Education Working Paper No. 4  January 2004 Sex, Drugs, and Delinquency in Urban and Suburban Public Schools Endnotes This research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data files from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth/contract.html). In Waves 1 and 2, for each survey wave we included only students who were currently in grades 9 through 12. Thus the data set for Wave 1 is not identical with the data set for Wave 2, as students who were in grade 12 for Wave 1 would have graduated (and thus would have been excluded from the study) for Wave 2, and students who were excluded during Wave 1 because they were in 8th grade would have been in 9th grade (and thus included) for Wave 2. References A. Caspi, G. H. Elder, and E. S. Herbener, “Childhood Personality and the Prediction of Life-Course Patterns,” in Straight and Devious Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood, ed. L. N. Robins and M. Rutter, Cambridge University Press, 1990. Greg J. Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, eds., Consequences of Growing Up Poor, Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. D. P. Farrington, “Childhood, Adolescent, and Adult Features of Violent Males,” in Aggressive Behavior: Current Perspectives, ed. L. R. Huesmann, Plenum Press, 1994. H. J. Gans, “Deconstructing the Underclass: The Term’s Danger as a Planning Concept,” Journal of the American Planning Association 56, 1990. M. A. Gephart, “Neighborhoods and Communities as Contexts for Development,” in Neighborhood Poverty: Context and Consequences for Children, ed. J. Brooks-Gunn, G. J. Duncan, and J. L. Aber, Russell Sage Foundation, 1997. Patricia Hersch, A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence, Fawcett Books, 1998. A. C. Huston, ed., Children in Poverty: Child Development and Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, 1991. A. C. Huston, V. C. McLoyd, and C. Garcia Coll, “Children and Poverty,” Child Development 65 (special issue), 1994. Kay S. Hymowitz, “Tweens: Ten Going on Sixteen” City Journal, Autumn 1998. http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_4_a1.html Kay S. Hymowitz, “What’s Wrong With the Kids?” City Journal, Winter 2000. http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_whats_wrong.html Kay S. Hymowitz, “Who Killed School Discipline?” City Journal, Spring 2000. http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_2_who_killed_school_dis.html Kay S. Hymowitz, “Tales of Suburban High,” Commentary, June 2002. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/commentary/abstract/121759501.html?did=1217 59501&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT:PAGE&PMID=28480&desc=Tales+of+su burban+high D. Magnusson, Individual Development from an Interactional Perspective: A Longitudinal Study, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1988. D. S. Massey and N. A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, Harvard University Press, 1993. C. Power, O. Manor, and J. Fox, Health and Class: The Early Years, Chapman and Hall, 1991. L. Pulkkinen, “Adult Life-Styles and Their Precursors in the Social Behavior of Children and Adolescents,” European Journal of Personality 4, 1990. L. Pulkkinen and R. E. Tremblay, “Patterns of Boys’ Social Adjustment in Two Cultures and at Different Ages: A Longitudinal Perspective,” International Journal of Behavioral Development 15, 1992 L. N. Robins, Deviant Children Grown Up, Williams and Wilkins, 1966. B. Rodgers, “Behavior and Personality in Childhood as Predictors of Adult Psychiatric Disorder,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 31, 1990. William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner-City, The Underclass, and Public Policy, University of Chicago Press, 1987. William Julius Wilson, “Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations: The Challenge of Public Agenda Research,” American Sociological Review 56 (1), 1991. William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, Knopf, 1996.

EMAIL THIS | PRINTER FRIENDLY EWP 4 PDF (85 kb) WHAT THE PRESS SAID SUMMARY: Parents reflexively believe that suburban public schools provide children with safer and more wholesome environments than their urban counterparts. This report finds that the comforting outward signs of order and decency in suburban public schools don’t reflect real student behavior. Using hard national data on high school students, this report by Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Jay P. Greene and Senior Research Associate Greg Forster finds that urban and suburban high schools are virtually identical in terms of widespread sexual activity and alcohol use. Additionally, about 40% of 12th graders in both urban and suburban schools have used illegal drugs, and 20% of suburban 12th graders and 13% of urban 12th graders have driven while high on drugs. Both types of students are about equally likely to engage in other delinquent behaviors such as fighting and stealing. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Executive Summary About the Authors Acknowledgements About Education Working Papers Introduction Previous Research Method Results Sexual Activity Substance Use Delinquency Conclusion Endnotes References Tables