The study examined the effects of gender and ethnicity on mathematics achievement on a national test and on dispositions (attitudes, perceived parental expectations, effort, and help) towards the study of mathematics of a representative sample of Jewish and Arab eighth graders in Israel. The results indicated a large ethnic gap in achievement in…

This paper articulates a perspective on learning to discuss ways in which students develop personal sense and negotiate meaning in a middle school algebra context. Building on a sociocultural perspective that incorporates mental objects, learning is described as a mutually dependent process involving personal sense making and the public…

Introduction: The importance of values education in current society continues to be one of the greatest challenges to our Educational System. Its pertinence becomes no less than inexcusable when we speak of education in social values during adolescence, or, during "Educacion Secundaria Obligatoria" ["N.T." Mandatory Secondary…

This study reports on relationships among gender, maternal depressed mood, and children's trajectories of depressive phenomena across middle childhood and early adolescence. It tested the hypothesis that, compared to boys, girls become increasingly vulnerable to maternal depression as they enter adolescence. The study sample consisted of 834…

The Monitoring the Future study has provided the nation with a window into the important, but largely hidden, problem behaviors of illicit drug use, alcohol use, and tobacco use. It has provided a clearer view of the changing topography of these problems among adolescents and adults, a better understanding of the dynamics of factors that drive…

Validity data are presented for a new measure of threat appraisals in response to community violence. Adolescents (N = 358; 45% male; 91% African American, M = 12.10 years, SD = 1.63) and their maternal caregivers participated in two waves of a longitudinal interview study focused on the consequences of exposure to community violence. Structural…

This study investigated student perceptions of differences in academic and social effects that occur when gifted and talented youth are grouped homogeneously (i.e., in special classes for gifted students) as contrasted with heterogeneously (i.e., in classes with many ability levels represented). Forty-four students in grades 5-11 completed…

We cannot live there any more. We are selling our home, pulling our children from their schools and moving, not far, only 20 kilometres, to a new community, to a new beginning. The reason--bullying or "what girls do".

The author investigated students' ideas about what defines an environment and how these ideas change across grade level and educational experience. A total of 81 students were sampled: 18 seventh graders, 20 eighth graders, and 24 ninth graders from general biology, and 19 ninth graders from college preparatory biology. The environments task was a…

An important element of the context in which children are educated is the safety in their schools. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships among student perceptions of community safety, school environment, substance use, and school safety with a total of 3,092 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Data were used from the…

The purpose of this study is to examine whether peer relations within classrooms were related to students' academic progress, and if so, whether this can be explained by students' relatedness and engagement, in line with Connell and Wellborn's self-system model. We analyzed data of 18,735 students in 796 school classes in Dutch junior high…

This study examines how a wide variety of diverse friendship group attributes affect changes in indicators of school performance, social behavior, and mental health between early seventh and late eighth grade. Nine hundred and one middle school students named their friends. Independent data from these friends were used to construct friendship…

This research examined the hypothesis that a tendency to base one's self-worth on peer approval is associated with positive and negative aspects of children's well-being. A sample of 153 fourth through eighth graders (9.0 to 14.8 years) reported on need for approval, global self-worth, social-evaluative concerns, anxiety and depression, and…

Building on previous research conducted over the past thirty years, this study attempts to inquire about students' attitudes towards social studies. Using a phenomenological research approach, two groups of eighth and eleventh grade students were interviewed. A total of forty-eight students were selected to participate in the study. With…

A dynamic cascade model of development of serious adolescent violence was proposed and tested through prospective inquiry with 754 children (50% male; 43% African American) from 27 schools at 4 geographic sites followed annually from kindergarten through Grade 11 (ages 5-18). Self, parent, teacher, peer, observer, and administrative reports…