A study was conducted to compare the criminal behavior of gang members and nongang at-risk youths in four urban and suburban communities, Denver (Colorado), Aurora (Colorado), Broward County (Florida), and Cleveland (Ohio). The first three communities were emergent, rather than chronic, gang environments, but in Cleveland, information on gangs…

This report presents both a framework for understanding positive factors that contribute to the healthy development of young people, termed "developmental assets," and a portrait of 6th-to-12th-grade youth based on that framework. The report analyzes and interprets data from 99,462 youth in 213 communities collected during the 1996-97 school year.…

This report is an overview of recent research on the effects of class size on the academic performance and behavior of students at risk. In several ways it is not a conventional literature review. It emphasizes one recent large-scale investigation, Tennessee's Project STAR (Student-Teacher-Achievement-Ratio), begun in 1985. It is more evaluative…

While studies show that young African Americans tend to use alcohol and drugs at lower rates than their White and Hispanic peers, substance abuse and involvement continue to touch the lives of millions of African American youth. This Substance Abuse Resource Guide for prevention specialists, educators, parents, and others was compiled from a…

To gain perspective on how the structure of a family impacts young people, data from a national study conducted by the Search Institute were reexamined. Of the 47,000 students of the study, 8,266 live in a single parent household, due largely to divorce. Analysis focused on at-risk behavior, deficits, and the dynamics of healthy single-parent…

A survey of 531 tenth graders in an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epicenter confirms their risk of acquiring the AIDS virus. Because socioenvironmental factors may strongly influence AIDS risk behavior, elucidation of the social influence process among adolescents should become a prevention research priority. (SLD)

As part of a substance abuse prevention project, a measure was developed in both English and Spanish to measure levels of acculturation among members of a Latino youth population for later comparison of acculturation with high-risk behaviors. The Latino Youth Acculturation Scale (LYAS) consists of 23 items. Eleven items deal with language use of…

The Gang Membership Inventory (GMI) was developed for use with urban high-risk youth and administered as part of a larger survey. The GMI consists of 15 true/false items asking about the respondent's involvement in gang activities in the year just past. Activities range from peripheral involvement to more serious involvement in gangs (e.g., being…