college admission to all students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class, H.B. 588 replaced an opaque de facto practice of admitting nearly all top 10% graduates with a transparent de jure policy that required public institutions to admit all applicants eligible for the guarantee. The transparency of the new admission regime sent a clear message to students attending high schools that previously sent few students to the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. Using 18 years of administrative data to examine sending patterns, we find a sizeable decrease in the concentration of flagship enrollees originating from select feeder schools and growing shares of enrollees originating from high schools located in rural areas, small towns, and midsize cities, as well as schools with concentrations of poor and minority students. We also find substantial year-to-year persistence in sending behavior once a campus becomes a sending school, and this persistence increased after the top-10% policy was implemented.

Changes in Texas Universities' Applicant Pools after the Hopwood Decision.

This paper evaluates how the distribution of applicant and enrollee attributes at seven Texas universities changed after the Hopwood decision and the implementation of a policy guaranteeing admission to students with high class ranks. We analyze changes in the distributions of test scores and high school class ranks for underrepresented minority groups as well as white and Asian American applicants across institutions and between admission regimes. We show that these admissions policy changes, which have direct effects on only the most selective institutions, have substantial indirect effects at other institutions. Average test scores of applicants to less selective institutions rose following the change in admission criteria, as students with high test scores who did not qualify for the admission guarantee applied to a broader set of institutions. Furthermore, as the share of high rank applicants at UT-Austin rose, the pre-Hopwood assent in the test scores of their applicants stagnated.

Minority Student Academic Performance under the Uniform Admission Law: Evidence from the University of Texas at Austin.

UT-Austin administrative data between 1990 and 2003 are used to evaluate claims that students granted automatic admission based on top 10% class rank underperform academically relative to lower ranked students who graduate from highly competitive high schools. Compared with white students ranked at or below the third decile, top 10% black and Hispanic enrollees arrive with lower average standardized test scores, yet consistently performed as well or better in grades, first year persistence, and four-year graduation likelihood. A similar story obtains for top 10% graduates from Longhorn high schools verses lower-ranked students who graduated from highly competitive feeder high schools. Multivariate results reveal that high school attended rather than test scores is largely responsible for racial differences in college performance.

Students Left Behind: Measuring 10(th) to 12(th) Grade Student Persistence Rates in Texas High Schools.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to publish high school graduation rates for public schools and the U.S. Department of Education is currently considering a mandate to standardize high school graduation rate reporting. However, no consensus exists among researchers or policy-makers about how to measure high school graduation rates. In this paper, we use longitudinal data tracking a cohort of students at 82 Texas public high schools to assess the accuracy and precision of three widely-used high school graduation rate measures: Texas's official graduation rates, and two competing estimates based on publicly available enrollment data from the Common Core of Data. Our analyses show that these widely-used approaches yield inaccurate and highly imprecise estimates of high school graduation and persistence rates. We propose several guidelines for using existing graduation and persistence rate data and argue that a national effort to track students as they progress through high school is essential to reconcile conflicting estimates.

A Tale of Two Counties: Natives' Opinions Toward Immigration in North Carolina.

This paper compares native residents' opinions and perceptions regarding immigration using a representative survey from a pair of matched North Carolina counties-one that experienced recent growth of its foreign-born population and one that did not. Drawing from several theoretical perspectives, including group threat, contact theory, and symbolic politics, we formulate and empirically evaluate several hypotheses. Results provide limited evidence that competition and threat influence formation of opinions about immigration, with modest support for claims that parents with school-aged children harbor more negative views of immigration than their childless counterparts. Except for residents in precarious economic situations, these negative opinions appear unrelated to the immigrant composition of the community. Claims that the media promotes negative views of immigration receive limited support, but this relationship is unrelated to the volume of local immigration. Finally, sustained contacts with foreign-born residents outside work environments are associated with positive views of immigration, but superficial contacts appear to be conducive to anti-immigration sentiments. Political orientation, educational attainment and indicators of respondents' tolerance for diversity explain most of the difference between the two counties in overall support for immigration.

High School Classmates and College Success.

This paper uses administrative data from the University of Texas-Austin to examine whether the number of same high school classmates at college entry influences college achievement, measured by grade point average (GPA) and persistence. For each freshman cohort from 1993 through 2003 we calculate the number and ethnic makeup of college freshmen from each Texas high school. Empirical specifications include high school fixed effects to control for unobservable differences across schools that influence both college enrollment behavior and academic performance. Using an instrumental variables/fixed effects estimation strategy, we also evaluate whether "marginal" increases in the number of high school classmates influence college grades. Results show that students who arrive on campus with a larger number of high school classmates outperform their counterparts from smaller high school cohorts. Average effects of larger high school cohorts on college achievement are small, but a marginal increase in the number of same-race classmates raises GPA by 0.1 point. Results provide suggestive evidence that minority academic benefits from larger high school cohorts are greater for minority compared with white students.

Adolescent Relationship Quality: Is There an Intergenerational Link?

OBJECTIVE: This study examines intergenerational continuities in relationship instability, general relationship quality, and intimate partner violence (IPV) between mothers and adolescents. BACKGROUND: A growing body of literature has observed similarities in relationship quality between parents and their adult offspring. Less attention has focused on whether intergenerational continuities are present in adolescent relationships. METHOD: Using age 3, 5, 9, and 15 data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing birth cohort study (N=3,162), the authors examined associations between maternal reports of relationship instability, general quality, and IPV in early and middle childhood and similar adolescent reports at age 15. Variations based on timing and persistence of exposures were considered. RESULTS: In general, exposures to low-quality maternal relationships were associated with higher risk of forming adolescent partnerships and lower relationship quality. Intergenerational links in quality were predominantly construct-specific, consistent with observational learning processes. Adolescents exposed to maternal relationships of poor general quality in middle childhood were less likely to report high-quality relationships themselves, and those exposed to any maternal physical IPV victimization during childhood were more likely to perpetrate IPV in their own relationships. Exposure to maternal relationship instability in both early and middle childhood was associated with more adolescent romantic partners. CONCLUSION: The study illuminates additional pathways through which healthy and unhealthy relationships are reproduced across generations.