Too many rules restrict teenagers' freedoms and development. How can schools straddle the line between providing safety and harmony for students, but also giving them room to make their own mistakes and assert independence? Benson looks at the problem of too many rules, and how it not only harms students, but also interpersonal relationships…

New developments in the field of youth studies are calling for a reorientation of discourses of adolescence away from developmental tropes of transition, crisis, and dysfunction, and towards a more fluid sociocultural framework. Meg Rosoff's acclaimed novel "How I Live Now" (2004) achieves a balance that transcends the pitfalls of…

Because schools rarely provide guidelines for teachers that outline how they should conduct personal relationships with students, teachers must wrestle individually with how to establish, communicate, and maintain clear boundaries in their interactions. As schools work to become more personal environments, school administrators will need to help…

Far from being unthinking energies or irrational impulses that control or push people around, emotions are intricately connected to the way people perceive, understand, and think about the world. As such, emotions are also an inextricable part of people's moral lives. As people go about making moral judgments and decisions, they do not merely…

Living in poverty and living in areas of concentrated poverty pose multiple risks for child development and for overall health and wellbeing. Poverty is a major risk factor for several mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, as well as for other developmental challenges and physical health problems. In this paper, the Promise Neighborhoods…

Teenagers, and many preteens, can't get away from their hormone-filled bodies; therefore, they spend lots of time during school contending with issues of sexuality--from profound questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to more mundane issues such as whom a particularly cute classmate will choose to sit next to in English. Like it or…

Over the past quarter century, the study of child and adolescent development has made important progress by using its theoretical insights to address the common problems of growing up. In light of findings generated by this empirical activity, it is now time to take a new look at the field's theoretical base to establish a comprehensive framework…

This article describes positive youth development as a process in which young people's capacity for being motivated by challenge energizes their active engagement in development. The first part of the article discusses the conditions under which this motivation is activated and considers obstacles to its activation in daily life. The second part…

From a developmental perspective, adolescence is a time of gaining independence, experimentation, and taking risks. One area of experimentation associated with adolescence is substance use. For counselors working with adolescents who use or abuse substances, or both, it is important to understand the scope of the problem and ways to effectively…

The last decade has seen an explosion of interest in "youth development" as both a policy and a community approach to helping children achieve healthy outcomes as young adults. Despite the success of frameworks which have shifted the focus from intervening with teenagers who exhibited "high risk" behaviors to improving developmental outcomes as…

One of the most challenging daily experiences of teaching young adolescents is helping them transition from Piaget's concrete to the formal operational stage of cognitive development during the middle school years. Students who have reached formal operations can design and test hypotheses, engage in deductive reasoning, use flexible thinking,…

What is needed to strengthen youth policy in the states? In this Research and Policy Report, co-authored by the Forum for Youth Investment and the National Conference of State Legislatures, learn concrete ways that states are addressing key challenges to creating better aligned and more effective youth policy. (Contains 26 notes and 2 figures.)

Provides guidelines for choral directors who are choosing and adapting music for middle school singers (grades 4 through 9). Discusses three types of ensembles (treble, mixed, and tenor/bass choirs) in which the voicing is appropriate to the adolescent voice. Includes a selected repertoire for middle school choral groups. (CMK)

Designed to provide useful information for middle school teachers and administrators involved in planning and implementing microcomputer programs in their schools, this focus paper begins with a brief discussion of the "who, what, when, where, and why" of microcomputers in the schools, followed by discussions of two types of relevant research: the…

High school is becoming the next frontier for after-school advocates. The conceptual and practical leaps from programming for elementary and middle school students to high school students are significant, with huge marketing challenges. Arguing persuasively for investments in this population requires revisiting almost every strategic decision,…