In Sweden, as in many other European countries, poor neighborhoods with ethnically diverse inhabitants and high crime rates have grown up around big cities in the last decades. We hypothesized that, compared with adolescents in advantaged neighborhoods, adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods would perceive their schools as relatively safe, due…

As school communities encourage healthy human relationships, they allow young people to create similar relationships independently. Good schools affect family and student beliefs in their power and ability to handle the world around them. Suggests that students need caring adults who know them well and model appropriate relationship building. (SM)

This study explored the effect of community background on the development of adolescent ambition, using longitudinal interviews to probe subjects' own definitions and evaluations of progress toward the "good life." Sixty high ability working class youths from three New England towns varying in size, urban proximity, and social class…