The well-known associations of peer status (acceptance and rejection) with prosocial and aggressive behaviors have mostly relied on peer status measures assessed at a single time point. This study adopted a person-oriented approach to examine longitudinal links between stable peer status profiles assessed at two time points and prosocial and…

Self-regulation is a process that may affect the degree of peer rejection but may also be determined by the degree of peer rejection, whereby the degree of acceptance/rejection can influence the processes that lead to the strengthening or weakening of self-regulation. In this study, we concentrate on self-regulatory mechanisms (self-regulated…

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…

Gender-typical characteristics are associated with popularity and acceptance, suggesting that gender typicality is an important component of how adolescents are perceived by peers. The current study addressed the contributions of self- and peer-perceived gender typicality in predicting popularity and liking among same- and other-sex peers.…

Most research on peer victimization has focused on Western samples, but in recent years peer victimization in China has become more prevalent. As a result, limited information is available on how peer victimization, school climate, peer preference, and adjustment difficulties impact Chinese middle school students. This cross-sectional study…

The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore how gifted girls perceived and coped with loneliness and the relationship between loneliness and giftedness from their perspectives. Participants were four middle-school gifted girls. A loneliness scale was used to select gifted students with a high level of loneliness experience. In-depth…

We investigated the associations between students' perceptions of their teachers' management of peer relations (TMPR) and two facets of the peer ecology: perceptions of peer support and the behaviors of popular peers (responsibility and rebelliousness). Participants were 1,031 fifth graders nested within 50 elementary school classrooms. Early…

This study evaluates the Individual Strengths, Collective Power! program in fostering students' use of strengths vocabulary and improving classroom relationships in an inclusive education setting in Switzerland, where students with and without special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) attend school together. The study involved 179…

Students' positive experiences in schools positively predicts students' political trust. However, little research has examined how individual students' feelings of exclusion at their schools may relate to students' political trust. Moreover, how does an overall sense of exclusion from the school relate to political trust apart from individual…

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…

We investigate fifth-grade students' identity work and science learning at the margins of a science classroom. By "margins" we refer to activities unrelated to formal classroom instructional content and practices, and which unfold across many settings and contexts, including the classroom itself, but also multi-party, social group…

We investigated how 5th-8th graders' self- and peer-identified withdrawal motivations predicted peer-reported peer relationships and aggression. Participants (N = 221; 47% male) provided self-reports and peer-nomination data (we analyzed 339 students' nominations). We hypothesized shyness, unsociability, and avoidance would predict low peer liking…

Prior research has found that student achievement is positively related to students' social standing in class. However, negative stereotypes about high academic achievers prevail among secondary school students, suggesting that higher achievers might be less well-integrated socially. These stereotypes especially target academically high-achieving…

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…

Teachers are often at the forefront of efforts to help students struggling socially at school and their support may be particularly critical during the early adolescent developmental period after youth transition to middle school when social concerns become increasingly salient to students. Given their daily interactions with students, teachers…