This study examined the effects of behavioral and social engagement and classroom supportiveness on the development of civic efficacy in fourth-grade science classrooms. We define civic efficacy as children's beliefs that they are not only capable of making a difference in their community, but they also feel a responsibility to do so. This study…

Adolescents' civic engagement is related to other aspects of their positive development. Many family and school characteristics can promote adolescents' civic engagement, but they are often studied separately. Furthermore, studies have often used adolescent self-reports and measured only one aspect of the multidimensional construct of civic…

Studies that distinguish parental monitoring (parent-driven behaviors) from parental knowledge often fail to find protective effects of monitoring on adolescent behavior problems. To answer whether parental monitoring is more strongly associated with adolescent behavior problems among adolescents who may need it most, this study applied…

Guided by the ecological model of civic development, this study examined the extent to which the growth in children's self-control during middle childhood predicted their civic engagement at age 26 directly and indirectly via their prosociality at age 15. We used data from 1,042 children (50% female, 77% White) in the NICHD Study of Early Child…