Developed measures of preoccupied and avoidant coping to determine whether the measures concurrently relate to adjustment problems. Subjects were 229 children from third through seventh grades. Results indicated that preoccupied and avoidant coping with the mother can contribute to maladjustment in other arenas. Children's adjustment with peers…

Parental access to community-based assistance was investigated in 70 households with relation to occupational status and age of their intellectually disabled child/teenager. Lower-occupational-status parents were less likely to have received help with "information," while parents of children aged three-five were most likely to have…

Examined drug use, involvement in problem behavior, and family and peer predictors of these behaviors among Indian and white adolescents in a Canadian urban community. Found the groups had a similar rate for alcohol use; however, Indian adolescents showed higher rates and more frequent use of cigarettes, marijuana, solvents, and greater…

Assessed differences in masculinity, femininity, and sex role attitudes in adolescent girls and boys, and the relation of pubertal timing to intensification of those attitudes. Found that sex differences in masculinity and sex role attitudes increased with age. Pubertal timing was unrelated to masculinity, femininity, and sex role attitudes. (BC)

Uses a hierarchical linear model to test the effect of birthdate on science ability in British schoolchildren, ages 11, 13, and 15. Reports that summer-born children scored lower than autumn-born children on science survey tests. Urges teachers to consider these artificial performance differences when grouping pupils according to ability for…

An argument is made for involving young adolescents in community service programs, either school-based or community-based. Content focuses on: (1) a rationale for youth community service; (2) the young adolescent and community service; (3) appropriate roles for young adolescents; (4) sponsorship of youth community service; (5) the placement site…

Interviews conducted with 36 children demonstrate that boys and girls speak about the goals and concerns of children differently. Girls were more likely than boys to describe children who do the following: (1) seek practical help; (2) are too overcome with emotion to confide in others; and (3) want to be alone to resolve their problems.…

Examined how children of different cultural backgrounds weigh competing considerations when presented with conflicts between two concerns: Justice-Authority; Justice-Interpersonal; Personal-Interpersonal; Personal-Authority. For each concern, subjects selected the course of action to be followed and weighed alternatives. Found differences between…

Analysis of a large corpus (80 pairs of speakers) of 7-12 year olds suggests that 2 principles underlie the development of dialogue coordination skills. The seven to eight year olds establish a limited common dialogue lexicon, whereas older speakers show evidence of deep coordination processes aimed at establishing mutual intelligibility of a…

Describes a study in the United Kingdom that explored children's comprehension of television police dramas and the impact of the television shows on their perceptions of the police. Relationships between television viewing and beliefs about crime are discussed, and treatments for the experimental and control groups of children aged 10 to 16 years…

Processes through which interethnic relations and identity are constructed were studied among French, Italian, and Haitian adolescents aged 12 to 17 years. The research demonstrated a marked evolution in attitudes and strategies from the first to the fifth year of high school, with gender and social class playing different roles within each ethnic…

Data from 877 3rd, 7th, and 11th graders substantiated the multidimensionality of academic self-concept, as based on the Shavelson model, but yielded no support for increasing differentiation across age. Data also determined minor deterioration of hierarchical structure for early and late adolescents but no progressive pattern of weakening across…

The aim of this study was to show how general models of text production can account for argumentative text planning. It focuses in particular on retrieval process in 11- to 18-year-old children. Various experimental situations were designed to promote different ways of retrieving ideas from long-term memory. Essays written by students were…

This study examined the effects of adolescent pubertal status, adolescent gender, parent gender, and conversation topic on parent and adolescent affective expression. Subjects were 85 adolescents in fifth through ninth grade who participated in 2 separate 8-minute conversations, one pleasant and one unpleasant, with their mother and father…

A 13-part television series called "Freestyle" was designed to see if stereotypes about women and work could be changed and was targeted at fourth- through sixth-graders. "Freestyle's" effects were evaluated among more than 7,000 children in 7 cities who completed identical pre- and post-measures assessing sex-role beliefs,…