The school has been described as an important socialization agent in the process of political development. But the mechanism concerning how school contributes to political development has rarely been investigated. In this study we focus on contextual variables, i.e., classroom climate indicators that are seen as important aspects of the context in…

Two experiments examined developmental patterns in children's conditional reasoning with everyday causal conditionals. In Experiment 1, a group of pre-, early, young, and late adolescents generated counterexamples for a set of conditionals to validate developmental claims about the counterexample retrieval capacity. In Experiment 2, participants…

Purpose: Achieving behavioral independence is a key task of adolescent development. This 1 article of a companion set of 2 (the 2nd addressing the topic of parental perspectives) presents an investigation of the impact of language ability on independence. Method: Longitudinal and follow-up data from 120 adolescents with a history of specific…

This article was meant to familiarize readers with ways in which the media and popular culture sexualize and stereotype girls and women and to raise awareness about the extent to which girls in the middle graders may be impacted by the sexualized media content they view. By framing the problem and its consequences through self-objectification…

Qualitative investigations have indicated that music therapy groups may be beneficial for bereaved teenagers. The existing relationship between young people and music serves as a platform for connectedness and emotional expression that is utilised within a therapeutic, support group format. This investigation confirms this suggestion through…

Middle school is a time of many changes for young adolescents. They are "searching for individual identity, struggling with society's norms, and grappling with moral issues." They are changing and maturing physically, cognitively, socially, and psychologically as they develop their identities; establish, maintain, and end friendships and social…

The goal of the current study was to conduct a formative evaluation of a female adolescent empowerment program. Participants were recruited through a mail survey. A total of 32 school counselors (response rate 40%) participated. The following questions were investigated: (1) What do the school counselors perceive as the strengths and weaknesses of…

The rise in female delinquency has resulted in large numbers of girls being incarcerated in Youth Development Centers (YDC). However, there are few gender specific treatment programs for incarcerated female adolescent offenders, particularly for those with a history of substance dependency. In this article, we present a Multi-level Risk Model…

It has been argued that peers are the most important agent of adolescent socialization and, more specifically, that this socialization process occurs at the child-specific (or nonshared environmental) level (J. R. Harris, 1998; R. Plomin & Asbury, 2005). The authors sought to empirically evaluate this nonshared environmental peer influence…

The main objective of this study is to identify the development of students' self-reported use of metacognitive learning strategies during high school. Therefore, the study analyses the differential development patterns of 1,432 students, between grade 10 and 12, in a longitudinal sample. The results suggest that, from a global perspective, there…

Educating secondary students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) is often an overwhelming task that places high demands on teachers. Existing research on effective social-emotional/behavioral and academic interventions for students with EBD is limited but expanding. Unfortunately, school and life outcomes for these students are dismal…

Adolescence is a period of rapid developmental changes. Only in the early years of childhood do individuals experience such a brisk pace of change. However, all too often, out-of-school time (OST) programs do not recognize how quickly the needs and interests of adolescents shift along with their developmental changes. Program staff know--and…

Within each chapter of this innovative topical text, the authors engage students by demonstrating the wide range of real-world applications of psychological research connected to child development. In particular, the distinctive Active Learning features incorporated throughout the book foster a dynamic and personal learning process for students.…

The most important problem facing public education in the country today is: how can teachers address the needs of all learners? A 2007 report issued by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) says, "aspects of development--neural, cognitive, social, psychological, physical and ethical--have far-reaching effects on…

Developed for an NIH training institute, this volume is organized around the most frequently asked questions by researchers starting their careers in applied research in child and adolescent development. With contributions from the leading scholars in the field, actual research experiences highlight the challenges one faces in conducting such…