As part of universal screening efforts in schools, validated measures that identify internalizing distress are needed. One promising available measure, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21), has yet to be thoroughly investigated with adolescents in the United States. This study investigated the underlying factor structure of the…

Starting from a person-environment fit framework, this study investigates whether ethnic congruence--the percentage of co-ethnics in a school--relates to school misconduct and whether congruence effects differ between ethnic minority and majority students. Moreover, we investigate whether eventual associations are mediated by friendship…

Learning difficulties have been found to dilute the possibilities that young adults have in their educational careers. However, during the last few decades, education has become increasingly important for employment and overall life satisfaction. In the present study, we were interested in the effects of mathematical and reading difficulties and…

In the current study, based on a sample of 1,873 adolescents between 11.4 and 20.9 years of age from the first 3 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we investigated the longitudinal effects of future orientation on levels of and developmental changes in problem behaviors, while controlling for the effects by impulsivity;…

Student misbehavior is a pervasive problem and may seriously affect academic achievement. Previous research hints at different effects depending on whether achievement tests or achievement judgments are used as academic outcomes. Previous research also indicates that low achievement can conversely contribute to problem behavior and that low…

Analyzing problem-behavior trajectories can be difficult. The data are generally categorical and often quite skewed, violating distributional assumptions of standard normal-theory statistical models. In this article, the authors present several currently available modeling options, all of which make appropriate distributional assumptions for the…

This study supported associations between three theoretically driven conceptualizations of racial and ethnic identity (REI; Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure; Multidimensional Racial Identity Measure; Bicultural Identity Measure) and with adaptive functioning among Canadian indigenous adolescents in middle school to high school. Age differences…

We investigated the influence of effective parenting behaviors (father and mother reports) and deviant peer association (adolescent reports) on subsequent young adolescent conduct problems (teacher reports) during grades 7-9, using structural equation modeling. Data were from a sample of 226 rural adolescents (n = 112 boys; n = 107 girls; n = 7…

This study of high school outcomes in the Baltimore City Public Schools builds on substantial prior research on the early warning indicators of dropping out. It sought to investigate whether the same variables that predicted a non-graduation outcome in other urban districts--attendance, behavior problems, and course failure--were also significant…

We investigated whether role models (individuals adolescents look up to) contributed to the resilience of adolescents who were exposed to negative nonparental adult influences. Our sample included 659 African American, ninth-grade adolescents. We found that adolescents' exposure to negative adult behavior was associated with increased…

Background: Escalation of youth violence within a large geographic school-complex area in southeastern rural Hawaii became a major problem in 2006. How cultural forces impact the problem was an impetus to examine youth violence from perspectives of adults and children in rural communities. Gathering these data was an essential first step toward…

The current study replicates work of Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands. It describes dropout prevention programs in nine Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) school districts serving communities with populations of 24,742-107,250 (as of July 2008). All nine…

The current study replicates work of Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands. It describes dropout prevention programs in nine Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) school districts serving communities with populations of 24,742-107,250 (as of July 2008). All nine…

Given the increased risk factors in the transition from middle school to high school, this study tracked academic and school discipline records for students receiving general and special education services as they transitioned from Grade 8 to Grade 9. The authors employed analysis of variance and structural equation modeling to determine the…

Adolescence is a time where individuals face a myriad of physical, cognitive, psychological, and social changes, presenting a time of stress and ambiguity. Experiencing stressful life events during this time introduces yet another challenge for the adolescent to address. The present study tested a reciprocal causation hypothesis. From this…