The Impact of Student Employment on Teachers' Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Working Students

Abstract

Part-time and full-time work is increasingly common among many American high school students. There is a substantial body of research on the relationship of youth work with individual academic and socioeconomic outcomes, but we know little about how schools and teachers themselves have responded to the shift among their students toward intensified work involvement. Our research analyzes teachers' views of working students and the impact of student work upon classroom organization and performance. We find considerable concern on the part of teachers toward student employment but little evidence that they adjust their classroom behavior to accommodate working students. Years of teaching experience and experience as a parent of a working teenager have contradictory effects of teachers' perceptions of working students. We discuss the implications of these findings for the classroom performance of teachers and the social organization of schools.