Risk factors for serious suicidal behavior among older adults were examined in a case control study of adults aged 55 and older who died by suicide or made suicide attempts and who were compared with randomly selected comparison subjects. Multivariate analyses suggested that mood disorders were the most significant risk factor for suicidal…

Asserts that adolescents within Montessori environments continue to use creative imagination to develop the self and still need concrete materials and manipulative tasks. Maintains that a degree of independence must be allowed for adolescents to form the foundation for self- discipline. Discusses the importance of mastering a few areas in depth…

Offers specific rules for using humanities studies in Montessori schools to guide personality formation and social interest during adolescence, focusing on biography. Presents biography as a portrayal of mind connected with action, the success of individual struggle, self-awareness, balancing creativity with service, the importance of inner life,…

Describes a program at Helen Baller Elementary School in Camus, Washington, called the Comfort Corner, part of the Primary Intervention Program. It provides a safe, supportive place for children who may be experiencing difficulty in classroom, playground, or home situations, by helping them build friendship skills, communication skills, and…

Adolescents are frequently admonished to be socially assertive in order to confront negative interpersonal peer influences. Since the advent of HIV/AIDS in human social chemistry, the admonition has become more critical than ever. But the warning is often proffered in the misguided presumption that social assertiveness is the all-required…

This study furthers the current understanding of optimistic bias regarding youth violence among high school students. Results from a survey of 387 urban high school students indicate a wide range of predictors of optimistic bias, including experience, demographics, and attitudes. Linkages to other developmental frameworks (personal fable and…

The validity of a scale, from the Ontario Health Survey, measuring the subjective sense of well-being, for a large multicultural population in Metropolitan Toronto, is examined through principal components analysis with oblique rotation. Four factors are extracted. Factor 1, is a stress and strain factor, and consists of health worries, feeling…

This study was designed to develop models for vulnerability to suicidal ideation in bipolar patients. Logistic regression models examined correlates of suicidal ideation in patients who had versus had not attempted suicide previously. Of 477 patients assessed, complete data on demographic, illness history, and personality variables were available…

For this study, the authors developed a multi-item, multi-dimensional scale for peer evaluation encompassing five key dimensions: dependability, task and maintenance orientation, domineering behavior, free-riding behavior, and individual competence. They also tested the relationship between these dimensions and two outcome variables: overall…

Cultures throughout time have marked the passage of young people into adulthood with carefully designed tasks and rituals. The purpose of these activities is to prepare youth to mindfully consider their individual and communal life intention. The relative lack of modern rites of passage for adolescents is seen as having significant implications…

Our first goal was to examine the relations among observational, physiological, and self-report measures of children's anger. Our second goal was to investigate whether these relations varied by reactive or proactive aggression. Children (272 second-grade boys and girls) participated in a procedure in which they lost a game and prize to a…

Three studies examined whether personality-based hardiness would be associated with mental health benefits in contexts of gender discrimination. Hardy women encountering both a laboratory simulation and a hypothetical scenario of discrimination showed greater self-esteem and less negative affect than low hardy women. However, these benefits were…

This study examined superintendents' perceptions of current performance evaluation practices and their preferences for those practices. Specifically, 1,125 superintendents across the nation received a questionnaire exploring evaluation effectiveness and results-based procedures. Findings indicate practices are neither uniformly effective nor…

This study explores the process one school district employed in its search for, and selection of, a new superintendent. The research design is a single site case study using qualitative methods. Data collection techniques include observation in the form of "shadowing" a search consultant, document analysis, and open-ended interviews of…

In terms of the attention that they have attracted from researchers, and in comparison with teachers of other subjects, religious education specialists would seem to be a neglected and marginalized group. This paper looks at some of the reasons why this might be and also describes a study that is using a life history approach to explore what it is…