Public schools have always been meant to provide all children with the skills and knowledge to become successful participants in the economy. But currently, a second important purpose of public education has become more salient: to promote social cohesion in a diverse and fractured democracy. As ugly and naked racism in America is further…

Most of us intrinsically understand the importance of friendship in our lives, and although we may not spend time considering it, we are aware it is beneficial to our happiness and well-being. As educators, we are often conscious of the friendships that exist in our classrooms, and are particularly mindful of those students who have difficulties…

Peer relations constitute a main developmental context for adolescents. Peers offer an instance for identity definition and set the norms of acceptable and valued characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes, representing a societal model that allows and restrains avenues for adolescents' socioemotional development. The present article departs from…

The goal of this article is to provide a critical analysis of barriers to social inclusion and integration in schools and propose inclusive educational practices that help connect and unite diverse students. Diversity is defined broadly to refer to a range of differences (i.e., overall heterogeneity) across students. We review theoretical…

The purpose of this article is to describe what has been learned over the past 35+ years of research on the friendships of young children with disabilities. An extensive literature review was conducted to critically examine the purposes that guided the friendship studies, the methods used to measure friendships, and the major findings of these…

This article reviews recent research on homeschooled children's socialization. The research indicates that homeschooling parents expect their children to respect and get along with people of diverse backgrounds, provide their children with a variety of social opportunities outside the family, and believe their children's social skills are at least…

The present study examined indices of friends' social adjustment (prosocial skills and social anxiety) that may protect against or exacerbate vulnerability to lower academic competence in the context of peer victimization during middle school (N=320). Peer victimization was assessed with peer nominations, social anxiety was measured with self…

Highly readable and comprehensive, this volume explores the significance of friendship for social, emotional, and cognitive development from early childhood through adolescence. The authors trace how friendships change as children age and what specific functions these relationships play in promoting adjustment and well-being. Compelling topics…

Imagine being in college and being deaf-blind. What opportunities might you have? What types of challenges would you face? This publication describes a study that begins to answer these questions. During the study, 11 college students with deaf-blindness were interviewed about their college experiences. They were like most college students in many…

The current study examined the curvilinear links between involvement in organized activities (OA) and sport activities specifically and various indicators of psychological and social development. Participants included 150 9th and 10th graders (57% females) from an urban, selective-enrollment high school. Eligibility for admission is based on city…

In the past 60 years there have been considerable developments in the policy and politics of schooling for disabled children, including a shift of rhetorical emphasis from more segregated to more inclusive approaches. Previous research with disabled children in England has raised questions about the educational and social impact of segregated…

This study examined the degree to which children and adolescents prioritize popularity in the peer group over other relational domains. Participants were 1013 children and adolescents from grade 1 through senior year of college (ages 6-22 years) who were presented with a series of social dilemmas in which attaining popularity was opposed to five…

We first examined how war-related traumatic events impact on peer and sibling relations, and how the quality of these relations in turn are associated with children's mental health, indicating a mediation model. Second, we tested the moderating (protective) effects of good peer and sibling relations in attenuating the link between trauma and…

Similarity in close friends' beliefs about personal jurisdiction was examined using questionnaires and interviews with 162 early (M[subscript age] = 11.82) and middle (M[subscript age] = 15.68) adolescents who were matched with reciprocally nominated close friends. Using the framework of social domain theory, beliefs about personal jurisdiction…

This study investigated the associations among psychologically controlling parenting, relational aggression, friendship quality, and loneliness during adolescence. A model was proposed in which relational aggression plays an intervening role in the relations between both parental psychological control and friendship outcomes. In a sample comprised…