The purpose of this study was to examine individual, family, peer, and community risk and protective factors associated with past-30-days alcohol and marijuana use among African-American adolescents living in rural and urban communities. This study used data collected from 907 tenth- and twelfth-grade African-American students who completed the…

The last several decades have witnessed a large increase in the number of girls who participate in sports in the United States. Today an estimated 8 million third- through 12th-grade girls and 12 million boys participate in organized and team sports. While much progress has been made toward achieving gender equity in youth sports, too many girls…

This study used self-report symptom inventories administered in school classrooms to examine relations among gender, psychological symptoms, stress, and coping in 1,200 low-income African American urban early adolescents. Girls reported more symptoms than boys, accounted for by higher internalizing symptoms. Boys reported more stress than girls,…

In the inner-city of Washington, D.C., lives a generation of young people for whom violence, discrimination, and poverty are a daily reality. This article describes one youth organization that encourages these young people to voice their hopes and concerns for their community and work to create solutions. The out-of-school-time programming of…

The high school transition was examined in an ethnically diverse, urban sample of 1,979 adolescents, followed from 7th to 10th grade (M[subscript age] = 14.6, SD = 0.37 in 7th grade). Twice annually, data were gathered on adolescents' perceptions of school climate, psychological functioning, and academic behaviors. Piecewise growth modeling…

The development and validation of a measure of adolescent future expectations associated with work, education, family, health, and church/community participation is presented. The 25-item measure was administered to a sample of 389 7th- to 12th-grade urban poor and working-class Chilean students. Results of an exploratory principal axis factor…

A two-phase (P1 and P2) physical activity program/or 9th and 10th grade students, particularly adolescent females of color, was designed and implemented at a mid-western urban high school during lunch time. Written surveys, field notes, interviews and an 8-item questionnaire developed by the researchers were the methods used to collect data to…

The purposes of this study were to evaluate a pilot, dropout prevention program designed to provide academic tutoring and supplemental enrichment to 9th graders and to examine additional data on adolescents' motivators and role models related to high school dropout and completion. The program targeted 9th graders because many adolescents decide to…