Using storytelling as a framework, this study analyzes a faculty promotion book plating ritual through the lens of a twenty-year corpus of faculty-created and library-gathered data. The sources for this analysis are faculty reasons for book selection, or "book stories," which are part of an annual book plating ritual at the University of…

The purpose of this article was to explore how family chaos, parenting processes, parent-child relationship qualities, and sibling relationship qualities changed before versus the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants included one parent and two adolescent-aged children from 682 families (2,046 participants). Parents and youth…

This study examined the policies, programming, and supports offered to matriculating students who are members of non-traditional belief groups at public institutions of higher education across the midwestern United States. This study defined students who may be members of non-traditional faith groups, such as agnostics, atheists, and Pagans.…

Using primary socialization theory and theory of planned behavior, this study examined how targeted parent-child communication against substance use and parents' references to the negative consequences of their own past substance use (from the youth's perspective) directly and indirectly relate to Latino and European American youth's external…

The role of adolescents' disclosure to their parents in their academic adjustment was examined in a study of 825 American and Chinese adolescents (mean age = 12.73 years). Four times over the seventh and eighth grades, adolescents reported on their spontaneous disclosure of everyday activities to their parents, the quality of their relationships…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences of lesbian and gay band directors at varying stages of career development to discern how they have negotiated identity within their personal and professional lives. Ten band directors (8 males and 2 females) residing in Texas (n = 8), Florida (n = 1), and Illinois (n = 1)…

Self-stigma can undermine self-esteem and self-efficacy of people with serious mental illness. Coming out may be one way of handling self-stigma and it was expected that coming out would mediate the effects of self-stigma on quality of life. This study compares coming out to other approaches of controlling self-stigma. Eighty-five people with…

When good people do violently bad things, one seeks answers, drawing from one's repertoire of theories and concepts that have served him/her well. Underlying one's attempts to understand violent behavior is the belief that one can impose sense on seemingly insensible actions. Sometimes, in the face of inexplicable events, one is left to try to…

Using a risk and resilience framework, this exploratory study examines the relationships between homelessness, exposure to multiple types of violence, and school participation within a survey sample of poor adolescent mothers living in an urban setting. Participants who were homeless either currently or historically were compared with participants…

A statewide survey was completed by 234 special education teachers with experience in developing assessment portfolios within the Illinois Alternate Assessment (IAA) system. Relationships between these teachers' demographics and their perspectives, concerns, and self-reported practices related to the IAA system was identified and described. These…

This report provides information about the performance of 2009 graduating seniors who took the ACT as sophomores, juniors, or seniors; and self-reported at the time of testing that they were scheduled to graduate in 2009 and tested under standard time conditions. This report focuses on: (1) Performance: student test performance in the context of…