Despite changing demographics in the United States, students of color have remained woefully underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. While African American, Native Americans, and Latinos make up over 30 percent of the undergraduate student population in this country, less than 12 percent of…

Sexual health is a controversial science topic that has received little attention in the field of science education, despite its direct relevance to students' lives and communities. Moreover, research from other fields indicates that a great deal remains to be learned about how to make school learning about sexual health influence the real-life…

Researchers in both Japan and in the United States have documented that bullying is a common and potentially damaging form of violence among children. The authors' review highlights distinct cross-cultural patterns of personal, family, peer, and school characteristics that predict gender differences in bullying and victimization. Cross-cultural…

The Commissioner's annual report provides the Governor and Legislature with information reported by school districts concerning incidents of serious student misconduct grouped into the following five major reporting categories: violence; vandalism; harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB); weapons; and substance abuse. An analysis of trends…

Research on relapse drinking has focused on high-risk drinking situations and strategies for coping with potentially problematic drinking situations among adults. Examination of strategies used by adolescents to resist drinking pressures may help to clarify the developmental process of alcohol consumption. This study examined the coping responses…

Investigated unmarried young adults' (N=283) contraceptive behaviors and attitudes. Results suggest that effective contraceptive behavior associated most strongly with respondents' perceiving relatively few barriers to their use of contraception, their maintenance of extensive interpersonal skills, and their regarding peer norms as consistent with…

Students in cooperative classrooms encourage their teammates to do well because they also benefit. (MLF)

Two experiments examined the effectiveness of a peer-monitored token system on reducing disruption and nonparticipation during a transition period of a kinderagarten class for behaviorally impaired children. Results suggested that both teacher-and peer-monitored interventions were successful in decreasing disruption and increasing participation of…

Twelve pairs of previously unacquainted 6-month-old infants were observed in the presence and absence of toys; interactive episodes beginning when an infant touched the peer or a toy held by the peer were examined. Results suggested that young peers influence each other's behavior, but the extent to which they do so depends on situational…

The results of the study described support the argument that compliance (agreement with ideas expressed by others) is not a general trait associated with the female sex role. Instead, compliant behavior is affected by the extent to which the topic is relevant to subjects. (Author/GC)

Discusses how new studies indicate that high achievers indeed influence their peers academically, but that it is not always clear how. (EV)

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are consistent situational factors associated with driving while intoxicated and riding with an impaired driver among youth, and to ascertain whether the situational factors vary as a function of demographic variables. Results indicate that the two situations are a function of the role of…

Study examined the prevalence of bullying in 375 American children, determined the relationship between peer bullying and sibling bullying, and examined the link between psychological difficulties and bullying. In general those who were both bullies and victims reported the highest level of psychological difficulty followed by victims, bullies,…

Undergraduate students (N=264) completed the Parent and Peer Influence Scale (PPI). The scale demonstrated strong reliability as well as face and concurrent validity. The PPI can be used both by researchers to address contradictions in the literature, as well as clinicians seeking to evaluate levels of peer influence in a family. (Author/MKA)