The purposes of this paper are (1) to highlight some of the complex issues involved in teenage pregnancy and its consequences; (2) to comment on some of the problems that make solutions difficult to achieve; and (3) to indicate areas in which further research is of critical importance. Among the issues of teenage pregnancy discussed are the…

Research on family relationships has indicated that the family is the primary basis of security for adults in later life. To explore the family environment and interactional experience of multigenerational families in which the elderly grandparent is chronically ill, 12 families (12 grandparents, 13 adult children, and 11 grandchildren) completed…

Indiana 4-H Youth Programs are being used to enhance the quality of life for troubled adolescents in residential group homes and economically disadvantaged urban areas and to provide summer-school programs for children of migrant farm workers. Four basic types of program delivery modes exist in Indiana: clubs, junior leader program activities,…

Following several "quality of life" models and a model of schooling, researchers developed a "quality of school life" model with four dimensions, including general satisfaction, positive affect, negative affect, and domains specific to education. The domains relate to students' personal experiences regarding particular school…

Efforts to identify the relative potencies of the domains which determine adolescent life satisfaction suggest a condition that differentially potentiates a domain's ability to account for life satisfaction, i.e., father absence. High School students (N=778) completed the Life Satisfaction Chart and indicated their satisfaction with family,…

Today, among adolescents, childbearing may precede rather than follow marriage. Evidence suggests that adolescent childbearers now rely heavily on their families to provide needed support. Among a sample of 320 adolescent, mostly black mothers from low-income families, most spent a majority of their early years of parenthood in an extended family…

The feelings and perceptions of adolescents, apart from objective indices, warrent attention from those who are concerned with adolescent development and psychological stress. There is a need for a reliable baseline measure of adolescent subjective well-being, as manifested by self-reports of life satisfaction, to which future measurements can be…

This paper addresses some of the ethical and legal components of the issue of adolescence and the right to die. Developmental aspects on which psychologists may be uniquely qualified to comment are also addressed. The paper looks at ethical aspects of right to die decisions, the principle of autonomy, and the responsibility of caregivers. Legal…

Control of private life and involvement in public life is regarded as an important condition of subjective well-being, especially for adolescents. A survey on control attributions was administered to 1,902 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 20 in Switzerland. The survey included a separate questionnaire designed to provide six measures of…

Trained, indigenous, bilingual people conducted interviews with 172 Mexican American families from the Southmost area of Brownsville and rural communities in Brooks County, Texas, to ascertain metro-nonmetro community satisfaction, as determined by place of residence and age status differentiations among family members. Complete family study units…

This report describes an ongoing longitudinal study in Kauai (Hawaii) begun in 1955, which is following the course of all births to adulthood and assessing the long-term consequences of perinatal complications and adverse child-rearing conditions. Specifically reported is a subset of data on 22 children (diagnosed as having learning disabilities…

This longitudinal study investigated hereditary and environmental influences on life situation, self-reported health, and coping ability at mid-life in relation to background factors collected during adolescence. A nationally representative Swedish sample comprised of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins; a control group of singletons was…

This examination of political and social attitudes of American youth in the 1980's begins with a comparison of the youth of the 1960's with the youth of the 1970's. Results from four major studies are presented and a composite picture of youth in the eighties is presented. Findings show that the personal and professional values of American…

Two-hundred and fifty parents of children with emotional or behavioral disorders residing in Oregon were surveyed concerning the nature and extent of support they received. Parents were affiliated with the Oregon Family Support Network, a statewide, parent-run, information and family advocacy organization. One hundred usable surveys were returned.…

Designed to improve self esteem and quality of life for rural adolescents and elderly, Project Teen-Ager enables these groups to exchange knowledge and skills for their mutual benefit. Initial sponsors of the program were Manning High School and South Carolina Community Long Term Care, a state agency for elderly/disabled persons who need help to…