This study examines the ties of sixth-grade teachers to their interdisciplinary team colleagues and explores the dimensions of their efficacy beliefs for their own and their colleagues' teaching. Teachers (n = 238; 83% female, 88% White) from 26 middle schools completed surveys about the relational aspects of ties to team colleagues, the…

The middle school transition year poses known challenges to early adolescent adjustment, particularly for students from ethnic and racial minoritized backgrounds who face ethnic and racial discrimination from school personnel and classmates. Drawing on a sample of 711 African American and Latinx sixth-grade students attending 17 schools, we…

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of a professional development program on sixth grade teachers' use of social dynamics management (SDM) practices. SDM practices represent teachers' active attempts to incorporate classroom social dynamics into everyday instructional and behavior management strategies. Sixth grade teachers…

Perceptions of the ecology and middle school transition are examined in relation to interpersonal competence patterns (ICPs) of approximately 3,000 sixth graders (46.2% boys) including 415 students with disabilities from 26 metropolitan schools. Teacher ratings of students' academic competence, externalizing and internalizing behavior, popularity,…

The present study examined the effects of teacher attunement to victimization on student perceptions of the bullying culture of their schools as a means of fostering a sense of belonging among early adolescents. Participants (n = 1,264) in sixth grade reported on the frequency that they had been bullied, and teachers were asked to report students…

The present study examined the effects of teacher attunement to victimization on student perceptions of the bullying culture of their schools as a means of fostering a sense of belonging among early adolescents. Participants (n = 1,264) in sixth grade reported on the frequency that they had been bullied, and teachers were asked to report students…

Directed consultation is presented as a professional development framework to guide and support teachers in the implementation of evidence-based interventions that involve contextual and process-oriented approaches designed to be incorporated into daily classroom management. This approach consists of four components: pre-intervention observations…

This study examined subtypes and stability/change in peer victimization involvement among students with exceptionalities. Data were collected over spring of fifth grade and fall/spring of sixth grade with 1,861 students in 36 rural schools as part of a cluster randomized trial of a context-based intervention (Supporting Early Adolescent Learning…

Continuity and change in children's involvement in bullying was examined across the transition to middle school in relation to externalizing and internalizing behavior problems in fifth grade and peer affiliations in fifth and sixth grades. The sample consisted of 533 students (223 boys, 310 girls) with 72% European American, 25% African American,…

The transition to middle school is considered to be a heightened period for involvement in bullying because the lack of a defined dominance hierarchy is thought to promote jockeying for social positions among students. Accordingly, this study examined bullying in peer ecologies at the beginning of the middle grade years in rural schools that did…

The early adolescent period and the transition to middle school is a foundational period that is as important to the outcomes of students' educational careers as is the transition into school. For many early adolescents, the changing contexts and demands of school are just as novel, the stresses are just as great, and the developmental stakes are…

This study involved a pilot examination of the impact of the Supporting Early Adolescent Learning and Social Strengths (SEALS) model on the 6th grade academic and social context following the transition to middle school. Two middle schools from a high poverty Appalachian school district were randomly assigned to the intervention and control…

The extant literature on the social functioning of students with learning disabilities (LD) has indicated that whereas a majority belong to peer groups, a higher proportion are isolated and most have lower social status among peers in general than their typically achieving classmates. Although some work has examined these issues over short-term…

This study examined who among the 526 fourth to sixth graders are nominated as among the coolest kids in their class. There were two questions: (1) Are popular-aggressive (tough) children nominated as cool by a broad spectrum of their peers, or only by a select few? (2) Does variability in children's cool nominations more closely follow their…