School Smoking Policy Characteristics and Individual Perceptions of the School Tobacco Context: Are They Linked to Students’ Smoking Status?

The purpose of this study was to explore individual- and school-level policy characteristics on student smoking behavior using an ecological perspective. Participants were 24,213 (51% female) Grade 10–11 students from 81 schools in five Canadian provinces. Data were collected using student self-report surveys, written policies collected from schools, interviews with school administrators, and school property observations to assess multiple dimensions of the school tobacco policy. The multi-level modeling results revealed that the school a student attended was associated with his/her smoking behavior. Individual-level variables that were associated with student smoking included lower school connectedness, a greater number of family and friends who smoked, higher perceptions of student smoking prevalence, lower perceptions of student smoking frequency, and stronger perceptions of the school tobacco context. School-level variables associated with student smoking included weaker policy intention indicating prohibition and assistance to overcome tobacco addiction, weaker policy implementation involving strategies for enforcement, and a higher number of students smoking on school property. These findings suggest that the school environment is important to tobacco control strategies, and that various policy dimensions have unique relationships to student smoking. School tobacco policies should be part of a comprehensive approach to adolescent tobacco use.     

A Multi-Level Examination of the Association Between Older Social Models in the School Environment and Overweight and Obesity Among Younger Students

Few studies have examined how school characteristics are associated with obesity. The purpose of this study was to examine the student- and school-level characteristics associated with being overweight and obese among 12,049 students in grades 9 and 10 (junior students) attending 76 secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. The sample was 49.2% female and the average age was 14.7 years. Overall, 15.0% of the sample was considered overweight and 6.3% of the sample was considered obese. Multi-level regression analysis revealed significant between-school random variation for the likelihood of a junior student (grade 9 or 10) being overweight or obese. For each 1% increase in the prevalence of obese senior students (grade 11 and 12) at a school, the odds of a junior student at that school being overweight or obese increased significantly. Important student-level characteristics included physical activity, screen time sedentary behaviour (e.g., watching television), participation in varsity sports and gender. Future research should evaluate if the optimal population level impact for school-based obesity prevention programming might be achieved by targeting the schools that are putting students at the greatest risk.     

The Effects of Educational Context on Individual Difference Variables,Self-Perceptions of Giftedness,and School Attitudes in Gifted Adolescents

This study examined the effects of educational context on affective outcomes in a sample of 743 gifted Israeli adolescent students. Educational context (special gifted classes versus regular classes—with one day pull-out program) was hypothesized to predict context-sensitive personal variables and labeling of giftedness in the direction of better student personal-social adjustment and more favorable self-perceptions of giftedness in regular compared to special gifted classes. By contrast, students in special classes were predicted to show more positive school attitudes and better overall satisfaction with school than their mainstreamed counterparts. Analyses of the data showed that gifted adolescents in regular classes revealed a more positive personal-social profile than gifted mainstreamed students, showing lower test anxiety, a higher academic self-concept, and more positive perceptions of their giftedness. By contrast, students in special gifted classes held more favorable school attitudes and were more satisfied with their school environment in comparison to their mainstreamed counterparts. Overall, these data support the research hypotheses and point to a differential pattern of relationships between school program and personal-social adjustment, on one hand, and school attitudes and satisfaction, on the other.     

Family,School, Peer,and Media Predictors of Adolescent Deviant Behavior in Hong Kong

Based on a self-report study of 1139 secondary school students in Hong Kong, this paper estimates the strengths of selected family variables, school variables, peer variables, and media variables in the prediction of adolescent deviant behavior. Regresssion results show that the equation containing peers' deviant behavior, peers' disapproval of deviant behavior, frequency of media exposure, preference for violent/obscene content, imitation of media characters, parents' deviant behavior, and teachers' negative evaluation explained the amount of variance of adolescent deviant behavior. Theoretical and research implications of these and other findings for the rapidly industrializing and modernizing society of Hong Kong are discussed.     

