Both parasympathetic nervous system regulation and receipt of social support from close relationships contribute to prosocial development, although few studies have examined their combined influences in adolescence and particularly within racially and ethnically minoritized populations. In this longitudinal study of 229 U.S. Mexican-origin…

Objective: Changes in surroundings and social relationships may heighten feelings of loneliness, suggesting the need to measure as a state. This study tested whether loneliness fluctuates within and across days and the resultant associations with psychological distress. Further it tested familism as a moderator as endorsing this cultural value may…

Native Americans are highly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers; however, little research exists concerning how to promote Native Americans' participation in STEM. In this study, we address this gap by examining variables hypothesized to promote participation using the career self-management (CSM) model…

Many factors at the individual, relationship, family, and community or environmental levels could predict repeat teen pregnancies or births, but research on certain factors is limited. In addition, few studies have examined whether these factors can accurately predict whether teen mothers will have a repeat pregnancy. This study examined…

African American male students face a multitude of challenges that may lead to poor academic and social outcomes at school. There is extensive research on the predictors of their problems, but far less on the factors that can lead to positive outcomes. To address this gap, this exploratory study asked two main questions. Does racial-ethnic…

Because studies examining youth drug use often have data with a high proportion of zeros, they often do not meet the assumptions for univariate or linear regression analyses that are typically used. We demonstrate the use of zero-inflated negative binomial regression models to address excessive zeros in drug use frequency on perceptions of…

This quantitative correlational-predictive study addressed the predictive relationships of County Political Leaning (Republican vs. Democratic/reference) and Poverty of Student Population (operationalized as percentage of students enrolled in Free and Reduced Price Lunch programs) with Out-of-school Suspension in public high schools in California.…

The current study examined the Five Cs model of positive youth development (PYD; Lerner et al., 2005) in U.S. Mexican-origin youth (N = 674, 50% female) and tested the extent to which ethnic pride, familismo, and respeto, as an index of cultural orientation, predicted PYD across midadolescence. PYD was modeled using a bifactor structure, which…

This study explores the demographic/background, academic, and environmental factors that predicted student retention after stopping out at a large Hispanic-serving institution in Southern California. The results show that (a) gender, (b) academic background, experience, readiness, and performance, and (c) personal and financial issues predicted…

Differences in family background and culture contribute to belonging concerns for first-generation students during their transition to college (Stephens et al., 2012; Harackiewicz et al., 2016). We investigated whether variability in students' on-campus experience, in particular perceived faculty support, in the first semester of college predicts…

In 2018, in response to the proposed elimination of physics at a predominately Hispanic and socioeconomically disadvantaged (SED) high school, the Northern California/Nevada chapter of the AAPT investigated school demographics and their effect on physics offerings in public high schools in our region. As access was a key issue, the focus was on…

Sixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs) in 26 states have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. We provide a comprehensive description of how individual reforms affected resource allocation to low- and high-income districts within states, including both financial and…

The primary goal of the current study was to test whether parent and adolescent preference for a common language moderates the association between parenting and rank-order change over time in offspring substance use. A sample of Mexican-origin 7th-grade adolescents (M[subscript age] = 12.5 years, N = 194, 52% female) was measured longitudinally on…

This California study focuses on the economic impact of school suspensions at the district level. Every 10th grade student in California was tracked for three years to determine the degree to which suspensions predicted lower graduation rates at the state and district level. This estimated impact on graduation was then used to calculate the…

Higher rates of school switching by students contribute to achievement disparities and are typically theorized as driven by attributes of individual pupils or families. In contrast the neoclassical-economic account postulates that switching is necessary for competition among schools. We argue that both frames fail to capture social-referential and…