Advances in social norm research indicated the potential benefit of utilizing social referents, who are highly connected to others and have outstanding positions in social networks, and therefore may effectively provide normative cues for other group members. Addressing the need to increase intergroup tolerance among adolescents, we developed an…

Although literature provides strong evidence for the beneficial role of outgroup contact, longitudinal knowledge regarding the formation and change of outgroup contact remains improvable. Using a longitudinal, large-scale data set including 6,726 majority and minority participants (M[subscript age] = 14.98 years at Wave 1; 55% female) from 4…

The relevance of environmental attitudes is obvious and attitudes towards farm and companion animals and animal welfare in medical research are an important aspect of education. However, both have rarely been linked with each other, and animal attitudes are only sparsely represented within environmental education assessment instruments. Linking…

The present study examined how parental political attitudes, parenting styles, and classroom characteristics predict adolescents' political alienation, as feelings about the individual's ability to affect the political system's performance at the individual level. Participants were 463 families that included mothers, fathers, and their adolescent…

Fostering young people's commitment to protect biodiversity is an important goal of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in both, industrial countries and designated biodiversity hotspots. However, little empirical evidence exists to describe factors that influence such commitments. Based on the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory, 15 to…

Physical changes that occur during puberty alter the body image. Girls formerly had more difficulties accepting physical changes than boys. In this longitudinal study (three family visits; time interval: 1 year), pubertal development, body satisfaction, and desired body changes of 106 boys and 108 girls were assessed. The adolescents were between…

A comparison between the Netherlands and Germany concerning religious, cultural and ethnic plurality provides interesting insights. Germany has never defined itself as a multicultural society, as was historically the case in the Netherlands. The outcomes of the research are somewhat surprising. Dutch pupils--especially boys--are more negative…

NINE FOREIGN RESEARCH CENTERS AND 9 UNITED STATES RESEARCH CENTERS WERE REPRESENTED BY 24 INVESTIGATORS AT A CROSS-NATIONAL CONFERENCE IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ON FEBRUARY 20-28, 1964. OBJECTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE WERE--(1) TO EXAMINE THE IMPLICATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH FOR EDUCATION, (2) TO PLAN NEW PROJECTS WITH PARTICULAR RELEVANCE FOR…

Uses Abel and McQueen's (1992) theoretical framework of resources, orientations, and behaviors, to examine social class influences on adolescent socialization in Sweden, Germany, and Great Britain. Finds that lifestyle socialization in adolescence is social-class based, but allows for transitional variations within social-class boundaries.…

Extending research on age norms in adults, the development of the knowledge of two components of the cultural concept of biography, biographical salience of and age norms for life events was studied from late childhood to early adulthood in Study 1 and across adulthood in Study 2. The largest increase in knowledge was found between ages 8 and 12,…

Directed toward the question of how parents and 15-year-old adolescents cope with the demands of social change occurring during unification in Germany, the comparative investigation of 40 families each in East and West Germany examines macro-social conditions of family relationships and rightist attitudes among German adolescents and adults. The…

Self-concepts of adolescents in Germany, Mexico, Chinese in Taiwan, and the U.S.A. were measured with an Osgood type of semantic differential. The American sample included Anglo, Chicano, and Indian high school seniors. The 11 concepts included: attitudinal measures on the self, school, social milieu and other racial groups. The bipolar adjectives…

Reports on a study of adolescent students' opinions concerning environmental issues. Students from rural and urban areas in England and Germany answered questionnaires covering environmental issues, their individual lifestyles. Questionnaires included free writing sections. Attempts to understand the students'"umweltbewusstsein" (the…