Fifth-graders' (N = 162; 93 girls) relationships with parents and friends were examined with respect to their main and interactive effects on psychosocial functioning. Participants reported on parental support, the quality of their best friendships, self-worth, and perceptions of social competence. Peers reported on aggression, shyness and…

Since the "Brown" decision of 1954, American society has moved from a position of seeing no redeeming value in black culture to acknowledging that African Americans have rich cultures worth celebrating. This article reports the case of Malcolm Moor, an African American teacher who believes it is his responsibility and obligation to nurture…

The topic in the author's mind lately is how activists in the academy can best get their messages across with minimal stress and maximum impact. It is difficult to be an academic activist mainly because the status quo does not want to be challenged. Why is activism important? The answer to this question is obvious and simple: If Natives do not do…

Interviews with young teens offered many complex and often idiosyncratic reasons why they did or did not participate in structured activities (for example: personality, interest, attitudes about time use, personal and family life circumstances). However, there also exist common threads that should give one pause regarding the current wisdom on how…

Temperament styles of 600 Zimbabwe children are described and compared to those of 3,200 U.S. children. Gender and age differences are described for children in Zimbabwe and compared to U.S. children. Results indicate that Zimbabwe children generally prefer extroverted to introverted styles, practical to imaginative styles, feeling to thinking…

The present study used general growth mixture modeling to identify pathways of antisocial behavior development within an epidemiological sample of urban, primarily African American boys. Teacher-rated aggression, measured longitudinally from 1st to 7th grade, was used to define growth trajectories. Three high-risk trajectories (chronic high,…

Growing perceptions that students exploit information technology to evade academic assignments prompted surveys of student attitudes about unethical uses of information technology (e.g., cutting and pasting excerpts from Web sites without attribution) at two institutions. Students at a private church-affiliated college rated cheating behaviors as…

Given that children have a strong bias towards their in-group, this study examined how children respond to a group member who is revealed to have negative qualities. One hundred and twenty Anglo-Australian children who were 6, 9, or 12 years of age heard a story about an (in-group) Anglo-Australian boy and a (out-group) Chinese boy who were good…

Many commentators have indicated that our nation is in a crisis of character. This study examined the relationship between cheating and lying behaviors and constructs previous research has shown to be associated with health behaviors. Participants in the study were 700 students in grades 6-12 from a single southern school district. The…

Professionals who work with youth often have many questions about how to use a Positive Youth Development strategy. Your questions are answered in this Q&A.

This study is an investigation of relationships among impulsiveness, locus of control, sex, observed practice behaviors, practice effectiveness, and self-reported practice habits in a sample of 40 college brass players. Practice effectiveness was defined by the amount of change in pretest and posttest performance achievement scores over one…

Positive psychology has recently developed a classification of human strengths (Peterson & Seligman, in press). We aimed to evaluate these strengths by investigating the strengths and life satisfaction in three adult samples recruited from the community (young adult, middle-aged, and older adult), as well as in the surviving men of the Grant study…

Teachers are in uniquely powerful positions to positively impact youths who are at risk for school failure. Youths who overcame serious risk factors often report that a teacher, coach, or other adult provided a mentoring relationship that sustained them. Developing classroom management and academic instruction routines that meet the needs of all…

This study examined the dynamic relationships between child, parenting, and family-related predictor variables and early childhood externalising behaviour problems. A community sample of 395 Australian children was followed longitudinally, and assessed at 4 and 6 years with the Child Behavior Checklist, Teacher Report Form, and standard measures…

The quality reform of higher education in Norway has generally recommended a substitution of classroom teaching with more active forms of learning in higher education. This study reveals that ignoring the student's personality type may be in conflict with the purpose of the reform. The student's personality type affects both the most effective…