| Sumario: | Social bonds are key for adolescent psychosocial development; how youth perceive their connectedness with family, school, peers, and communities varies widely, which may be interrelated with self-esteem over time. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 8760), researchers examined how: (1) family, school/peer, and community connectedness linked with youth self-esteem trajectory classes, (2) self-esteem trajectory classes link with young adult socioeconomic and relationship outcomes including education level, income and close relationship quality, and (3) social connectedness is differentially related to young adult outcomes across self-esteem trajectory classes. While results showed that connectedness was universally beneficial, there were multiple significant differences between self-esteem classes with high self-esteem class showing highest levels of community, school and parental connectedness. Among all comparisons, consistently high self-esteem yielded optimal young adult socioeconomic outcomes in education level and income compared with both decreasing and increasing classes and better relationship quality compared with increasing class. Identifying members of different self-esteem trajectory classes with various patterns, and differing levels of social connectedness and young adult outcomes provides useful information for early developmental efforts, and program formulation. Highlights: We examined adolescent connectedness within family, school, and community contexts and trajectories of self-esteem. All forms of connectedness were found to be positively associated with the consistently high self-esteem trajectory. Any fluctuation in self-esteem over time was linked with lower attainment in young adulthood than consistently high self-esteem. High self-esteem during adolescence is a long-term protective factor.
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