This study examines the effects of peer groups on community college students' perceptions of general educational gains. Results support the strong relationships between the efforts that students expend in taking advantage of the opportunities provided by their colleges and their perceived gains in learning. (JM)

Adolescents (N=1,198) in Reykjavik, Iceland were followed from ages 15 to 17 to explore their levels of psychosocial maturity in relation to alcohol consumption. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to examine interpersonal understanding, skills, and personal meaning in relation to alcohol use. Adolescents' psychosocial maturity,…

Examines the ways in which two risk factors: negative peer behavior and time spent without an adult, and two protective factors: adolescent resources and parental behavior influence psychological adjustment and grades among adolescents ages 10 to 17 (N=745). Results indicate that negative peer behavior is inversely related to adolescent well…

Social-emotional characteristics and drug use patterns of adolescents who reported having no friends (i.e. isolates) were compared to those of adolescents in drug using and non-drug using peer groups. Adolescents with no drug using peers reported lowest drug use and those with drug-using peers had highest drug use, with isolated adolescents…

Investigated the nature of body image and body change strategies, as well as sociocultural influences on these variables, among a group of 1,266 adolescents. Findings indicated females were less satisfied with their bodies and were more likely to adopt strategies to lose weight, whereas males were likely to adopt strategies to increase weight and…

Examined the perceived role of sociocultural agents (peers, parents, and media) in influencing body dissatisfaction and dietary restraint in adolescent girls. While current body size strongly predicted ideal body size and dissatisfaction, perceived influence of sociocultural agents also had a direct relationship with body ideal and…

Direct instruction was effective in teaching second grade students to identify and report peers' day-to-day prosocial behaviors. Interdependent reinforcement and publicly posted progress feedback procedures were effective in increasing and maintaining these behaviors. Discussion focuses on developing and implementing proactive programs to prevent…

A theoretical framework about protective factors (models protection, controls protection, support protection) and risk factors (models risk, opportunity risk, vulnerability risk) was employed to articulate the content of 4 key contexts of adolescent life--family, peers, school, and neighborhood--in a cross-national study of problem behavior among…

If one understands the normative structure of a given peer group, one can begin to understand the type of influence that group has on the behavior of its members. Despite the centrality of norms to understanding student peer groups, little or no research has focused on the empirical delineation of normative structures of college students. Thus,…

This exploratory study examines self-reported acts of academic dishonesty for a sample of 858 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students on a small college campus (8,350 students). The study raises awareness to the occurrences, and challenges of academic dishonesty at small-sized institutions, somewhat overlooked in empirical research.…

Academic and student affairs leaders long have acknowledged that much of students' learning takes place in cocurricular and extracurricular settings dominated by their peers. That fact has quietly grown in importance in recent years as educators, student affairs leaders, and student health officials increasingly have recognized that peers can play…

Bullying and harassment are pervasive problems in schools, with interventions to counter bullying now regarded as a matter of high priority by educational authorities. This article considers the impact of bullying on victim and bully. It also explores the role of peers as bystanders in school bullying. Australian research is described, examining…

International assessments of academic achievement are common. They are usually accompanied by attempts to infer the determinants of cross-country achievement gaps, but these inferences have little empirical foundation. This paper applies the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to the problem of explaining why primary students in Cuban schools score than…

This article examines the teenage policing of heterosexuality in schools and contributes to debates about teenage sexual moralities and heterosexual male agency. It reports on a qualitative study in England of the collective sexual values of 12- to 13-year-olds and 14- to 15-year-olds. Focus group interviews indicated that pupils developed a…

Students at all educational levels are daily bombarded by others' attempts to influence them. Influence in the political, religious, social, educational, and advertising arenas pervade people's lives. It is vital to everyone to be aware of influence attempts; to be able to assess whether or not such attempts are useful, friendly, urgent, and in…