Reviews the role of mentors and rites of passage in the lives of children. Presents suggestions on how to mentor today's youth. Argues that sons and daughters do not need gender-specific rituals to help them reach adulthood but rather should be taught together to share in the condition of being human. (Author/JDM)

Reports the results of an anger management program for emotionally disturbed adolescents (N=7) who scored in the clinical range on the Conduct subscale of the Conners Teacher Rating Scale. The program included psychoeducation, anger discrimination training, and training on prosocial responses to anger. Results indicate evidence of positive…

Videotaped rough and tumble play to examine how preadolescent boys expressed care and intimacy through such play. Found that, when commenting on videotapes, the boys were clear on where and when it was appropriate to express care and intimacy for one another. Findings suggest teachers and administrators reconsider the importance of this kind of…

The role of context was examined in middle school students' descriptions of barriers to caring in four domains: self, intimate others, acquaintances, and strangers. Interviewed students expressed that nothing would stop them caring for themselves or intimates, while lack of reciprocity and fear of violence would stop them caring for others,…

Details implementation of a peace education program in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, middle school in order to help students understand the nature of violence and to stress the potential of nonviolence in solving problems caused by conflict. Considers including peace efforts in the curriculum, learning and practicing nonviolence, and the effects of the…

Examined consistency in prosocial dispositions, using longitudinal data from preschool through early adulthood. Found that spontaneous prosocial behavior observed in preschools predicted actual prosocial behavior, other- and self-reported prosocial behavior, self-reported sympathy, and perspective taking in childhood to early adulthood. Prosocial…

Assessed the effects of an intervention conducted within a sport context on the pro-social and antisocial behaviors of adolescent males with disruptive behavior disorders. Data from participant videotapes and interviews and therapist surveys indicated the intervention might have had a limited effect on adolescents' pro-social behavior, though it…

This study focused on the role of school-based required community service in promoting adolescents' prosocial behavior and intended future civic involvement when service is differentiated by types and by adolescents' perceived experience. A longitudinal data set of high school students (N = 603) was analyzed to investigate the developmental steps…

This study examined the links among 5th and 6th graders' (279 girls and 310 boys) self- and peer perceptions, social goals, and social behavior. Social goals mediated the effects of self- and peer perceptions on 3 types of behavior: proactive aggression, prosocial behavior, and withdrawal. In addition to their main effects (self-perception…

This study was designed to identify important process and content goals from the perspective of inmates and compare these goals to the goals identified by group therapists in a previous study conducted by Winterowd, Morgan, and Ferrell (2001). Utilizing survey data from 156 incarcerated adult males, an initial confirmatory factor analysis…

Violence in schools and communities is no longer an urban school problem; it is every school's problem ( Garbarino, 1999 ). What factors cause children to interact with increasingly violent and anti-social behaviors? What strategies can teachers and schools use in order to help these childhood bullies who grow up to be violent youths? This paper…

Background. Associations between positive behaviour, emotion understanding and verbal ability have been reported in studies of preschoolers (Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003), but have yet to be investigated in younger children. Methods. In this study the performance of 36 toddlers (17 boys and 19 girls; mean age = 29…

In nineteenth century England much charitable activity was directed towards the relief of poverty, but such provision developed significantly to support a variety of requirements. Although from the eighteenth century onwards there were instances of co-operation between voluntary charitable effort and the state, governments in the early and mid…

This study examined motivation (prosocial goals), individual characteristics (sex, ethnicity, and grade), and friendship characteristics (affective quality, interaction frequency, and friendship stability) in relation to middle adolescents' prosocial behavior over time. Ninth- and 10th-grade students (N=208) attending a suburban, mid-Atlantic…

This article describes a project that incorporated interactive technology to teach violence prevention knowledge and skills to second grade students. The educational video games presented lessons consisting of animated characters in a story, accompanied by a number of exercises. The research issue was whether students would develop an appreciation…