Overweight youth are often socially marginalized and have fewer friends than their nonoverweight peers. Participation in organized activities may be one way to promote friendships for overweight youth. In this study, we used a large nationally representative sample to test whether two aspects of participation promoted friendships, namely the…

Youth with disabilities have much lower participation rates in postsecondary education compared with youth without disabilities. There is a need to understand ecological factors that influence their differential participation. This research examined the impact of parental receipt of welfare on postsecondary enrollment among youth with…

Social work researchers often use variable-centered approaches such as regression and factor analysis. However, these methods do not capture important aspects of relationships that are often imbedded in the heterogeneity of samples. Latent class analysis (LCA) is one of several person-centered approaches that can capture heterogeneity within and…

School connectedness is the belief by students that adults and peers in the school care about their learning as well as about them as individuals. Students are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors and succeed academically when they feel connected to school. This article identifies specific actions schools can take to increase school…