Classmates' academic skill level (peer effects) is emerging as an important predictor of individual student achievement, particularly in the early grades. However, less is known about the influence of peer effects with regard to classmates' self-regulation skills and whether they are associated with students' academic gains. Examining this is the…

School connectedness is central to the long term well-being of adolescents, and high quality parent-child relationships facilitate school connectedness. This study examined the extent to which family relationship quality is associated with the school connectedness of pre- and early teenagers, and how this association varies with adolescent…

This study was conducted to determine freshman mathematics student teachers' expectations from their instructors and classmates in terms of contribute to their career development. In this study, case study method was used. A questionnaire with 2 open-ended questions was administered to total 152 freshman mathematics student teachers enrolled to…

Grounded in symbolic interactionism and drawing on data gathered in the 2007 Monitoring the Future Study (n = 2,201), this research examines how self-esteem and perceived intelligence, as well as attitudes and behaviors related to school environments, associate with perceptions of anabolic-androgenic steroids. With perceived risk and…

In this paper we investigate how schoolmates influence high school dropout intentions in Catalonia, Spain. Our analysis uses self-reported friends to identify possible peers by assuming that peer influence flows in one direction in cases where one student identifies another as a friend, but the other does not reciprocate. We first estimate the…

Using data from 1,676 youth who participated in three waves (Grades 6 to 8) of the longitudinal, 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, we tested two series of hierarchal linear models to examine the role of peer support, associating with "problem-behaving" friends, and bullying involvement in the development of behavioral and emotional school…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence adolescent males to enroll in school choir as an elective class and to assess their attitudes about singing in general, self-concept of their own voices, and perception of others' view of adolescent males' participation in choir. Data were obtained from 101 adolescent males…

Educational tracking based on academic ability accounts for different school dynamics between vocational versus academically-oriented high schools in Taiwan. Many educational practitioners predict that the settings of vocational schools and academic schools mediate school violence in different ways. Alternatively, some researchers argue the actual…

This article describes how 2 classrooms of 4-year-old children incorporated popular media (cartoons, television shows, video games, movies, and music) into their conversations with peers during writing. The findings assert that (a) children naturally incorporate popular culture into their writing, (b) children include popular culture in their…

This research investigated the role of general and specific self-efficacy factors in positive family relationships and perceived social support within an U.S. incarcerated adolescent population. One hundred African American and Hispanic male adolescent participants, randomly selected from a southern California Probation Department, were included…

For more than 35 years, the first-year experience movement has been working to improve the first-year experience for freshmen and decrease first-year and subsequent dropout rates. The purpose of this study is to examine student perceptions of the role of peer advising in the first-year experience. Through emphasis on support, involvement, and…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience extreme difficulty learning and engaging in new social interactions. The behavior analysis research literature contains evidence that several procedures including discrete trial training, incidental teaching, and in-vivo modeling are effective teaching modalities when teaching social skills…

A variety of public campaigns, including the "Just Say No" campaign of the 1980s and 1990s that encouraged teenagers to "Just Say No to Drugs", are based on the premise that teenagers are very susceptible to peer influences. Despite this, very little is known about the effect of school peers on the long-run outcomes of…

This dissertation studies the social structures and dynamics of human networks: how peers at the micro level and physical environments at the macro level interact with the individual preferences and attributes and shape social dynamics. It is composed of three parts. The first essay, "Friendship Choices and Group Effects in Adolescent…

Research suggests that adolescents' engagement in nonsuicidal self-injurious (NSSI) behaviors may be increasing over time, yet little is known regarding distal longitudinal factors that may promote engagement in these behaviors. Data from two longitudinal studies are presented to examine whether NSSI may be associated with peer influence…