As a term, "connective literacies" refers to the reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and critical thinking skills necessary for students to engage and interact meaningfully, productively, and safely in a variety of digitally connected spaces. Using a critical literacies approach to honor the voices of adolescents as producers…

Teacher-student interactions are considered to influence student engagement. As such, building on the teaching through interaction framework, this study presents an investigation of specific features of teacher-student interactions (regard for adolescent perspectives, productivity, and instructional learning formats) and their association with…

Adolescence is a sensitive period for taking risks, yet research has not investigated whether adolescents who engage in risk-taking actually "perceive" themselves to be risk-takers. In the current study, students (Grade: 6-8, N = 437) reported on their frequency of risk-taking and perceptions of themselves as risk-takers, forming four…

The high stakes consequences resulting from an emphasis on standardized test scores can be detrimental to adolescent readers' perceptions of themselves as readers. A single measure of reading ability provides only a small picture of what students can accomplish and what their learning needs are. This case study provides a keen insight into…

Introduction: Adolescence is a period of physical, psychological, cognitive and emotional changes, where autonomy from parental control is demanded. Adolescents are often self-discovering, frequently adopting sexual and drug exploration behaviors. As a result, health status in both adolescence and adulthood can be influenced. Methods: A…

Background: The Pennsylvania Youth Survey (PAYS) is administered biennially to adolescents; it covers knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors about risk and protective factors. Purpose: This study explored 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students' attitudes and beliefs about current trends regarding drugs, alcohol, and mental health. Methods: We asked…

Introduction: E-cigarette use remains a controversial topic in public health and medicine. Historically, cigarette smoking was identified as a gateway to marijuana use among adolescents. Recently, the prevalence of adolescent cigarette smoking has declined, but that of e-cigarette use continues to increase. As e-cigarettes eclipse cigarettes among…

This article explores how Norwegian teenagers experienced the development of spoken fluency of English as a second language (L2) through varied and sensuous learning in an outdoor environment. The article is based on six semi-structured group interviews with 23 year-8 students (13-14 years old) in a lower secondary school in Norway. The interviews…

This study investigated whether a country's policy context for immigrant integration was related to native adolescents' attitudes towards ethnic minorities in European countries, using data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. We found that students in a country with more inclusive and multiculturalist policies for…

Studies show adults' attitudes towards citizenship to be related to their educational level. It has been claimed that higher educated people more often possess 'good' citizenship values. However, only limited insight exists into how differences in citizenship attitudes between adolescents from various educational tracks develop over time. In this…

Urban middle school students (N = 1,057; M[subscript age] = 12.06) viewed Facebook-like profiles of peers who varied by race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation and indicated the social class (SC) of those peers along two dimensions--family income and social class position. As hypothesized, most profiles were perceived as middle class and…

Adolescents' attitudes predict sexual behavior; therefore, attitudes are targeted in sexually transmitted infection (STI) and pregnancy prevention programs. However, attitudes and behaviors do not always align. Young adolescents who have had penile vaginal intercourse (PVI) and have attitudes supportive of PVI have two risk factors for future…

Adolescents in the United States live amid high levels of concentrated poverty and increasing income inequality. Poverty is robustly linked to adolescents' mental health problems; however, less is known about how perceptions of their social status and exposure to local area income inequality relate to mental health. Participants consisted of a…

The potential importance of depending on others during adolescence to establish independence in young adulthood was examined across adolescence to emerging adulthood. Participants included 184 teens (46% male; 42% non-White), their mothers, best friends, and romantic partners, assessed at ages 13-14, 18, 21-22, and 25. Path analyses showed that…

Children explore their environment through experiences and each experience is meaningful in developing their environmental consciousness and identity. On the basis of the drawn landscape experiences, the present qualitative study set out to find out what landscapes the participating students deemed worth conserving. The data consisted of the…