Research Interests

Family demography, stratification, transition to adulthood.

Contribution to AHAA

Analysis of the connection between Adolescent Relationships and Academic Experiences, Contextual data

Active Awards and Grants

Race and School Contexts of Adolescent Social Relations. Principal Investigator, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. R03 HD047331-01. Project dates: 08/01/05-07/31/07.

The primary goal of this project is to investigate how adolescent relationships with the opposite sex are shaped by the institutional and social context of schools, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and the high school transcript study, Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement (AHAA). We distinguish two dimensions of adolescent relationships, sexual activity and couple involvement. Couple involvement concerns the degree to which the pair presents themselves to each other and to others as a couple. Most prior research has focused on sexual activity, but a key difference between white and black relationships may be along the couple dimension and the degree to which adolescent sexual relationships are accompanied by couple identification. We will model the association between the social context of schools and these two dimensions of adolescent relationships with the opposite sex. The internal structure of schools shapes the normative climate for sexual and romantic relationships. We characterize the normative climate by observing the attitudes and behaviors of other students. Importantly, rather than assuming that all students share the same social context, we identify subgroups by examining course-taking behaviors and create measures that characterize the attitudes and behaviors of students within these subgroups.

Selected Publications

Raley, R. Kelly, Michelle Frisco, & Elizabeth Wildsmith. 2005. "Maternal Cohabitation and Children's Educational Attainment" Sociology of Education. 78: 144-164.

Raley, R. Kelly, T. Elizabeth Durden, & Elizabeth Wildsmith. 2004. "Understanding Mexican American Marriage Patterns Using a Life Course Approach" Social Science Quarterly. 85 (4): 872-890.

Raley, R. Kelly and Jenifer Bratter. 2004."Not Even if You Were the Last Person on Earth! How Marital Search Constraints Affect the Likelihood of Marriage." Journal of Family Issues. 25: 167-181.

Raley, R. Kelly and Wildsmith, Elizabeth. 2004. "Cohabitation and Children's Family Instability" Journal of Marriage and the Family. 66:210-219.

Raley, R. Kelly and Larry L. Bumpass. 2003. "The Topography of the Plateau in Divorce: Levels and Trends in Union Stability after 1980. Demographic Research. 8: 246-258.

Raley, R. Kelly. 2001. "Increasing Fertility in Cohabiting Unions: Evidence for the Second Demographic Transition in the United States?" Demography, 38(1):59-66.

Raley, R. Kelly. 2000. "Recent Trends in Marriage and Cohabitation: The United States" in Linda Waite, Christine Bachrach, Michelle Hindin, Elizabeth Thomson, and Arland Thornton, (Eds). Ties that Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation (pp. 19-39). Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter.

Raley, R. Kelly. 1996. "A Shortage of Marriageable Men? A Note on the Role of Cohabitation in Race Differences in Marriage." American Sociological Review. 61: 973-983.

Links

Curriculum Vitae
R. Kelly Raley's PRC Webpage