The present study examined relations among neighborhood structural and social characteristics, parenting practices, peer group affiliations, and delinquency among a group of serious adolescent offenders. The sample of 14-18-year-old boys (N = 488) was composed primarily of economically disadvantaged, ethnic-minority youth living in urban…

Religious young adults interpret their single experiences based on an intricate system of influences that include personal beliefs, family, religious teachings, and friendships. This qualitative study of 24 never-married, young Mormon men and women examined the social and cultural construction of singlehood based on: (1) definitions of singlehood,…

Current tools for assessing children's social behavior in school psychology research and practice typically do not adequately measure issues most salient for young girls (e.g., experiences of relational victimization). The relation among teacher, peer, and self-reports of relational and physical peer victimization was examined for 119 fourth grade…

Objectives: To identify predictors of increases in smoking stage among sixth graders. Methods: At the beginning and end of sixth grade, 973 students completed surveys. Multivariate, partial proportional odds analyses were conducted. Results: Time 1 intenders were 4 times more likely than never users to smoke at Time 2. In adjusted analyses, female…

Social smoking is a newly identified phenomenon in the young adult population that is poorly understood. We investigated differences in social smoking (smoking most commonly while partying or socializing) and other smoking within a convenience sample of college smokers (n = 351) from a large midwestern university. Results revealed that 70% of 351…

This article examines the explanations behind these questions: (1) Why do American teenagers behave the way they do?; (2) Why are many obsessed with the brands of clothes they wear, their lunchtime seatmates, the parties they are invited to, the latest popular music, the intrigues of school cliques, and who is hooking up with whom?; (3) Why do…

Leading researchers from the United States and Europe report on new findings on the effect of education on equal opportunity, using economic and statistical techniques to assess the results of education policy reform in countries including the United States, Britain, Sweden, Germany, and Italy. Much educational research today is focused on…

The purpose of this study was to test a conceptual model based on theoretical and empirically supported relationships related to the influences of weight perceptions, weight concerns, desires to change weight, friends, age and location in relation to physical activity (PA) and smoking in adolescents. A total of 1242 males and 1446 females (mean…

The primary research question in this study was whether adolescents' experiences of and responses to teasing were related to the content of a tease and to particular ethnicity. Caucasian (n = 27) and African American adolescents (n = 22) between 12 to 17 years of age were asked to write about an experience of being teased regarding an aspect of…

Organizations and institutions often measure progress in concrete facts, such as how many structures they have and how high they are. Osborne High School in Marietta, Georgia, measures its success by how many walls it can tear down. Staff members see walls as limiting and, perhaps more important, as objects that allow people to make excuses for…

Approximately 3 million teens are diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) annually; STDs rates for American Indian young adults are among the highest of any racial/ethnic group. An important risk factor for STDs is early initiation of sex. In this study, we examined risk for early initiation with 474 American Indian youth ages 14-18,…

A social worker and a psychologist, working with troubled youth in a day treatment setting, describe unique ways to use the concepts of Positive Peer Culture (PPC) to facilitate groups from the elementary to high school levels. The authors have adapted the well-known PPC concepts and incorporated them into their strength-based program, SPLASH, to…

The Monitoring the Future study has provided the nation with a window into the important, but largely hidden, problem behaviors of illicit drug use, alcohol use, and tobacco use. It has provided a clearer view of the changing topography of these problems among adolescents and adults, a better understanding of the dynamics of factors that drive…

Recent research suggests that oppositional culture and a burden of acting White are likely to emerge for Black students in desegregated schools in which Whites are perceived as having greater educational opportunities. Using interviews with Black and White students in one desegregated secondary school, this 'school structures' argument is…

ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) is an evidence-based instructional strategy effective with students with and without disabilities. The evidence for efficacy is strong with respect to students in elementary schools learning basic academic skills in classrooms with large teacher-pupil ratios, and relatively less strong for students in secondary…