Describes The Quest National Center that was formed a decade ago to develop "skills for successful living and learning" in adolescents. The curriculum they have developed is called "Skills for Living," a successful character education program reaching 600,000 students each year. (MD)

Surveyed 100 adolescents to determine how they judged the advantages or disadvantages of being a member of the opposite sex. Females used social standards to identify their judgments while males used sexual standards. (JAC)

Discusses how youngsters learn to think in a recognizable adult fashion about political, social, and humanistic issues. Reports on research on the development of political attitudes over the course of adolescence. Concludes that the major difference between younger and older adolescents is the ability of the latter to think abstractly when…

On March 23 and 24, 1998, the Forum on Adolescence gathered an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners to review the state of knowledge about adolescent development at a workshop entitled "New Research on the Biology of Puberty and Adolescent Development." This workshop focused both on puberty, a set of physical changes rooted in…

Kansas City, Missouri, is one of six sites in a national demonstration project, Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD), which aims to increase basic developmental supports and opportunities available to youth age 12-20 years. The demonstration focuses on five basic elements: adult support and guidance, opportunities for involvement in…

Families (N=20) participated in a Plan Something Together task used to measure three dimensions of family individuation: self-assertion, validation, and permeability. Discusses results in the context of several methodological challenges encountered in analyses of family interaction; discusses general strategies for responding to these challenges.…

This annotated bibliography cites nine references on various aspects of early adolescence. (SJL)

Research on the effects of education on adolescents' contraceptive behaviors is summarized and 27 teaching strategies, each related to a particular contraceptive problem adolescents encounter, are outlined. (JMF)

Surveyed 659 family support workers regarding their training and services for families with 10- to 15-year olds. Found that 30 to 50% rated training as inadequate or poor, had inaccurate knowledge about young adolescent development, and felt they were doing an inadequate job promoting developmental assets for youth. Higher quality training was…

Notes that the family support and positive youth development movements represent considerable change in both philosophical and programmatic approaches to the delivery of services. Examines the key elements and the relative success of family support and youth development practice, compares the two streams of literature and programming, and suggests…

Talks about the role of fairy tales, myth, and religious stories in the author's works of fiction, which investigate the world from the standpoint of the outsider. Presents excerpts from one of the author's novels that demonstrates that being a true outsider means having moments of triumph and moments of despair. (RS)

Examines whether there are gender differences in changes in the aggregate level and individual stability of conduct problems from early adolescence to early adulthood. Analyzes self-reported data from a study of Norwegian adolescents. Analyses showed that involvement in conduct problems for both genders peaked in mid-adolescence. In the long term,…

As an outgrowth of the theory of flow, looks at some fine distinctions regarding the adolescent's optimal conditions for growth. Points to the importance of the adolescent's ability to reinterpret conflicts which crop up in raw experience, to overcome psychic entropy with long-term challenges or "life themes," and to find new meaning and…

Reviews volume on the role of values in adolescent development, mental health, and psychopathology. Describes and critically evaluates the book's three approaches (theory, science, and social commentary) to data from the longitudinal study "Children in the Community Project." Concludes that regardless of how findings are interpreted, the…