This study examined the stability and coherence of African-American children's social support networks. Participants included a total of 106 3- to 4-year-old children attending Head Start centers located in the southeast. Children completed a social network interview in two consecutive years at the Head Start centers. These interviews tapped…

A middle school team of teachers addressed the needs of six high risk students through a three-phase educational action research project. The three phases (listening to students, listening to the environment, and reflecting on practices) were overlapping and simultaneous processes. Photovoice and open-ended interviews were used to listen to…

This article describes a small-scale study which emanated from the concern of the head teachers and staff of two primary schools serving deprived, multicultural areas of an inner city. The concern of the staff related to the level of their pupils' spoken language skills through the schools and the perceived impact that this has on pupils learning…

There is limited research on the relationship between adolescent smoking and related social and psychological factors, but it is known that adolescent tobacco users are at higher risk for behavioral disorders and substance abuse. Of great interest to those who work in youth tobacco prevention is expanding knowledge about those factors that lead to…

Achievement/affiliation conflicts arise for gifted students when they associate certain achievement attitudes or behaviors with betrayal of their social, gender, ethnic, or racial culture. Studies suggest that a good number of gifted students begin to struggle with these conflicts during early adolescence and that these conflicts are a…

The goal of audience segmentation is to identify population subgroups that are homogeneous with respect to certain variables associated with a given outcome or behavior. When such groups are identified and understood, targeted intervention strategies can be developed to address their unique characteristics and needs. This study compares the…

Indoor air pollution is responsible for the deaths and illness of millions of young children in developing countries. This study investigated the acceptability (willingness to try) and feasibility (ability to perform) of four indoor air pollution reduction behaviors (improve stove maintenance practices, child location practices, ventilation…

A meta-analysis of 117 studies evaluated the effects of behavior modeling training (BMT) on 6 training outcomes, across characteristics of training design. BMT effects were largest for learning outcomes, smaller for job behavior, and smaller still for results outcomes. Although BMT effects on declarative knowledge decayed over time, training…

Obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases are widespread in American Indian communities. Inadequate access to healthy food on many reservations has led to a high-fat, high-sugar diet. The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of the process evaluation of a food store-based program to improve diet on two American Indian…

We provide a commentary on the Parents Matter! intervention program. Our commentary is organized around core issues confronting those who design prevention programs, namely (1) making the program practical, feasible and economical, (2) reaching a broad base of target individuals, (3) making the intervention effective in changing the behavior or…

Mediation analysis is a statistical technique that can be used to identify mechanisms by which intervention programs achieve their effects. This paper presents the results of a mediation analysis of Ngao, an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) education program that was implemented with school children in Grades 6 and 7 in Tanzania in the…

The primary objective of this research was to determine if 3 methods of assigning sociometric categories contribute similar information. The participants for this investigation consisted of 72 Headstart children from 3 classrooms. The results of this research indicate that social status categories based on peer ratings and nominations could be…

This article describes how the "developmental structuralist" theory of emotional development has evolved over 25 years into the developmental-individual difference-relationship (DIR[R]) approach to assessment and intervention. ZERO TO THREE and the Interdisciplinary Council for Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL) trace their roots to the…

New research on premature babies shows that even infants born relatively late in gestation and with few complications have a significantly higher incidence of mild developmental delays and learning problems than the general population, difficulties that often remain undiagnosed until school age. The author argues that follow-up for all premature…

Though the processes of change are conceived as the core constructs of the transtheoretical model (TTM), few researchers have examined their construct validity in the physical activity domain. Further, only 1 study was designed to investigate the processes of change in an adolescent sample. The purpose of this study was to examine the exercise…