The focus of this study was to explore children's evaluations of healthy peers and peers with cancer. A racially and ethnically diverse group of fourth- and fifth-grade children (n = 109) viewed a story about a child engaged in a physically challenging rock climbing tower activity at camp. The way the child (healthy or with cancer) ascended and…

Two studies examine the convergence between measures of friendship and measures of liking in the assessment of friendship and peer acceptance. In the first study, 551 (301 boys and 250 girls) Canadian primary school children (ages 8-11) nominated friends and liked-most classmates. In the second study, 282 (127 boys and 155 girls) US primary school…

Socialization among aggressive friends is believed to play a critical role in the development of aggressive behavior. This study examined the moderating effect of norm salience in the classroom on the association between reciprocal friends' and children's own physical, relational, and general aggression. A total of 713 children (M = 10.32 years,…

Although a number of social--cognitive and contextual correlates of defending against bullying have been identified, research on the personality traits associated with defending have yielded weak and inconsistent results. The current study provided a novel examination as to whether a tendency toward social withdrawal is associated with less…

Relational aggression is characterized by attempts to damage another's relationships or social status and is a major concern affecting academic, socioemotional, behavioral, and health outcomes, particularly for urban, minority youth. Teachers and peers frequently disagree about which students are relationally aggressive. Factors associated with…

Prior research links need for approval (NFA; the extent to which self-worth is contingent on peer approval or disapproval) to critical developmental outcomes, but little is known about how NFA develops over time or within social contexts. To address this gap, the present study used a sophisticated analytic approach (autoregressive latent…

The "Developing Inclusive Youth" program is a classroom-based, individually administered video tool that depicts peer-based social and racial exclusion, combined with teacher-led discussions. A multisite randomized control trial was implemented with 983 participants (502 females; 58.5% White, 41.5% Ethnic/racial minority; M[subscript…

Social norms are vital for the functioning of adolescent peer groups; they can protect the well-being of groups and individual members, often by deterring harmful behaviors, such as aggression, through enforcement mechanisms like peer victimization; in adolescent peer groups, those who violate aggression norms are often subject to victimization.…

This study examined variations in the development of classroom aggression popularity norms, as well as the role of homeroom teachers' aggression beliefs and students' perceptions of teachers' support as predictors of such variations. To achieve this goal, a sample of 63 classrooms were assessed at four time points during a school year, in nine…

Data from 790 older school-age (M[subscript age] = 10.2 years, SD = 1.2 years) girls (N = 427) and boys from Barranquilla, Colombia (N = 449) and Montréal, Canada (N = 331) were used to replicate findings reported by Valdivia et al. (2005). This prior study revealed contextual variations in the association between two measures of social behavior,…

This four-wave longitudinal study examined bidirectional associations among pupils' social status (preference and popularity) and teacher-child relationship characteristics (quality, support, satisfaction, and conflict) in special education. Participants included 586 pupils (86% boys) initially attending Grades 4 and 5 (M[subscript age Wave 1] =…

Improved survival rates of pediatric oncology patients give them the opportunity to return to school. This can present a significant challenge, as returning students often become vulnerable to peer rejection. The objective of this double-arm descriptive study was to establish a framework from which to optimize a school reintegration intervention…

This study investigated how two aspects of the classroom environment (teachers' emphasis on mastery goals and descriptive norms (i.e., the average student disruptive, prosocial, and achievement-related behavior in a classroom), moderated the relationship between student behaviors and coolness. The sample included 976 students nested in 54 fifth-…

Background: Many studies have shown that school belonging is crucial for students' school adjustment, but the construct has been operationalized in different ways. Moreover, most research has focused on adolescents and not compared its antecedents for ethnic minority versus majority students. Aims: Based on Goodenow and Grady's (1993) seminal…

The present study investigated (1) how social relationships with teachers and peers and self-esteem of students with social-emotional and behavioral difficulties (SEBD) in inclusive regular education (regular schools) and students with SEBD in exclusive special education (special schools) develop over time in comparison with each other and in…