Reports on a study which examined children's and adults' use of text structure and content schemata in isolation and as they interact. Indicates that subjects' ability to select appropriate schemata supported the validity of both schema types. Also finds that structure and content schemata interact with schooling and text to influence processing…

Compared twenty groups of Australian children (N=132) of different social class, ethnic, national, and regional backgrounds on their moral stances on "lying" and "killing" and their reasons for those stances. There was an impressive consistency in moral attitudes and reasons across children of different social backgrounds. (JAC)

This bibliographic essay cites fiction titles for adolescents in grades seven through 12 on a wide range of subjects and reading levels. Suggestions for preparing booktalks to promote current books, introductions and summaries to be used for particular titles, and the effectiveness of booktalks are highlighted. (EJS)

Use of strategies to eliminate interference from irrelevant information in memory was investigated for 11-, 15-, and 18-year-olds. A directed forgetting paradigm was introduced. Results suggest that 11-year-olds use adequate selective remembering strategy, but not selective rehearsal: most 15- and 18-year-olds did. (Author/DST)

Considerable stability was observed on measures of acceptance, rejection, preference, and impact in a one-year longitudinal study of sociometric stability and friendship choice consistency in an early-adolescent peer group. Findings provided new information about patterns of stability in early adolescent peer groups and revealed the need for…

Issues in studying pubertal events are examined, including whether puberty is best characterized as a social construction or a physical event, whether early adolescence is a transitional or distinct life period, life events associated with puberty, boundaries of early adolescence, and possible models for studying pubertal change. (Author/BW)

Male volunteers were studied to examine the relationship between the Wingate Anaerobic Test (WAnT) and sprint-run times and to determine the influence of age and weight. Results indicate the WAnT is a moderate predictor of dash and run times but becomes a stronger predictor when adjusted for body weight. (Author/MT)

Investigates the comprehension of nine intonational contrasts in ten-year-olds and adults. Overall performance on the tasks was much lower among the children than among the adults. Results indicate that hypotheses concerning the chronological order of development of meanings dependent on groupings, nucleus placements, and tones are too simplistic.…

This 35-item annotated bibliography presents a selective list of historical literature for children and adolescents which addresses issues surrounding the Second World War that hold interest for both personal and curricular inquiry. Publisher, publication date, price, and recommended grade level are included. (EJS)

A method is described of deriving two alternative measures of divergent thinking ability as a single entity (avoiding the spurious effects of fluency) from student responses to open-ended questions traditionally used in tests of divergent thinking ability. (PN)

Investigated the motivational nature of the Motive to Avoid Success (MAS) in a sample of 105 fifth- to eighth-grade females who participated under noncompetitive and competitive conditions. Results did not substantiate the motivational nature of MAS. MAS did not predict performance in a competitive situation. (Author/JAC)

Investigated inhibition in a mixed-sex spelling bee, using a sample of 36 middle-class Black and 32 Hopi Indian preadolescents. Spelling scores indicated that high-skill girls in both cultures performed below their established levels of capability when opposing low-skill boys. In general boys were more eager to compete. (JAC)

This guide was produced by the Leadership To Keep Children Alcohol Free, a coalition of governors' spouses, federal agencies, and public and private organizations which aims to alert the nation of and mobilize action to prevent this critical public health problem. It is the only national effort that focuses on this age group. The guide is an…

The issue of whether or not early adolescence is a transitional or stable period of development may be dependent on our ability to describe ways in which early adolescents are quantitatively and qualitatively different from when they were children and how these early adolescent characteristics are forerunners to the more elaborate constructs of…

In an effective middle school, dedicated and knowledgeable staff work cooperatively toward a curriculum based on the needs of a particular group of transescents. Ten essential elements of the middle school curriculum are discussed. (PP)