Social responsibilities are a central component of adolescents' and young adults' development, particularly for those from immigrant backgrounds. Social responsibility--a sense of responsibility and duty that extends beyond the self (Wray-Lake & Syvertsen, 2011) includes both family obligations (Fuligni, 2001; 2007) and community engagement…

Since 2003, nonprofit organization Common Sense Media has studied the ways in which kids are growing up in the digital age. In this interview, research director Michael Robb shares recent findings about the media habits of young children, tweens, and teens. While the news coverage of these issues tends to be hyperbolic and alarming, Robb explains,…

The present article responds to Males and Brown's "Teenagers' High Arrest Rates: Features of Young Age or Youth Poverty?" which claims that the widely observed pattern of crime rates peaking in late adolescence or early adulthood is an artifact of age differences in poverty. We note that the authors' interpretation of their aggregated…

This article presents a review of "Lost youth in the global city: class, culture and the urban imaginary," by Jo-Anne Dillabough and Jacqueline Kennelly. In many ways the "juke-box boys" would today form a stratum of the "lost youth" that Jo-Anne Dillabough and Jacqueline Kennelly discuss in their thoughtful account…

What do young black males say about what stands in the way of their academic success? Rather than rely on scholarly researchers to answer this question, the authors talked with a number of black males between ages 13 and 22 in Washington D.C., and Milwaukee, Wis., to learn what they had to say. These young men rarely talked about schools or…

An authority on the history of American children and families, Steven Mintz is a professor of history at Columbia University, where he also directs the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center. Previously, he was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Moores Professor of…

A perennial talking point of politicians and scientists, since the time of the Greeks, is to lament how American youth are sliding into moral decrepitude, lawlessness, and poor mental health. Indeed, to hear some observers talk, particularly in this election year, young people in the United States are being battered by a coarsened culture that…

Over the past 40 years the fraction of mixed race black-white births has increased nearly nine-fold. There is little empirical evidence on how these children fare relative to their single-race counterparts. This paper describes basic facts about the plight of mixed race individuals during their adolescence and early adulthood. As one might expect,…

Discusses the consequences of teenage childbearing on the educational, economic, and marital attainment of the teenage mother. (SS)

Research on transracial adoption indicates that most minority children in transracial placement adjust very well to their mixed-race environments. Most transracial adoptees have a sense of identity with their racial heritage, but the strength of this identity depends, to a large degree, on the commitment of the adoptive parents to foster it.…

Examines several dimensions of adolescent suicide, including theories of suicide, methods of assessing lethality, and methods of counseling the suicidal person. (Author/GC)

Examines the incidence of child poverty in the United States, criticisms of official poverty thresholds, and the influence of family structure and race on child poverty. Recent data show that 60% of poor children lived in families headed by single females and that the majority of African-American children will experience poverty at some point in…

This paper reviews whether students learn enough in high school to justify a law compelling attendance of all adolescents. It is concluded that those who haven't achieved a level of intellectual development allowing them to function responsibly should remain in an educational setting to raise their skill level. (Author/GK)

This article discusses the intersection of sexism and racism in three aspects of minority students' educational experiences: the role of myths and stereotypes about minority student sexuality, adolescent pregnancy, and AIDS education among minority and non-minority adolescent populations. (IAH)

This document provides a transcript of one of three panels held at a Manhattan Institute conference in June 2006. In this panel, the issue of reconnecting a certain segment of disadvantaged men into the workforce is discussed. John McWhorter explains that the Manhattan Institute has been instrumental in forging the reform of welfare legislation,…