WOMEN, INFANTS, AND CHILDREN
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a food assis-
tance and nutrition program that provides supple-
mental food, nutrition education, and access to health
care for pregnant women, women up to six months
postpartum, women breast-feeding infants up to one
year old, infants, and children under age five. Partici-
pants qualify based on nutritional risk and income at
or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
(The Food Stamp Program income cut-off is 130 per-
cent of the federal poverty level.) Participants receive
monthly coupons for food rich in protein, iron, calci-
um, vitamin A, and vitamin C (such as milk, cheese,
eggs, fruit juice, cereal, peanut butter, legumes, in-
fant formula, and infant cereal). The United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) funds the pro-
gram; services are provided at the local level through
health services, social services, and community agen-
cies. The program’s purpose is to provide nutrient-
dense foods and nutrition education at critical peri-
ods of growth and development to prevent health
problems and improve the health status of low-
income women and children in the United States.
See also: NUTRITION; POVERTY
Bibliography
Boyle, Marie A., and Diane H. Morris. Community Nutrition in Ac-
tion: An Entrepreneurial Approach. St. Paul, MN: West Publish-
ing, 1994.
Story, Mary, Katrina Holt, and Denise Sofka. Bright Futures in Prac-
tice: Nutrition. Arlington, VA: National Center for Education
in Maternal and Child Health, 2000.
Nicole B. Knee
Janice Dodds
WORKING IN ADOLESCENCE
One hallmark of a successful transition to adulthood
is the development of career aspirations and an iden-
tity as someone who works. It is during adolescence
that these issues become particularly salient.
Developmental Roots of Industry,
Identity, and Employment
According to Erik Erikson’s work in the early
1960s, the primary developmental task of adoles-
cence is to achieve a sense of identity, to determine
who one is and what one’s place in society will be. This
task lays the groundwork for educational and career
choices and the eventual attainment of adult self-
sufficiency. The roots of the attitudes and skills neces-
sary for the successful resolution of this developmen-
tal task of adolescence begin in infancy and early
childhood.
Attachment theorists have proposed that infants
are genetically endowed to experience satisfaction in
exploring and manipulating the environment, a de-
velopmental antecedent of employment. In the early
1960s, Erikson, R. Havinghurst, and Donald Super
noted the importance of the early childhood years for
the development of attitudes and skills associated
with working. During the third stage of Erikson’s the-
ory of psychosocial development, around age five,
children experience pleasure in using tools and inter-
acting with their environment; and during latency,
his fourth stage, children internalize a work principle.
Havinghurst proposed that between five and ten
years of age children establish ‘‘identification with a
worker’’ and during early adolescence (ten to fifteen
years of age) children acquire habits of industry.
Through schoolwork, chores, and the require-
ments of hobbies, children learn how to apply them-
selves, set goals, work in teams, and accomplish tasks.
Super concurred that vocational concerns develop
gradually over the course of early childhood and then
become more salient in adolescence. For Super the
primary task of adolescence was the crystallization of
a vocational preference, which involves the formula-
tion of ideas about work and self, and could then
evolve into an occupational self-concept. He took the
position that a vocational self-concept is a reflection
of a person’s overall self-concept but more specialized
in that it shapes educational and employment activi-
ties. Research has shown that by seventh grade chil-
dren have developed work-relevant cognitions,
attitudes, and feelings that are quite similar to those
of adolescents and adults.Advantages and Disadvantages of
Adolescent Employment
Despite the importance of early childhood and
family factors in the development of an adolescent’s
sense of industry and vocational development, little
research has been conducted to determine the specif-
ic influences on this key developmental outcome. Re-
searchers have proposed that early positive
experiences with employment significantly contribute
to the adolescent’s emerging sense of industry and
identity. Based on belief in the positive benefits of
youth employment, federal policy and government
legislation have expanded opportunities for youths to
develop work experiences (e.g., the Job Training
Partnership Act and its forerunner, the Comprehen-
sive Employment and Training Act of 1973). The goal
of encouraging young people to assume part-time
employment during their high school years has been
widely endorsed for many years. In 1999 Julian Bar-
ling and E. Kevin Kelloway determined that the aver-
age high school student works the equivalent of aWORKING IN ADOLESCENCE 435