Anticipated Transition to Adulthood: The Effect of Educational Track,Gender, and Self-Evaluation on Finnish and Polish Adolescents' Future Orientation

In Finland and Poland, a total of 352 (192 boys and 160 girls) 17-year-old general secondary and vocational school students participated in a study investigating their anticipated transition to adulthood. In times of large sociohistorical change in both countries, Finland (economic depression) and Poland (change from socialism to market economy), we investigated to what extent those changes were reflected in the students' probability estimations (for potential goal attainment in three future life domains; education, occupation and family life), generational comparison (attaining a life different from the life of parents), future time extension (for anticipated events in those life domains), and self-evaluations (self-esteem and control over future). The results showed that girls in both countries expressed a higher level of probability for success in education than boys did. As expected, vocational school students in both countries expressed a lower probability of success in future occupation than general secondary school students did. General secondary school students from both countries expressed higher levels of self-esteem and control over future than vocational school students did. Unexpectedly, no differences between boys' and girls' probability estimations for family life were found, in either country. However, girls from both countries anticipated an earlier and more rapid transition to adulthood than boys did, thus reflecting social time tables. The results suggested that the educational track remains a significant stratifying factor in times of societal change in both countries.     

Life Satisfaction and Student Engagement in Adolescents

Situated within a positive psychology perspective, this study explored linkages between adolescent students’ positive subjective well-being and their levels of engagement in schooling. Specifically, using structural equation modeling techniques, we evaluated the nature and directionality of longitudinal relationships between life satisfaction and student engagement variables. It was hypothesized that adolescents’ life satisfaction and student engagement variables would show bidirectional relationships. To test this hypothesis, 779 students (53% female, 62% Caucasian) in a Southeastern US middle school completed a measure of global life satisfaction and measures of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement at two time points, 5 months apart. A statistically significant bidirectional relationship between life satisfaction and cognitive engagement was found; however, non-significant relationships were found between life satisfaction and emotional and behavioral student engagement. The findings provide important evidence of the role of early adolescents’ life satisfaction in their engagement in schooling during the important transition grades between elementary and high school. The findings also help extend the positive psychology perspective to the relatively neglected context of education.     

A Multi-mediation Model on the Relations of Bullying,Victimization, Identity,and Family with Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

This study investigated a multi-mediation model of the relationship between bullying behavior, peer victimization, personal identity, and family characteristics to adolescent depressive symptoms in 194 high school students, 12–18 years of age. In the first model, peer victimization mediated the relation between bullying behavior and depressive symptoms. In the second model, personal identity mediated the relation between peer victimization and depressive symptoms. In the final model, the two mediation models were combined. The relative influence of family characteristics on all variables in the two mediation models was studied using structural equation modeling. The results supported both mediation models and confirmed the influence of family characteristics on all variables in the mediation models. This study indicates that victimization by one’s peers has consequences for adolescents’ psychological health when their personal identity is affected. In addition, the study was able to model several processes in which family characteristics were related to adolescent depressive symptoms. Moreover, the final combined model (in which the two mediation models and the influence of family characteristics on all variables were confirmed) explained half of the variance in adolescent depressive symptoms.

Disentangling the Weight of School Dropout Predictors: A Test on Two Longitudinal Samples

The aims of this study are to identify the most powerful predictors of school dropout and to determine how stable they are over time. Two generations of White French-speaking boys and girls from 12 to 16 years old (n = 791 in 1974, n = 791 in 1985) completed a self-administered questionnaire on their psychosocial adjustment at least one year before leaving school. As expected, the analyses showed that school, family, behavioral, social, and personality variables could all predict dropping out of school in the two samples. Furthermore, these predictors were quite stable over time. However, statistical improvement measures in logistic regression analyses indicated that school experience variables (i.e., grade retention, school achievement, school commitment) were the best screening variables for potential dropouts. The contribution of other psychosocial variables, even though significant, did not improve very much the capacity to identify who will drop out of school. The discussion highlights the implications of the findings for secondary prevention and screening practices.     

Reexamining Adolescent Suicidal Ideation: A Developmental Perspective Applied to a Diverse Population

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that suicidal ideation is a common experience in a general population of African American, Hispanic, and White urban high school students residing in low-income neighborhoods. Based upon a developmental framework, it was hypothesized that once attitudes toward suicide were controlled, ideation would not vary significantly by ethnicity, gender, or psychosocial variables usually associated with ideation. The multivariate analysis revealed that ideation did not vary by ethnicity however, females, substance users, and those with greater tolerance toward suicide, higher family coping, and lower self-esteem were more likely to report ideation. A series of ideator profiles, calculated from the probability estimates, showed that an increase in tolerance substantially raises the likelihood of ideation. The results taken together raise the question of whether it is time to reconceptualize the relationship between ideation and normal adolescent development.     

