Examined educational outcomes for eighth graders: 409 in single-father, 3,483 in single-mother, and 14,269 in biological 2-parent families. Found that children from single-father and single-mother families performed roughly the same in school, but both were outperformed by children from two-parent families. Intervening processes explaining school…

Sixth graders (N=698) participated in program classroom, receiving 12-session cognitive skills development curriculum aimed at reducing substance use rates. Compared to controls (N=674), Program participants showed greater decision-making skills and reported less use of tobacco, but only one difference between groups was found in use of alcohol,…

Young adolescents (n=396) from single- and two-parent families carried pagers for one week, reporting on daily activities, companionship, and quality of subjective experience. Found that adolescents' overall patterns of time use and subjective experience were similar in both family types, although similarity was achieved by reorganization of…

A study diagnosed the nature of different text production abilities of Swiss grade 5 and grade 9 students, and of adults, and diagnosed good and poor writers' differences within each of these three age groups. Subjects, 36 in all, were uniformly divided between 11- and 15-year-old students from the Bernese secondary school and high school…

Investigates 14-year-old students' ability to recognize argumentation without having systematic instruction; and whether the identification of argumentation is an independent skill. Finds that after a 20-minute explanation, a large proportion of 14-year-olds could not identify simple argumentation. Concludes that identifying argumentation is a…

Recent third-person perception articles suggest that optimistic bias is the mechanism underlying the perceptual bias, but fail to empirically test the assumption. Minority "at-risk" youth are neglected in both literatures, despite the fact that they are frequently the target audience for the resulting campaigns. This study sought to…

Examines male and female adolescents and their experience of "being in love." Qualitative analyses suggest that early and middle adolescents are actively reasoning about the nature and meaning of romantic feelings and experiences. Discusses results from standpoint of psychosocial-development theory. (Author/JDM)

Stress, coping, and psychological adjustment were compared in single (N=37) and first-time married (N=179) mothers and their young adolescent children. Adolescents completed their questionnaires in school and parents completed theirs at home. Questionnaires measured adolescent stress, behavior problems, perceived competence, and coping; parental…

Examined differences in level of self-reported self-esteem and depression between learning-disabled (LD) and behavior-disordered (BD) middle school students (N=61). Results indicate that BD students reported unrealistically high self-esteem, whereas LD students reported significantly lower self-esteem than did the BD students. Both groups reported…

The goal of this study was to interpret patterns of consonance and dissonance between the parenting behaviors that parents report and those that their middle-school children expect them to report. A questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of middle-school children in grades 6-8 in Felton Laboratory School at South Carolina State…

This study investigated whether the visual forms of buttons influenced learning and satisfaction when early adolescent students were asked to perform tasks using computer-assisted instruction (CAI). Ninety subjects participated. Three visual forms were designed for buttons located in a CAI application. One contained pictures for commands, the…

This study compared dietary knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and patterns between Chinese American middle school students and their Chinese equivalents. Chinese students had less knowledge and less favorable attitudes but more positive behavioral factors affecting diet. They consumed less meat, dairy products, fat, sweets, and snacks and ate more…

This study explored middle school teachers' perspectives on and expectations of adolescence and puberty, using observations and interviews of 15 teachers in two Japanese middle schools and two United States (U.S.) middle schools, as well as a survey of teachers in selected schools in both nations. Teachers in the U.S. described puberty as being…

Suggests that much of the research on middle level education is weak, sparse, and inconclusive. Presents critiques of research and an overview of the research findings of several highly-rated middle level programs. Identifies four factors contributing to the problem, specifically: an insufficient number of studies, utilization of weak research…

This volume consists of reports on the status and function of lower secondary comprehensive school systems in four countries with contrasting cultures and educational traditions: Denmark, France, the United Kingdom as represented by Scotland, and the United States as represented by Maryland and Minnesota. The volume begins with an analysis by…