Background/Context: Studies carried out over the last two decades have established structured after-school programs as significant contexts for adolescent development. Recent large-scale evaluations of after-school initiatives have yielded mixed results, finding some impact on adolescents' attitudes toward school but limited impact on their…

A study explored girls' development and its implication for the psychology of women. From 1986-1990, nearly 100 girls between the ages of 7 and 18 at the Laurel School for Girls in Cleveland, Ohio, were interviewed. Most of the girls were from middle- or upper-middle-class families (80%), although some were scholarship students from working-class…

A middle-class adolescent peer group was examined, using ethnographic techniques, to describe the group's relationship to adults and to uncover the adult reference group after which the group modeled itself. Although this group was organized to help poor people, it modeled itself after middle-class adult managers. (Author/GDC)

Proposes a developmental pattern to understand interpersonal forgiveness. Responses to questions by 30 junior high students and 30 college students indicate that all participants had recently experienced serious and unfair conflicts with close friends. Results support a developmental sequence and show a statistical relationship between…

Examines the perception of urban African-American adolescent mothers and fathers regarding sex, love, intimacy, pregnancy, and parenting. Uses structured interviews and focus groups to gather data. Employs inductive data analysis using constant comparison methods to identify themes and patterns within and across gender groups. (Author/GCP)

Assesses whether current changes in adolescents' interpersonal experience are likely to give them the social resources and competencies they will need in the future. Analysis suggests that family and non-family changes will provide many youth with greater opportunities to develop the more versatile interpersonal resources, but that many will have…

While many youth are disconnected from adults, the people seem clueless as to what to do about this serious problem. The quality of connections is directly related to the quality of the total interpersonal environment. This article takes a systems perspective on the problem of connecting with youth, with particular emphasis on what communities,…

Using data from Grades 5, 6, and 7 of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), the role of intentional self-regulation in the positive development of young adolescents was examined through use of the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) measure. Consistent with Gestsdóttir and Lerner (2007), results of confirmatory factor…

Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist, coined the term "Just Community" to describe a community built on trust and resolution, in which each member participates democratically in the development of the rules and regulations that govern their community life (Kohlberg, 1985). In a school, this means that students and teachers alike actively participate…

This report summarizes the deliberations, findings, and recommendations of the National Commission on Adolescent Sexual Health. The report defines the characteristics of a sexually healthy adolescent, provides a foundation for understanding the three developmental stages of adolescents (early, middle, and late adolescence), and offers…

Reviews 11 new young adult novels. Suggests that too many works in this genre glamorize adolescent problems instead of dealing realistically with them. (RBW)

Schools and adolescent students in today's society need support from surrounding communities and meaningful people. Community organizations of all kinds are important for recreating the critical aspects of community that once made it possible to grow up and participate in the mainstream of society. (SM)

The peer context plays an important role in adolescents' views of math and social domains. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

This volume overall provides a compelling description of what respect entails and how it functions and emerges in childhood and adolescence. This construct requires further conceptual clarification and study across cultures. The strength of this volume lies in its cultural perspective and diverse empirical approaches.

In this study, the authors tried to understand the types of dilemmas that adult leaders of youth programs encounter in their daily work with young people. The dilemmas come from an in-depth longitudinal study of ongoing experiences in twelve high-quality urban and rural programs for high school-aged youth. Transcripts from 125 interviews with the…