Guided by the life course perspective, this study investigated the developmental antecedents of contact, closeness/warmth, and negativity in young adults' relationships with their parents. Taking the developmental systems approach, we considered interindividual differences in not only initial levels of parenting quality in early adolescence (Grade…

Little is known about the naturalistic development of mindfulness in adolescence and how it relates to changes in emotional well-being. The current longitudinal study examined the development of one dimension of mindfulness, nonreactivity to difficult inner experience (or in more colloquial terms, being able to notice, but "take a step…

Plate tectonics is the organizing paradigm of geosciences, but it is also conceptually complex, and students often struggle with developing a system level understanding of the earth. This article reports on research designed to create a characterization of the different levels of sophistication around plate tectonics in the form of a learning…

The purpose of the present study was to determine the role of emotion regulation in the pathway to problematic alcohol use among adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), specifically investigating the total effect of emotion regulation on problematic alcohol use and the indirect effect of emotion regulation through social…

The COVID-19 virus brought on a public health emergency that massively disrupted school systems and learning nationwide. During the 2020-2021 school year, many local education agencies (LEAs) in Pennsylvania and other states adopted remote learning to help slow the virus's spread. However, remote learning came with challenges for students,…

This study examines developmental change across adolescence in the similarity of friends versus nonfriends. This differential in similarity is a key aspect of the organization of the peer context of development: The stronger the correlation between friends for an attribute, the more the attribute delineates clustering and divisions of friendships.…

According to family systems and life course theories, periods of intense change, such as early adolescence, can disrupt stable family systems, leading to changes in family relationships. In this longitudinal study, we investigate 2 types of change in parental hostility and warmth toward their children during early adolescence (Grades 6 to…

This study investigates the influence of structural transitions to high school on adolescents' friendship networks and academic grades from 6th through 12th grade, in a direct comparison of students who do and do not transition. We utilize data from 14,462 youth in 51 networks from 26 districts (Promoting School-Community Partnerships to Enhance…

This study tested moderators of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) based on geographical region, gender, race, and income among adolescents in an exercise context using multigroup path analyses. Participants were eighth- and ninth-grade students from Louisiana (LA; N = 448, M[subscript age] = 14.37 years) and Pennsylvania (PA; N = 681,…

We tested 2 hypotheses derived from Moffitt's (1993) taxonomic theory of antisocial behavior, both of which are central to her explanation for the rise in delinquency during adolescence. We tested whether persistently delinquent individuals become more accepted by their peers during adolescence and whether individuals who abstain from delinquent…

Prospective longitudinal data from over 14,000 youth residing in 28 communities in the rural United States were analyzed to examine the emergence of mixed-sex friendship groups in early adolescence. Youth were surveyed on 5 occasions between fall of 6th grade and spring of 9th grade. At each assessment, youth reported the names of up to 7…

This longitudinal study investigates whether rural adolescents who transition to a new school in sixth grade have higher levels of risky behavior than adolescents who transition in seventh grade. Our findings indicate that later school transitions had little effect on problem behavior between sixth and ninth grades. Cross-sectional analyses found…

The School District of Philadelphia's tiered system of selective, nonselective, and charter high schools, and the process for high school choice, has created real variation in the degree to which high schools can successfully meet the needs of ninth graders. Research has shown that the ninth grade year is critical in determining a student's…

Schools have gone through educational reforms having various focuses on curriculum changes, consolidation, open classrooms, mastery learning, decentralization, shared decisionmaking, legislative mandates and controls, high expectations, integrated thematic instruction, professional development, technology integration, and standards with…

The first U.S. charter school opened in 1992, and the scale of the charter movement has since grown to 4,000 schools and more than a million students in 40 states plus the District of Columbia. With this growth has also come a contentious debate about the effects of the schools on their own students and on students in nearby traditional public…