Abstract
A number of respected social critics, including the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), have recommended the earlier integration of adolescents into the workplace. The PSAC Panel on Youth (1973) claims that work settings provide opportunities for developing and exercising personal responsibility, taking responsibility for the welfare of others, and establishing more extensive instrumental and social relations with nonfamilial adults. This study of “naturally occurring” employment among high school students examines these claims about the nature of the workplace. Drawing on interview, questionnaire, and observational data, we argue that the PSAC's expectations are somewhat optimistic. With respect to personal responsibility taking, although many adolescent workers have opportunities for self-management and report performing assigned tasks dependably, very few report going “beyond the call of duty.” With respect to social responsibility, workers experience only modest levels of task interdependence and centrality to a team effort; yet substantial numbers of adolescent workers feel that their work serves a socially useful purpose. Finally, with respect to intergenerational contact, the workplace fails to induce meaningful interaction with adults. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that if the workplace is to become a truly vital context for adolescent socialization, it needs to be designed more deliberately with such aims in mind.
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This study is part of a large-scale investigation of the cost and benefits of working to adolescent development. The research program is supported by the National Institute of Education and the Spencer Foundation; dissemination of policy-oriented papers is supported by the Ford Foundation. The authors, who are Co-Principal Investigators of the research program, share equal responsibility for this report.
Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University. Main research interests are adolescence and social institutions, life-span development, and social policy.
Received Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Cornell University. Main research interests are adolescent development, life-span development, and social policy.
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Greenberger, E., Steinberg, L.D. The workplace as a context for the socialization of youth. J Youth Adolescence 10, 185–210 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02088970
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02088970