A social worker and a psychologist, working with troubled youth in a day treatment setting, describe unique ways to use the concepts of Positive Peer Culture (PPC) to facilitate groups from the elementary to high school levels. The authors have adapted the well-known PPC concepts and incorporated them into their strength-based program, SPLASH, to…

This study examined the social adjustment of adolescents who were deaf and enrolled in segregated (n=39), partially integrated (n=15), and mainstreamed (n=17) settings, comparing them with a control group of students without hearing impairments (n=56). These students in grades 8 to 13 in Ontario, Canada, were administered the Social Activity…

This study polled 35 early childhood educators pursuing master's degrees in early childhood special education or early intervention concerning the integration of typically-developing children with those who have special needs. A nine-item survey questionnaire was developed to assess the educators attitudes concerning the benefits of such…

Young people are concerned with making and keeping friends, and they invest a great deal of energy in group social life to do so. This book charts the interactions of young people both in and out of school and the role of peers and friends in strengthening social attachments and in establishing social identities. It describes how social identities…

This longitudinal study examined consistency and change in human personality. Rather than studying the consistency of individual differences over time, an approach which considers only the stability of a variable at the group level and ignores differences in stability at an individual level, this study used a person-centered approach to study…

Two studies examined people's ideas about conflicts between the morality of friendship and the morality of individual autonomy. Study 1 included 144 subjects of 15, 18, and 21 years of age. In individual interviews, subjects were asked (1) what they would do in dilemmas in which friendship expectations conflicted with individual autonomy; (2) the…

This publication is a collection of 20 supporting documents for a conference program, "Working Together To Change the Rape and Violence Culture." Contents include: (1) "Presenter Contact Information"; (2) "Characteristics of Rape-Prone versus Rape-Free Cultures"; (3) "Dater's Bill of Rights"; (4)…

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth face formidable challenges, but are beginning to proclaim their worth and power and to assert their rightful places in the world. Being lesbian or gay means that a person's primary romantic, emotional, physical, and sexual attractions are with someone of the same sex. Bisexual people have these attractions to both…

This report describes the outcomes of a federally funded project that developed an interactive videodisc social skills program and tested the effectiveness of the program on 30 children (grades 3-5) with behavior disorders. The program teaches children how to use appropriate tone of voice, phrasing, and body language in such social interactions as…

High school is an important time in an adolescent's life, during which the influence of peers can be both positive and negative. Using data from a national longitudinal study, high school students' peer groups and the relationship between the values of peer groups with whom students associated in high school and a broad range of educational…

A research study assessed whether health-related agencies and organizations in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, were willing to use trained older adults as volunteer health promoters, mentors, and tutors working with other seniors, despite the fact that no other programs in the Regina Health District specifically used older adults in these roles. A…

This handbook is the fruit of two projects of the University of Minnesota's College of Education: (1) the Dowling Friendship Program, a 3-year project at a public elementary school in Minneapolis in which children with and without disabilities participated in a variety of recreation activities during school, after school, at each other's homes,…

The importance of peer collaboration in the classroom while developing a reflective dialog outside of the classroom is explained. A peer is any person with expertise in the language or geographical area that is pertinent to class goals and activities. For example, instructors of French might consider people from France and other Francophone…

This paper explores the use of a peer coaching model, the Collaborative Learning Process (CLP), to increase the application of content from inservice teacher training. Educators (N=40) of students with moderate to severe disabilities were trained in the use of CLP to encourage application of the newly trained skill of facilitating skill…

Children's leadership expression in different types of group activities from early elementary school through high school was examined. Parents and teachers of 354 Western New York kindergarten through twelfth-grade public school students completed questionnaires assessing the children's leadership expression. Results indicated that leadership in…