This interview with Martin Seligman, a past-president of the American Psychological Association and the author of seminal works in the areas of both learned helplessness and optimism, discusses his interest in positive psychology and giftedness, fostering creative genius, his childhood and move from philosophy to psychology, and future plans.…

Studied the spillover between family and work by examining the link between marital status and work performance across marriage, divorce, and remarriage. A polynomial regression model was fit to the data from 78 evaluations of an individual professor, and a cubic curve through the 3 periods was statistically significant. (SLD)

Examined the effects of task variability on academic task performance and task motivation. Low-income African American elementary students completed four types of academic tasks in low- and high-variability contexts, and they were assessed for task motivation in the two variability contexts. Academic task performance and task motivation were…

Examined the relationship between Hispanic immigrant generation and high school dropout rates. Using National Education Longitudinal Study data, researchers followed Hispanic eighth graders for 4 years to investigate dropout behavior. Odds of early high school dropout were uniformly high among all generations. Net of various relevant factors,…

Provides a literature review of family-of-origin issues related to adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) and their adjustment to college. Implications for college personnel are presented, as is a case study to illustrate the many issues an ACOA college student may face in his or her transition. (Author/GCP)

Examines studies on the nature and function of literacy activities at home, identifying barriers contributing to the separation of home and school, particularly for children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., different literacy practices and discourse patterns). Ways to facilitate home-school connections are presented. Studies conducted…

Compared the identity-formation process of three groups of Norwegian late adolescents: university students, employed youths, and unemployed youths. Interview data indicated that all groups considered work of primary importance to sense of identity. Three factors initiated identity transitions differently across the groups: qualities of vocational…

Despite the existence of a considerable and current educational literature concerned with the effect of class size on student achievement, the results of attempts to empirically identify the relationship between the variables class size and student achievement are mixed at best. These attempts have typically been hindered, however, by the…

This study sought to examine how poor and working-class urban adolescents conceive of work as well as the work-related messages they receive from their families. Data were collected to understand how 9th-grade urban students perceive work using an exploratory and qualitative research methodology. Although the data suggested that urban youths'…

Previous studies have demonstrated that bilingualism among Latinos in the United States may not necessarily result in negative status attainment consequences. Such studies have typically overlooked gender differences in the consequences of bilingualism. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (N=866 females; 737 males), we…

The influence of a family history of suicide on suicide attempt rate and characteristics in depression, schizophrenia, and opioid dependence was examined. One hundred sixty inpatients with unipolar depression, 160 inpatients with schizophrenia, and 160 opioid-dependent patients were interviewed. Overall, a family history of suicide was associated…

This study investigated social predictors of sunscreen and self-tanning product use among 164 undergraduates. Immediate family members' sunscreen use predicted participants' facial sunscreen use while sunbathing but not their sunscreen use on other areas of the body. In addition, familial support of a tanned appearance was inversely associated…

This article provides a reaction to the Whiston and Keller's major contribution on the relationships between family of origin and the career development process. Initially, some of the most noteworthy lessons conveyed in the Whiston and Keller article are highlighted, followed by a description of the next steps in research and theory construction…

This reaction to Whiston and Keller is that of a family therapist with great respect for the amount of work the article represents. Two theories of family therapy, structural and Bowenian, are discussed with particular attention to the contributions each can make in understanding the influences of families on career choices. The functional and…

In this article we describe the leisure reading practices and attitudes towards reading of two cohorts of teenage boys and their parents from one educated, middle-class school community in Australia. Leisure reading refers to free choice or recreational reading across a range of genres (e.g., fiction/nonfiction) and modes (e.g., print/electronic).…