Central American and Cambodian students in six Canadian high schools and their parents were interviewed to assess the students' emotional problems and pre- and postmigration family environment. Findings indicate that the relationship between the emotional problems and scholastic achievement of teenaged refugees was tenuous. (Author/MKA)

The influences of home and school environment on teenage smoking were assessed according to sex differences, age differences, influence of adults, socioeconomic status, and coeducation v same sex grouping. (Author/DB)

Administered questionnaire to adolescents concerning difficulties experienced with both newly adopted school-age siblings and with other children already in family. Difficulties with all siblings were seen primarily as hassles; however, adoptee was reported as creating more problems than "old" siblings, mostly involving invasion of turf…

Retrospectively examined adolescents from two time periods, diagnosed with adjustment disorder (n=72), for type of life stressors that initiated referrals to child psychiatry unit and compared them to control group of 42 referred adolescents with no psychopathology. Disappointment in relationships with family member or friend of opposite sex was…

Study examines the relationship between social support and the ability of Brazilian adolescents to adapt to life on the streets. Findings indicate that neither quality nor quantity of social support was related to adaptation. Discusses the implication of these findings with regard to the resiliency of street children. (Contains 20 references.)…

In Hong Kong secondary schools, students in the senior forms take competitive examinations to proceed to the next level, whereas those in the junior forms attend school regardless of their ability and motivation. To determine if this produces different classroom climates, 602 Chinese secondary school students were administered the Classroom…

Street children, as the offspring of complex contemporary urban environments, represent one of our most serious global challenges. Article discusses the causes of this phenomenon, characteristics of street children throughout the world, and specific circumstances in Nepal, Indonesia, India, Latin America, and the Philippines. (Author/EMK)

Study explores why some female adolescents in La Paz, Bolivia, become pregnant while others in similar circumstances avoid early pregnancy. Results reveal that girls who had experienced a pregnancy were less likely to have reported affectionate and supportive parents, more likely to have reported fighting in their home, and exhibited lower levels…

Chinese teenagers (n=1,861) rated overpopulation and environmental pollution as their greatest concerns about the future; these were usually rated quite low by teenagers in other countries. Although still of concern to Chinese teenagers, nuclear war seemed more remote to them than it did to U.S. and former Soviet teenagers in earlier studies.…

Due to milieu deficiencies and psychosocial handicaps, some groups are caught in a spiral of poverty, and experience serious obstruction to optimal self-actualization and the achievement of satisfactory quality of life. Article describes the problems of educating milieu-deprived students in the Republic of South Africa, as well as the implications…

Recorded menstruation information among 305 young women in India, assessing the differences between those who did and did not have knowledge of menstruation prior to menarche. Those with prior knowledge considered menarche to be a normal physiological function and had a higher rate of regularity, lower rate of dysmenorrhea, and earlier onset of…

Attempts to identify the psychological characteristics that predispose certain children to run away and to survive, often for long periods, on the streets of South Africa. Examines vulnerability and resilience as well as social conditions that mediate the psychological predisposition to become a street child. (Author/GCP)

Proposes a model in which parental social status (PSS) affects school achievement and self-concept in the academic domain. Also studied how perceived PSS affects self-concept in social domains. Findings supported the model with one exception: PSS was unrelated to academic self-concept in the urban setting. (RJM)

Compared 51 seventh-graders considered at-risk for school failure with 51 classmates. Students with a history of school failure, although of normal intelligence, were found to be significantly less intellectually, academically, and affectively competent than their more successful peers and were rated by their teachers as significantly less able to…

Examined 10 measures of personality, self-image, and emotional and family problems in 2,158 Australian adolescents, some of whom had suffered parental loss. Data revealed pattern of poorer adjustment in adolescents who had lost a parent but clearly demonstrated that type of loss and family reconstitution had no differential effects on psychosocial…