The current study was designed to determine whether classroom quality (i.e., the quality of teacher--child interactions) served as a mediator of peer effects with respect to preschool children's gain in language skills over an academic year. Participants were 670 preschool-age children (64.6% boys; "M" = 4 years, 4 months, "SD"…

A large body of work has examined factors that push and pull youth to drop out. However, a relatively minimal amount of work has examined whether and how these factors cluster in individuals' lives preceding or concurrent to leaving school. This study used Latent Class Analysis with a national sample (N = 1,942) to examine how push, pull, and…

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (N = 13,970), we examined whether two aspects of school-family connections, parental involvement and communication quality, accounted for the association between classroom composition and children's academic and socioemotional functioning following the transition to…

Researchers have theorized that programs to promote positive citizenship should begin with an opportunity for adolescents to participate in civic activities, such as community service or political volunteering. In this article we extend the theory by arguing that a more systemic approach is needed, in which a civic context is developed to promote…

Cross-age peer mentoring programs, in which teenagers mentor younger children, have proliferated in recent years, yet there is disagreement about the effectiveness of such programs. This study tested whether teen mentors' attitudes about children interact with their mentees' characteristics to moderate outcomes of cross-age peer mentoring. The…

Students of religious development in youth tend to focus on characteristics of the child or adolescent and perhaps those of their parents. Although often reflecting standard disciplinary practices, this approach is also often the result of data limitations. This study used longitudinal data from adolescents, parents, friends, schools, and…

This article examines family, friend, and media influences on competent and problem behaviors in a sample of 1,174 urban minority youth followed over 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Students completed annual surveys at their schools. Each of the contextual factors investigated was significantly associated with concurrent aggression and delinquency as…

The impact of the September 11th terrorist attacks on adolescents' mental health is reported. Two successive cohorts of students in 6 New York state high schools, identified from health courses, completed an in-school self-report baseline assessment of hopelessness, impairment, and help-seeking behavior. One year later, these students completed a…

A theoretical framework about protective factors (models protection, controls protection, support protection) and risk factors (models risk, opportunity risk, vulnerability risk) was employed to articulate the content of 4 key contexts of adolescent life--family, peers, school, and neighborhood--in a cross-national study of problem behavior among…

This multivariate panel study examines longer-term effects of a prevention program on trajectories of alcohol misuse and related risk factors. Analyses showed susceptibility, exposure, and alcohol misuse increased mostly linearly across adolescence and covaried positively within and across time, arguing that they exist in a mutually reinforcing…

One hundred twenty-eight Latina and African American girls from high-risk environments (e.g., poverty, family history of teen parenting, etc.) were studied from age 13 through age 19 to prospectively identify the protective factors that might guard against teenage pregnancy. Results indicated that involved and strict parenting during early…