Abstract
Using data from Wave II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health; Bearman, P. S., Jones, J., and Udry, J. R. http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth/design.html, 1997), we conducted multivariate analyses to examine three indicators of psychosocial adjustment (school belonging, self-esteem, depressive symptoms) and their associations with sexual attraction status, sex, and urbanicity. In general, sexual minority adolescents reported lower psychological adjustment than adolescents endorsing other-sex attractions only, with sexual minority females at particular risk. Further, differential patterns of risk for sexual minority youth emerged across rural, urban, and suburban communities. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for addressing the psychosocial needs of sexual minority adolescents.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 235-245 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Youth and Adolescence |
Volume | 33 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2004 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information: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 No. P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due to 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, North Carolina 27516-2524. Dr. Rostosky’s work on this project was partially funded by a 2003 University of Kentucky Summer Research Fellowship. Preliminary analyses from this project were presented at the 2002 meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Keywords
- Adjustment
- Adolescence
- Sexual minority
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Education
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)