The Downside of Student Employment Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive E

The Downside of Student Employment In the last thirty years there has been a significant change in the adolescent experience in the United States. The teenagers of today have jobs. While the teenagers of yesteryear had occasional jobs like baby-sitting and constant of gravitation work or summer jobs at the pool or on the farm, todays teenagers have avocation during the school year that requires a square(p) investment of time. In the past, teenagers were either workers or students working students usually dropped out of school. Part-time work for students was scarce. Now part-time work is common, and certain segments of the economy deposit on the ready availability of low-paid teen-age labor. In many ways, the high school experience, with its social life, clubs, sports, and volunteer service opportunities, may appear much the same as in the past. But the time and commitment required by employment have brought about significant changes in student attitudes and experiences. The effects of student employment are consequential and pervasive. Two major studies examining high school students and their world of school, work, family, and peers, have considered the issue of student employment. In Beyond the Classroom, Laurence Steinberg and his associates report on their super survey of 20,000 students over ten years, focusing on student engagement with school. (Referred to in notes as Steinberg.) Another 6-year study of 7000 students looked at student ambitions and how well they correct with reality. This study is reported in The Ambitious Generation Americas Teenage... ...sted in as a career. The education of American students should not be at the mercy of shopping mall stores and McDonalds. Works Cited The Downside of Teen Employment, Secondary School Educators. July 15, 1999. http//7-12educators.miningco.com/Library/Weekly/aa0092697.htm. Schneider, Barbara and David Stevenson. The Ambitiou s Generation Americas Teenagers, Motivated but Directionless. New Haven Yale University Press, 1999. Steinberg, Laurence. Beyond the Classroom. New York Simon & Schuster, 1996. Steinberg, Laurence and Elizabeth Cauffman. The impingement of Employment on Adolescent Development in Annals of Child Development, v. 11. London Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1995 131-166.