Parental involvement in education remains important for facilitating positive youth development. This study conceptualized parental involvement as a multidimensional construct--including school-based involvement, home-based involvement, and academic socialization--and examined the effects of different types of parental involvement in 10th grade on…

This study examines community service effects on adolescents' prosocial behaviors as mediated through experiences made during service. Based on theoretical assumptions by Youniss and Yates, we suggest that personal agency experiences and being confronted with situations that can challenge the own world views (ideology experiences) serve as…

This study examined whether changes in children's self-reported Big Five dimensions are represented by (developmental) personality types, using a cohort-sequential design with three measurement occasions across 5 years (four cohorts, 9-12 years at T1; N = 523). Correlates of, and gender differences in, type membership were examined. Latent…

Because schools rarely provide guidelines for teachers that outline how they should conduct personal relationships with students, teachers must wrestle individually with how to establish, communicate, and maintain clear boundaries in their interactions. As schools work to become more personal environments, school administrators will need to help…

Adolescents' emotional reactivity in family, close friendships, and romantic relationships was examined in a community-based sample of 416 two-parent families. Six waves of annual data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Emotional reactivity to interparental conflict during early adolescence was associated prospectively with…

Lutheran schools have been established to nurture and disciple children into the Christian faith. However, empirical evidence is lacking that Lutheran schools are accomplishing this goal. The purpose of this Causal comparative and Correlational study was to determine whether attendance at Lutheran or Public schools made a statistically significant…

The new "Common Core State Standards" (CCSS) (NGACBP & CCSSO, 2010) require teachers to prepare all learners, including adolescent English learners (ELs), to develop academic literacy practices. This article describes an instructional intervention in an urban public high school using the genre-based "Reading to Learn" (Rose…

Social-emotional health influences youth developmental trajectories and there is growing interest among educators to measure the social-emotional health of the students they serve. This study replicated the psychometric characteristics of the Social Emotional Health Survey (SEHS) with a diverse sample of high school students (Grades 9-12; N =…

"The Mentoring Toolkit 2.0: Resources for Developing Programs for Incarcerated Youth" provides information, program descriptions, and links to important resources that can assist juvenile correctional facilities and other organizations to design effective mentoring programs for neglected and delinquent youth, particularly those who are…

One way to avert negative influences on well-being when confronted with blocked goals is the flexible adjustment of one's goals to the given situation. This study examines developmental differences in flexible goal adjustment (FGA) regarding age and gender in a sample of N = 815 participants (10 to 20 years; M = 13.63, SD = 2.60, 48.5% male).…

We used self-report surveys to gather information on a broad set of non-cognitive skills from 1,368 eighth graders. At the student level, scales measuring conscientiousness, self-control, grit, and growth mindset are positively correlated with attendance, behavior, and test-score gains between fourth grade and eighth grade. Conscientiousness,…

Compassion may be directed at a broad range of targets. The present study investigated interrelations among other-directed compassion, self-compassion, and environmental compassion in early adolescence (age = 12-14; n = 256) and examined how the different manifestations of compassion related to age and sex during this age period. Dispositional…

This study explored the experiences of middle school students, particularly focusing on the academic achievement of economically disadvantaged students. For low SES middle school students, the known cumulative effects of poverty coupled with school transition and early adolescence development heighten the potential risks for school failure. By…

This article examines instructional strategies that middle school educators can use in inclusive settings in order to support the unique needs of culturally and linguistically diverse exceptional (CLDE) students. These nine strategies are appropriate for both typical and atypical learners in a whole group setting, but they are particularly useful…

To explore the influence of circadian rhythms on executive function during early adolescence, we administered a battery of executive function measures (including a Go-Nogo task, the Iowa Gambling Task, a Self-ordered Pointing task, and an Intra/Extradimensional Shift task) to Morning-preference and Evening-preference participants (N = 80) between…