Research indicates that parenting styles, family functioning, and parent-child interaction influence career development. The authoritative parenting style is associated with self-confidence, persistence, social competence, academic success, and psychosocial development; parents provide a warm family climate, set standards, and promote independence…

West Virginia received two grants from the U.S. Department of Education to encourage disadvantaged youth to have high expectations, stay in school, and take academically rigorous courses to prepare for college. A total of 17 counties were served by these grants. As part of the program, surveys were completed by 3,716 students in 54 middle and…

Studied high school students' (N=31) perceptions of significant adults as well as possible relationships between facets of alienation. Results showed parents were the adults most frequently named as significant. Teachers were not often chosen. There were no differences in adult relationship patterns between alienated and nonalienated students.…

Study data indicate that secondary school students lacking the presence of both parents exhibit higher risk health behaviors than do students with both parents. Variables such as smoking behavior, blood pressure levels, and weight gain and loss were studied. (CJ)

The self-esteem and ethnocentric attitudes and behavior of Black, White, and Mexican-American elementary school children were investigated. Results indicated that Blacks are not lower in self-esteem than Whites or Mexican Americans, and that all three groups are ethnocentric in attitudes and behavior. (Author/RD)

A reply to Plomin's critique and some criticisms of Munsinger's review of adopted child literature are presented. Selective bias in adoptee samples, implicit assumptions in models that lead to heritability estimates, and problems produced by lack of an accepted model of environmental transmission are also discussed. (Author/RD)

Sylvia Barnard, a classics professor at State University of New York at Albany, discusses growing up on a dairy farm in western Massachusetts; the influence of her mother's college education at Mount Holyoke; her own educational experiences, including those at Yale University where she obtained her doctorate; and her relationship with her…

Cites research on smiling and laughter to illustrate a dynamic systems approach to emotion communication. Maintains that emotion is relational and not individual; the nonreflexive aspects of emotion involve the connection between a person and a context taken as a whole. Presents findings regarding social processes involved in smiling and laughter…

A study of 410 Mexican American and European American high school students, with follow-up of graduating seniors the following year, found that acculturation among Mexican American youth was not related to aspirations or planning for college but did predict future college attendance. Among both ethnic groups, fathers' education influenced…

Study of a cohort of low birth weight, preterm infants examined effects of maternal knowledge and concepts of child rearing on the home environment and developmental outcomes. Maternal knowledge, measured at 1 year, was found to be associated with quality of the home environment, the number of child behavior problems, and to a small degree, infant…

Examined children's performance in the first two years of school so as to determine effects of parent configuration on reading and math scores. Found that children whose families had more economic resources and whose parents had higher expectations for their school performance consistently outperformed other children in reading and math. (RJM)

Examined the relative importance of ethnic identification, perceived parental attitudes, and peer victimization for Dutch and Turkish 10- to 12-year-olds' ethnic attitudes in the Netherlands. Found that for both groups, stronger ethnic identification related to more positive in-group evaluation, and peer victimization related to more negative…

This study examined the relation between young children's social development and maternal employment among women who entered welfare-to-work programs. Structural equation models provided evidence that indicators of economic security, such as food security and job quality indicators, but not recent employment per se, operated through parenting…

Reports that, among 689 first graders, the presence of father or other adult in the household had a beneficial effect on grades, particularly for reading, and this effect was greater and more consistent for Blacks than for Whites. Suggests that parental expectations mediate this effect. Contains 49 references. (SV)

This case study describes an intervention program with a 20-month-old hearing child with deaf parents. The child was diagnosed as having a significant delay in both spoken and sign language. A home-based intervention program resulted in the child's increased use of sign and spoken vocabulary and the mother's improved interaction style. (Author/DB)