Despite the volume of research on empathy and prosocial behavior, there is a dearth of studies exploring early adolescents' experiences of practicing cognitive empathy and prosocial behavior. Without understanding both the challenges and opportunities of these two skills, we cannot effectively support their growth during this critical…

Background: Peers constitute an important developmental context for adolescent academic behaviour providing support and resources to either promote or discourage attitudes and behaviours that contribute to school success. When looking for academic help, students may prefer specific partners based on their social goals regarding academic…

Students' academic engagement is greatly informed by a classroom's social climate. However, more research is needed regarding how specific peer behavior, especially prosocial behavior, come to shape academic engagement. The present study investigated whether students' perceptions about their classmates' prosocial behavior were associated with…

Background/Context: Political divisiveness, racial reckoning, climate change, and mental health challenges represent just a few contemporary issues facing today's youth. Addressing these challenges now and in the future requires deep interpersonal understanding and collective action--neither of which can be achieved without empathy or prosocial…

Globalization, increased ease of transportation, and conflicts in different regions have led to multicultural interactions among diverse communities. However, there is a lack of research on tolerance awareness in multicultural mathematics education. This study implemented action research to develop middle school students' awareness of tolerance…

Empathy is a key contributor to moral, pro-social behaviour and an important element of socio-emotional learning (SEL). Schools deliver SEL programmes during adolescence to develop a range of skills including empathy. As education becomes increasingly digital, more research is needed to understand the role digital technologies may play in…

Students' prosocial behavior is linked to their own and their classmate's engagement in the classroom. This raises the question of through what pathway prosocial behavior is linked to engagement. This study investigates whether early adolescents' peer belonging mediates the relationship between prosocial behavior and classroom engagement. The…

In order to explore the effects of prosocial behavior, teacher's attitudes towards bullying, and classroom climate on peer victimization, we collected data from 1,221 students (M[subscript age] = 13.60, SD = 0.88) from 47 classrooms and their teachers from three middle schools in Beijing, China. The hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine…

The present study aimed to investigate school-aged children's understanding of emotions of perpetrators and targets of school bullying and whether these vary as a function of children's participant role in a bullying episode. One hundred seventy-six boys and girls, with a mean age of 11 years and 3 months, participated in the study. They were…

Although school climate plays an important role in the development of adolescent prosocial behaviors and problem behaviors, little is known about the mechanisms underlying school climate's impact on such behaviors, particularly in Chinese adolescents. This study used a multi-informant approach to investigate the mediating role of social-emotional…

On August 3rd, 2019, a racially-charged mass shooting occurred at Walmart in El Paso, TX that killed 23 people and injured another 23. Following the Walmart shooting, students in this borderland region wrote essays related to their experiences. We used the themes we identified to inform implications for teaching writing and composition for middle…

Narcissistic youth use social media to engage in a variety of self-promotional behaviors, which have either antisocial or prosocial characteristics. Differing views exist to explain the processes underlying narcissistic self-promotion, either characterizing these actions as intentional, or as impulsive. This study compared intentional…

The present study aimed to establish the relationship between middle school students' attitudes toward science and the environment with their love, respect, responsibility, empathy, aggression, bullying tendencies and attitudes toward reading. One of the most general survey models, the relational survey model was employed in the study, and it was…

Crucial skills for early adolescents to develop include respecting people from different backgrounds, showing empathy and compassion, and making ethical decisions in challenging situations. This exploratory study aims to understand the extent to which "students' perceptions of teacher caring and belonging related to changes in their…

Middle school students' prosocial behavior, classroom engagement, and sense of belonging tend to decline across the school year. This study addressed whether these declines are associated with students' perceptions of their relationship with their teacher and the extent to which their teacher promoted respect among classmates. Self-report surveys…