This Study Brief highlights key findings from a study that addresses the need expressed by the education stakeholders in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to better understand their high school students' social-emotional competencies and how those competencies might be associated with students' academic and behavioral outcomes in…

The "Associations between High School Students' Social-Emotional Competencies and Their High School and College Academic and Behavioral Outcomes in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands" study addressed the need expressed by education stakeholders in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to better understand their…

Although Black students may share race-related experiences at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), they are a heterogeneous community with diverse identity beliefs, goals, and expectations about college. In the current study, we foreground how Black students at PWIs understand their racialized identities in relation to one another and within…

The United Nations (U.N.) advocates for the inclusion of refugees into public schools. This ethnographic, pilot research explores foreign students' experience of inclusion and belonging in a Nairobi public school. The research found that these students most resented being placed in lower grades and that their lowered grade placement may have…

This study examines developmental change across adolescence in the similarity of friends versus nonfriends. This differential in similarity is a key aspect of the organization of the peer context of development: The stronger the correlation between friends for an attribute, the more the attribute delineates clustering and divisions of friendships.…

Teachers are essential partners in addressing the needs of English learners (ELs), yet most professional development fails to mention the specific needs of such students who have experienced trauma and exhibit signs of toxic and post-traumatic stress. Such students are not readily identified and even so, are often hesitant to seek the professional…

Student-teacher relationships are important to student outcomes and may be especially pivotal at the high school transition and for minoritized racial/ethnic groups. Although interventions exist to improve student-teacher relationships, none have been shown to be effective among high school students or in narrowing racial/ethnic disparities in…

For this report, The Education Trust teamed up with Equal Opportunity Schools to look at students' access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The authors found that although many Black and Latino students aspire to go to college and are interested in STEM subjects, very few are actually enrolled…

Background: The Theory of Triadic Influence (TTI) provides a comprehensive framework for understanding adolescent substance use. Objectives: We examined mechanisms by which a TTI-guided social-emotional and character development program, "Positive Action" (PA), influences adolescent substance use. Study data come from the PA-Chicago,…

U.S. colleges and universities are rapidly diversifying. In 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that nearly half of undergraduate students were of non-white racial identities, with that number only increasing for future generations. This increase in diversity holds true for many other identity groups. Yet, faculty demographics remain…

Student engagement is shown to condition a student for increased academic persistence leading to increased institutional retention. Engagement builds passion for academic and non-academic factors which lead to successful student and institutional outcomes. Without passion and value for investing one's quality time and effort in their learning…

What leads young people to disengage and leave school early? This paper focuses on young adults' educational trajectories, with the objective of identifying useful insights for improving school measures and strategies against early school leaving and school disengagement. Specifically, it draws upon an empirical study with young adults from the…

Identifying key determinants of success plays an important role in efforts of assessing the current state of educational practices and implementing effective actions to improve academic performance. Given how important is accurate identification of these determinants for valid comparisons, the aim of this research was to present extensive…

The current study examined the associations among cumulative risk, psychological capital and adolescents' anxiety/depression and life satisfaction. Chinese adolescents (N = 1473, grades 7 to 12, ages 12 to 18, 52.1% female) completed self-report cumulative risk, psychological capital, anxiety/depressive symptoms and life satisfaction…

Poor school connectedness (SC), defined as students' feelings of belonging, safety, and fairness at school, is a risk factor for negative psychosocial outcomes. Few studies have examined the specific relationship between SC and anxiety. This study examined the relation between SC and anxiety within a group of 114 clinically anxious youth (mean age…