This study examined behavioral and emotional adjustment in family contexts in which there was high versus low demand for adolescents to serve as language brokers in a sample of 73 recently immigrated Latino families with middle-school-aged adolescents. Language brokering was conceptualized as a family process rather than merely an individual…

In cross-age peer mentoring programs, high school students mentor younger students. Prior research demonstrates the positive effects for mentees as well as for mentors. This context-based, strengths-promoting intervention is designed to help school counselors foster high school students' leadership and collaboration skills while simultaneously…

Previous scholarship on farm families emphasizes the importance of socializing children to become farmers. This study is the first to focus on the parental socialization factors that are associated with preadolescent children's attachment to, and plans to take over, the family farm. Forty-seven 7- to 12-year-old children and their farming parents…

This study examines how attachment to mother and father predicts worries about academic demands and relationships with teachers generated by the transition from elementary to middle school through its contribution to adolescents' emotional problems (depression and anxiety). The study sample includes 626 young adolescents (289 boys and 337 girls)…

This study examined the extent to which the quality of parent and peer attachments related to early adolescents' life satisfaction (LS), whether peer attachment served as a mediator between parent attachment and LS, and potential gender differences. Total of 587 middle school students in grades 6 through 8 participated. Although both parent and…

Consequences of depression can be detrimental, and adolescents who are victimized by their peers are at-risk for developing depressive symptoms. The link between depression and peer victimization is relatively strong, but social support may be a protective factor for peer victims. The main purpose of this study was to examine the buffering effects…

Using longitudinal data on South Korean youth, the authors addressed limitations of previous tests of general strain theory (GST), focusing on the relationships among key strains, situational- and trait-based negative emotions, conditioning factors, and delinquency. Eight types of strain previously shown most likely to result in delinquency,…

Objective: To assess nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviors of seventh graders in nine randomly selected middle schools in Louisiana. Methods: This descriptive study used personal data assistants (PDAs) to administer a pre-validated questionnaire developed from national instruments to 127 seventh grade students from nine randomly-selected…

This study examined how boys' and girls' weight preoccupation varied by grade level, parent-child relationships, self-classified weight, entertainment media exposure levels, and gender. Seventh-grade girls (n = 190) and boys (n = 132) and 10th-grade girls (n = 99) and boys (n = 67) participated. Girls were more likely to report weight…

This article explores factors influencing adolescent female substance use in rural communities. Self-reported data gathered from females 12 to 15 years of age in two northwestern communities in the United States showed an association among gender identity, peer and parental relationships, and substance use. Aggressive masculinity had the strongest…

In this project, 72 middle school students responded to a questionnaire tapping three aspects of perfectionism: self-striving, socially-prescribed perfectionism, and concern for mistakes. Their mothers completed a questionnaire assessing goal expression along three dimensions defined as direct expectations (e.g., "I set high standards for my…

The pervasive income-related achievement gap among children has been partially explained by parental investments. Wealthier parents provide more cognitively enriched environments (e.g., books, informal learning opportunities such as music lessons) and converse more with their children relative to low-income parents. However parental investment…

Adolescence is a critical period of development. Previous research suggests parent involvement in school directly impacts student success. However, different types of parental involvement and the efforts of middle school personnel to educate parents about these effective practices have received scant attention in the literature. The level and type…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that predict academic achievement and school attachment among Hispanic seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents and to determine whether the associations between these factors are similar for Hispanic and white adolescents. The sample consisted of 170 adolescents. Results for Hispanic…

Many students in the United States, particularly those from lower income or racially/ ethnically diverse families, are exposed to clusters of risk factors that have a negative impact on school success. This study examined the association between the number of supportive and caring adults in the home, school, and neighborhood and the school…