Reviews a broad range of evidence indicating that school-based prevention and youth development interventions are most beneficial when they simultaneously enhance students' personal and social assets and improve the quality of the environments in which students are educated. Asserts that school-based prevention programming--based on coordinated…

Reviews scientific and professional trends in the field of health psychology. Discusses recent research on health promotion, psychological factors in the development of illness, cognitive representations of health and illness, stress and coping, social support, interventions to promote coping, and trends that will affect progress in the field.…

The use of racial variables in genetic studies has become a matter of intense public debate, with implications for research design and translation into practice. Using research on smoking as a springboard, the authors examine the history of racial categories, current research practices, and arguments for and against using race variables in genetic…

Applies a socio-psychological approach to social systems to examine the community mental health center (CMHC) movement, traces the historical evolution of the task mandate and the professional and organizational structures of the CMHCs to their legislative origins and considers possible future directions of the CMHC movement. (Author/JM)

Decades following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), issues regarding the effects of skin color, poverty, and racial differences in the availability of protective factors persist. For a multiethnic sample of mainly African American (56%), female (69%), and high-achieving (65%) youths, a dual-axis model of vulnerability is used to compare four…

Discusses societal changes that may have contributed to increasing average achievement levels (especially in mathematics) for Black students. Considers the long-term beneficial effects of school desegregation. (GC)

Discusses the meaning of intelligence, the social functions that tests serve, the appropriate use of personality tests, controversies regarding IQ measurement, minimum competency testing, test disclosure, test bias, and "truth in testing." Stresses that testing is as much a social and political issue as it is an issue of scientific measurement.…

Argues the importance of context to the description, theory, and understanding of human behavior because it influences children's primary group relations with family members, teachers, and peers. The article explains that, to be useful for children, social policies must inform the public on how its projected changes will influence socialization…

Discusses social influence and social cognition's effect on health and social well-being, and examines the efficacy of public health campaigns, the effects of negative stereotyping, and why some teenagers resist drug use and others do not as part of the social problems addressed by behavioral science research. Future directions for research on…

Social scientists' assertions in 1954, that desegregation would improve minority student performance by freeing minority children from "pariah" status, and the hypothesis that interracial classroom contact would result in improved minority student achievement, are both unsupported by research. Effective school desegregation programs must…

Examines the disciplinary and cultural functions of introductory psychology textbooks from around the turn of the century to the present. Preliminary analysis indicates that textbooks have been more than a compendium of knowledge. They have provided a medium for defining social relations and ideals. (SLD)

Reviews the state of knowledge on adolescent sexual behavior in the following areas: (1) onset of sexual behavior as a function of cohort, gender, and ethnic differences; (2) biological, social, and cognitive processes underlying such behavior; (3) demographic trends in the use of contraceptives; (4) research problems; and (5) successful programs.…