Suboptimal parenting characterized by low self-efficacy and perceived impact is associated with poor child mental health and academic outcomes, especially for at-risk families. This study capitalized on a longitudinal study conducted prior to and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to test how prior parenting cognitions and environmental risk…

Purpose: Understanding variability sources in early language interaction is critical to identifying children whose development is at risk and designing interventions. Variability across socioeconomic status (SES) groups has been extensively explored. However, SES is a limited individual clinical indicator. For example, it is not generally directly…

The Institute on Aging and Social Work (the institute) supported directed efforts to enhance the research capacity of academics in gerontology across the nation. Due to my participation in the institute, I received intensive training in aging research from distinguished professors as well as staff from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a…

Although there are many factors associated with being the victim of bullying in school, quantitative studies have not treated academic attitudes, effort, and achievement (or lack thereof) as risk factors. This is true despite many ethnographic accounts of good students being stigmatized and directly bullied on account of their status as good…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether middle school teacher attitudes on personal teaching efficacy and responsive teaching and their descriptions of their principal's leadership behaviors in the areas of leader social relationships, leadership/goal setting, and collaboration for learning differ for high- and low-achieving Grade 8…

This exploratory study examined the relationships between Africentric values, racial/ethnic identity, neighborhood satisfaction, and academic self-efficacy beliefs among 88 African American elementary school children. Results indicated that Africentric values and neighborhood satisfaction were both predictive of academic self-efficacy beliefs.…

Investigated were why some low income, predominantly immigrant seniors (n = 91) choose to enroll in free training and start to use computers and the Internet while others choose not to enroll. The study was conducted in collaboration with a senior center in downtown Los Angeles that provides free Internet access and training to its seniors. The…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the contributions of several social cognitive career theory (SCCT) factors in predicting the career aspirations of a group of high school students living in the central part of rural Appalachia. Sixty-three high school students completed measures assessing their vocational/educational…

This study used structural equation modeling to evaluate whether a combination of social cognitive and self-determination theories [Bandura, A. (1986). "Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory." Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1987). The support of autonomy and the control of behavior.…

The chapter begins by discussing why the continued underrepresentation of blacks and Hispanics in American higher education is a critical area for research, policy, and practice. The author then describes the expanded conceptual model and summarizes research support for the model. (Contains 1 table.)

The purpose of this study is to examine whether teachers' perceptions of educational value discontinuity are predictive of the psychological antecedents of academic performance (e.g., academic engagement and academic self-efficacy) during middle school. Educational value discontinuity is defined as the difference between teachers' actual…