Mentoring is now a very popular, but loosely defined, feature of many programs for youth. The heart of mentoring is the relationship between the youth and the mentor, but little is actually known about this relationship. Mentoring should not be limited to at-risk youth, since many average students or underachievers from stable backgrounds may…

Educational resilience is defined as the heightened likelihood of success in school and in other life accomplishments, despite environmental adversities. This paper summarizes the concept of resilience as it has been advanced in developmental psychopathology and discusses educationally relevant research that is consonant with the definition of…

Considerable study has been focused on relationships between learning styles and other characteristics and conditions, such as teaching styles, achievement, student age, and student gender. In 1991, a study was conducted on two campuses of a comprehensive community college in the southeast to measure the effect on course grades of the relationship…

Summaries of research findings on the following topics are compiled in this document: (1) students in schools with well-equipped resource centers and teacher-librarians perform better on achievement tests; (2) developing student competence in research and study skills is most effective when integrated with classroom instruction through cooperative…

Discusses attributes of families, students, schools, peers, and communities that foster resilience among inner-city youth, examining these factors at one inner-city elementary school. The exploration is based on a longitudinal study of the achievement and climate and survey and interview data collected over five years. (SLD)

Reports a study of 208 migrant children, three to four years of age and mostly Black, assessing school achievement and seven affective characteristics, i.e., delay of gratification, relationship with achievement model, dependency, motor inhibition, self-control, self-concept, and risk-taking. Suggests that findings of sex differences for…

The Puerto Rican language-culture nexus is seen as the natural field where young Puerto Ricans forge their ethnic identities. Ethnographic theory and methods were used to study this nexus from a naturalistic perspective. A focus group of 12 Puerto Rican 8th grade students (9 males and 3 females) attending a school within 1 Puerto Rican barrio in…

A study examined various characteristics of learning environments that promote or retard the development of basic skills proficiency. Data on four school programs--vocational noncooperative, vocational cooperative, general education, and college preparatory--were collected in a repeated measure design via observations, testing, and interviews. A…

Interaction effects of 524 grade six pupils' achievement motives, ability level, future time orientation, sex, and perceived importance of school activity were considered in relation to approach/avoidance motivation. Achievement scores were positively related to approach motivation; successs-oriented, high-ability girls and moderate-ability boys…

Using grades and standardized test scores as criteria variables, a survey determined relative effects of sociocultural variables, personality factors, and student perceptions of school and social events in explaining differential patterns of academic achievement for 89 Asian-American tenth graders. Findings are discussed in connection with the…

An annotated bibliography on revenue producing sports is presented, with attention to: Proposition 48, exploitation of athletes, legal proceedings, research related to athletes and academic performance, psychological characteristics of athletes, and counseling programs for athletes. Introductions to each of the six topics are included. The section…

A study examined the influence of such variables as aptitude, interest, personality traits, attitudes and aspirations, school achievement, and background on the post-high school training and career choices of secondary school students in South Africa. Data from various sources, including the Project Talent Survey begun in 1965 and continued with…

In the fall of 2005, the New Mexico Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey (NM YRRS) was conducted in New Mexico public high schools, with 5,679 students in grades nine through twelve participating from 20 public high schools in the state. The NM YRRS is a tool that can assist administrators and policy makers in identifying health risk behaviors among…

Ten surveys of American men aged 25-64 were analyzed to determine the effects of family background, adolescent personality traits, cognitive test scores, and years of schooling on occupational status and earnings in maturity. Some of the findings follow: Data on brothers indicated that prior research has underestimated the effect of family…

Debate about the relative influence of class and of race on the condition of blacks in the United States is relevant to the issue of the educational achievement of black youth. Neither race nor class, but culture is most likely to affect black children's behavior in schools and, as well, the school's response to black children. The emphasis blacks…