In this executive summary, the Annie E. Casey Foundation presents its vision for transforming juvenile probation into a focused intervention that promotes personal growth, positive behavior change and long-term success for youth who pose significant risks for serious offending. Probation is the most common disposition in juvenile justice,…

The purpose of this article is to familiarize teachers with the concept of executive functioning and to provide them with a collection of strategies that they can use to help support middle and high school students with planning, organization, task-initiation, and impulse control.

Advances in theories of adolescent development and positive youth development have greatly increased our understanding of how programs and practices with adolescents can impede or enhance their development. In this article the authors reflect on the progress in research on youth development programs in the last two decades, since possibly the…

Our personality develops gradually, and this process is influenced by various factors, with language being one of the most important. We need to communicate with other people, to speak as much, as we need occupation, and this need determines the development of our personalities. Language is deeply embedded in our conscious and subconscious.…

This article shares a first-hand account of an action research project conducted in a college-level early adolescent development course to better understand written and verbal reflection as learning tools, improve the author's teaching effectiveness, and foster reflective habits in pre-service teachers. The article includes a brief overview of…

Younger adolescents demonstrate a greater vulnerability to negative life events than do older adolescents and adults. The authors examined whether this heightened vulnerability includes a greater likelihood for participating in problem behaviors associated with poor academic outcomes and receiving lower grades. The study was conducted using data…

This study investigates whether the relationship between participation in school-organized sports and youth development is similar for both heterosexual students and those who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Utilizing a survey of 72,004 high schoolers, results suggest sports participation enhances a sense of support and developmental skill…

The topic of this research study was academic achievement of adolescents and the 40 Developmental Assets. Developmental Assets have been associated with positive growth in adolescents by protecting adolescents from negative influences, as well as promoting healthy and positive development. This study attempted to refine and identify the role the…

How important is the role that the different social institutions play in adolescents' emotional development? This study alludes to the social capital framework to explain the influence that the family, school and peer relations have on the social-emotional competencies (SEC) of adolescents, immigrants and locals living in Southeastern Spain. Three…

This study examined the consequences of negative change in mothers' implicit appraisals of their adolescents after engaging in a family disagreement. Participants included 194 mothers and their early adolescents (M[subscript age] = 12.4 at Wave 1; 50% female) followed over 1 year. Mothers' implicit appraisals of her child as "unlovable"…

The NLSY97 data were used to explore the patterns of developmental trajectories of body weight in adolescence and how they affected the likelihood of college completion in young adulthood among 2,275 youths aged 13 and 14 in Wave 1. A strong weight trajectory gradient was found for rates of college completion. The study further explored the role…

In Europe, the question of identity and youth civic engagement constitutes a challenge both for the European Union (EU) and for research on adolescent psychology. In this article, we discuss the European historical context and the current initiatives from the EU that aim to encourage civic engagement among young people. Then, we suggest some…

Adolescence is a developmental time period in which social connections are an important aspect to fostering positive growth and identity. Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) programs are strategically positioned to help in this developmental process because of the novel social environment, however, little is known about how these types of social…

Adolescence is a period in everybody's life that is usually referred to as "time that everybody must go through" or "parents' hell". Transition between childhood and adulthood is indeed of great importance in everybody's life, but it is usually accompanied with a variety of questions, problems, dilemmas and a constant need to…

Adolescents form their identities by both accommodating (endorsing) and resisting (challenging) cultural stereotypes. Most research on Black males focuses on how they accommodate to negative stereotypes (e.g., delinquency, aggression), but a growing literature emphasizes how youth resist stereotypes. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed to…