Schools have been identified as one of the appropriate settings for addiction prevention since this is the place where pupils may come into contact with drugs for the first time and experiment with them, with the possibility of becoming addicted. To be effective, school-based drug education must be firmly based on knowledge of oneself and…

Seventh-grade students (N = 324) completed social cognitive maps to identify peer groups and peer group leaders, sociometric nominations to describe their peers' behaviors, and questionnaires to assess their own behaviors. Peer group members resembled one another in levels of direct and indirect aggression and substance use; girls' cliques were…

Little research has focused on the drugs-violence nexus in rural areas. As such, the purpose of this study is to use Goldstein's tripartite conceptual framework to examine the relationship between drugs and violence among felony probationers in rural Appalachian Kentucky (n = 799). Data on demo-graphics, substance use criminal history, and…

The objective of the present study was to explore, in three European countries (Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic), teachers' perception of the prevalence of different problematic aspects related to coexistence in schools, and of how they are personally affected by these aspects. The results reveal a high prevalence of fights, insults and…

Concurrent and longitudinal relations between the amount of romantic experience and psychosocial adjustment were examined in a 1-year study of a community based sample of 200 tenth graders. Adolescents, parents, and friends completed measures of psychosocial adjustment. The amount of romantic experience was associated with higher reports of social…

This study examined behavioral and emotional adjustment in family contexts in which there was high versus low demand for adolescents to serve as language brokers in a sample of 73 recently immigrated Latino families with middle-school-aged adolescents. Language brokering was conceptualized as a family process rather than merely an individual…

In this study, two longitudinal models of early adolescent risky sexual behaviors (RSB) were compared using a pooled sample of 267 Canadian and Italian adolescents (55% females; 53% Canadians) assessed yearly from grade 8 to 10. We focused on parenting practices (monitoring, control, limit setting), adolescent problem behaviors (antisocial…

Private residential treatment programs for young people offer a range of services, including drug and alcohol treatment, confidence building, military-style discipline, and psychological counseling for a variety of addiction, behavioral, and emotional problems. Many of these programs are intended to provide a less-restrictive alternative to…

In the United States, it has been reported that 4% to 12% of male adolescents and 0.5% to 2.9% of female adolescents have used anabolic steroids to enhance sports performance or favorably alter body size. Although medical, legal, and ethical issues related to the nonmedical use of anabolic steroids have been widely publicized, a growing number of…

This study evaluated the cross-cultural transportability of motivational interviewing (MI), an evidence-based addiction treatment method. Free clinical training in MI was offered in separate targeted workshops for 86 African American, Native American, and Spanish-speaking addiction treatment providers. Audiotaped pre- and posttraining clinical…

This study examines how substance use is associated with the health and safety of homeless youth using cross-sectional, self-report data from 285 homeless adolescents. Path models were used to examine concurrent relationships between youth's substance use and multiple aspects of their health and safety, including measures of psychological…

A cross-sectional study examining the oral language abilities and social skills of male juvenile offenders is described. Fifty juvenile offenders and 50 non-offending controls completed measures of language processing and production, and measures of social skill and IQ. Information about type of offending, substance use histories and…

Background: This study provides a descriptive profile of substance use behavior and the prevalence of suicide indicators (thought about, considered, and planned) among rural middle school students and examines the association between substance use and suicidal indicators among middle school students participating in the Coordinated School Health…

A perennial talking point of politicians and scientists, since the time of the Greeks, is to lament how American youth are sliding into moral decrepitude, lawlessness, and poor mental health. Indeed, to hear some observers talk, particularly in this election year, young people in the United States are being battered by a coarsened culture that…

Responses from 420 parents of fifth- and sixth-grade DARE students in a Midwestern county were examined to determine the parents' perceptions of the impact of DARE on their children's and their own attitudes and behavior. Major findings indicated that most parents did not see an impact on their child's school performance or overall attendance.…