Ever wonder why teenagers are so quick to adopt Instagram, Snapchat, and other forms of social media? Or take up X Games sports such as skateboarding and snowboarding? This Alliance for Excellent Education report explains how changes in the brain make adolescents more likely to be influenced by their peers, take risks, and even become disengaged…

During childhood, older siblings typically hold a more powerful position in their relationship with their younger siblings, but these relationships are thought to become more egalitarian during adolescence as siblings begin to prepare for their relationships as adults and as younger siblings become more socially and cognitively competent. Little…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) and character education are important components of adolescent development. In this study, we evaluated a randomized controlled trial of CharacterStrong, a curriculum that combines SEL and character education that included 1609 students and 242 teachers across 14 schools. This study applied baseline target…

This article examines arts participation as a context for youth to develop purpose. Two analyses were conducted of interviews with arts-involved youth to explore the relationship between their arts participation and purpose, which was defined as an "intention to accomplish something that is both meaningful to the self and contributes to the…

Although Eriksonian theory suggests that adolescents' sense of fidelity is a key component of healthy development, research on this psychosocial construct has been limited. The current study developed an index of youth fidelity, examined the developmental course of this construct, explored the influence of contextual factors on different fidelity…

Immigrant-origin adolescents represent the fastest growing segment of youth population in the United States, and in many urban schools they represent the majority of students. In this 3-wave longitudinal study, we explored trajectories of internalizing mental health symptoms (depression, anxiety, and somatic symptoms). The participants included…

This article maintains that effective communications strategy derives from a complex understanding of frame coherence. In particular, this understanding calls for a closer examination of the ways in which the "pictures in people's heads" are activated by exposure to a key arena of frame contestation: the issue domain. Drawing from FrameWorks'…

Four specific schemas of cognitive structures that adolescents may hold concerning interpersonal disagreements with their parents were identified, each reflecting an authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or a neglecting parenting style. To examine the occurrence of such schemas across high and low levels of psychosocial adjustment, 120 Swedish…