You see them every day in middle schools: students who seem to spend more time in the office than they do in class. In Florida, middle school students are more likely than elementary or high school students to be suspended, according to the Florida Department of Education (2001). While many adolescents go through their middle school years…

This study examined the degree to which religion is perceived as a source of stress and as a coping resource among Jewish students. Subjects, 75 sixth- through eighth-grade students in a Midwestern city, completed a survey in Sunday school. Twenty of the students also responded to a structured interview about their stressors and coping strategies.…

Noting that the early adolescent years may be likened to a roller coaster, often unpredictable but exciting and filled with possibility, this book is designed as a survival guide for students in grades 6 through 9 and addresses questions about the new choices and challenges ahead. The seven chapters or "survival tips" are: (1) "Get Used to Your…

This book reports the findings of a study of adolescent culture and language in eighth graders. The books consists of ten chapters including discussions of the following topics: (1) "Remember When?" a theoretical framework; (2) "Gender, Talk, and School Culture," an interpretive and a dialectic approach to the study of gender, talk, and…

Noting that the middle-school years are a time when adolescents "try on" roles and attitudes, test boundaries, and draw tentative conclusions about personal and social behaviors, this book draws on findings of a survey of nearly 2,000 10- to 17-year-olds regarding perceived and real differences between girls and boys to guide teens…