Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the beliefs of 15-17 year-old Dutch adolescents about starting or quitting smoking and to explore their preferences regarding education concerning this topic. Design/methodology/approach: The paper shows that a total of 12 group interviews were held with 101 students in the highest classes in secondary…

Objective: Six items were administered to a multiethnic sample of 435 middle school--age participants in a group-delivered safer sex intervention to determine their reliability and validity. Method: Exploratory analyses were followed by confirmatory factor analyses, and then correlations of scale scores with theoretically related variables were…

While adolescents tend to under-use professional mental health services for depression, they informally seek health-related information from parents and peers. In this study, we interviewed 15 adolescents to examine how the views and behaviours of others influence teens' decisions about seeking care for depression. Using a grounded theory…

This paper examines and discusses two professional support and development programs for principals in Australia. Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL) is a program implemented in Australia in the independent school sector. In 1993, a group of 14 principals from these schools participated in a modified version of PAL, PAL(A). Since then a number of other…

Alcohol use among urban youth has been regularly surveyed, but assessment of rural residents is rare. Information about factors associated with attitudes toward drinking could be especially useful to school counselors. This study used questionnaires to investigate the association of attitudes toward alcohol and alcohol use with the following…

Despite increases in the minimum legal drinking age, national studies show that 82 to 92 percent of college students consume alcohol, with about 20 percent considered as heavy drinkers. Students who drink may have particular needs for focused education or intervention, but all students can benefit from education regarding the full range of alcohol…

The Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) Office of Youth Development's National Strategy for Youth Development model was promoted as a community-based planning and procedural tool for enhancing positive youth development and reducing delinquency. To test the applicability of the model as a function of delinquency level, the program's Impact Scales…

A study examined socially supportive messages to determine what situational constraints affect the types of support persons perceive as demanded by the situation. Data were gathered from 77 students enrolled in communication classes at a small private southwestern university. Subjects, provided with descriptions of four hypothetical situations…

An exploration of the process by which newly hired high school principals learn instructional leadership roles is presented in this paper, which focuses on the effect of faculty and superintendent expectations on principals' leadership behavior. A triangularized methodology includes indepth interviews with new principals, (n=28) from a midwestern…

A study conducted in 1986 found that parents were the critical influence on the religious beliefs and commitment of their adolescent sons and daughters, while the adolescent's peers seemed to have no significant effect. In addition, the content of the beliefs did not seem to act as a strong reinforcer. Thirty-two of the 390 subjects who…

Paradox and therapeutic double bind techniques are used to overcome resistance in students with a history of success avoidance. Predictions of failure, restraining comments, and the use of paradox in the midst of an activity are defended theoretically by presenting historical roots and a rationale of effectiveness. A skill-building approach…

Data for this study were obtained from the second follow-up of the sophomore cohort of the High School and Beyond Study, with 14,825 students from 1,015 schools involved. Mathematics and English self-concepts were found to be: (1) uncorrelated despite a substantial correlation between mathematics and English test scores; (2) influenced by internal…

Meaning does not reside in the text or the reader but results from interactions between text, reader, and the interpretive communities that the readers belong to or that influence them. These interpretive communities are those communities or authorities that influence the reader/writer in interpreting texts, with resulting ideational,…

Presented are two documents focusing on a peer leadership training program which pairs better students and leaders with younger high-risk students. One document briefly describes the peer leadership training program as a program in which students traveled to an environmental education center for 3 days of competitive and challenging activities,…

This study of gender differences in the sport socialization process of high school varsity athletes examined: (1) the primary and secondary patterns of sport involvement by significant others; and (2) the primary sources of motivation for athletes' entrance into sport and continued sport involvement. A 96-item Sport Participation Inventory was…