Discusses a model that suggests that popularity and friendship are linked to different forms of adjustment and emotional well-being and emphasizes that friendship is an important mediator between popularity and loneliness. Results of a study that involved 169 early adolescents in fifth and sixth grades supported the model. (BB)

Middle-schoolers have always been selectively sullen, shamelessly self-absorbed, and hopelessly obsessed with winning the admiration of their peers. In some ways, the preadolescent brain can't keep up with the demands on it. The frontal lobes, where organization and judgment and reasoning reside, aren't as well developed as the emotional centers.…

Describes the changing social characteristics of early adolescence; provides research finding implications of the effects these changes have on the school climate and academic acheivement and offers suggestions to middle school educators who interact daily with early adolescents. (BB)