Youth Work in Gay Straight Alliances: Curriculum,Pedagogy, and Activist Development

Critical pedagogy empowers Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) advisers facilitate reflective, activist-oriented learning. Its use in school clubs has broad implications for both teachers and youth workers. Informed by critical multiculturalism, this study draws on ethnographic fieldwork from one school year and in-depth interviews with GSA participants. Data reveal that the GSA advisor's understanding of critical pedagogy is characterized by expanding students’ knowledge, facilitating students’ activism, and encouraging students’ reflection on significant interactions with peers and family. The author concludes these pedagogical practices help create long-term GSAs, where engaged student learning and activism promote a “third space” in youth development work.     

Who,What, Where,When, and Why: Demographic and Ecological Factors Contributing to Hostile School Climate for Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Transgender Youth

This study examines how locational (region and locale), community-level (school district poverty and adult educational attainment), and school district-level (district size and ratios of students to key school personnel) variables are related to indicators of hostile school climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. Indicators of hostile climate included frequency of homophobic remarks and victimization regarding sexual orientation and gender expression. We used data from a national survey of LGBT secondary school students (N = 5,420; 57.6% female; 65.5% White; mean age = 15.9). Results from regression analyses demonstrated that LGBT youth in rural communities and communities with lower adult educational attainment may face particularly hostile school climates. School district characteristics contributed little to the variation in LGBT youth’s experiences. Findings highlight the importance of considering the multiple contexts that LGBT youth inhabit, particularly as they pertain to educational experiences.     

Sense of Belonging Among High School Students Representing 4 Ethnic Groups

The authors investigated the dimensions and mechanisms of belonging relevant to motivation and achievement among high school students representing 4 ethnic groups. Using survey data from 9th to 12th grade students (N = 5,494) attending 7 ethnically-diverse high schools, structural equation modeling was employed to explore, independently for each ethnic group, the relationships between students’ perceptions of their belonging (encompassing relationships with teachers and peers, extracurricular involvement, and perceived ethnic-based discrimination), motivation (efficacy beliefs and valuing school activities), and academic success. All 4 measures of belonging were significant for European-American and Latino students. However, friendship nominations were not significant for all groups, suggesting potential variability in perspectives across ethnic groups. The strength of the structural model postulating belonging as a mediator, including statistically significant indirect paths, supported the hypothesis that the belonging construct accounted for much of the relationship between student motivation and success across groups.Beverly Faircloth is a doctoral candidate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include the developmental and motivational processes that support adolescent school engagement in ethnically diverse settings.Jill Hamm is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996. Her research interests are adolescents’ peer relations in ethnically diverse schools and classrooms.     

The Role of Protective Factors in Supporting the Academic Achievement of Poor African American Students During the Middle School Transition

In this study of 62 African American families living in poverty, we examined the main and interactive effects of psychological, family, and school factors on students' grade point average across the middle school transition. Both parent interviews and student surveys were collected, resulting in three major findings. First, students experienced a significant decline in grade point average across the transition from elementary to middle school. Second, students who felt more academically efficacious had higher grade point averages across the transition than did their peers. Third, significant interactions were found between family and school factors. These results suggest that rather than focusing exclusively on either parental involvement or the school environment, the combination of both family and school factors may be most effective in supporting the academic achievement of poor African American students during the transition to middle level schools.     

Big School,Small School: (Re)Testing Assumptions about High School Size,School Engagement and Mathematics Achievement

In an effort to increase both adolescents’ engagement with school and academic achievement, school districts across the United States have created small high schools. However, despite the widespread adoption of size reduction reforms, relatively little is known about the relationship between size, engagement and outcomes in high school. In response, this article employs a composite measure of engagement that combines organizational, sociological, and psychological theories. We use this composite measure with the most recent nationally-representative dataset of tenth graders, Educational Longitudinal Study: 2002, (N = 10,946, 46% female) to better assess a generalizable relationship among school engagement, mathematics achievement and school size with specific focus on cohort size. Findings confirm these measures to be highly related to student engagement. Furthermore, results derived from multilevel regression analysis indicate that, as with school size, moderately sized cohorts or grade-level groups provide the greatest engagement advantage for all students and that there are potentially harmful changes when cohorts grow beyond 400 students. However, it is important to note that each group size affects different students differently, eliminating the ability to prescribe an ideal cohort or school size.     

College and noncollege youth politics in 1972: An application of Mannheim's generation unit model

This article examines youth politics employing Mannheim's theory of generation units. Specifically, a multivariate model was constructed to test and compare sets of social location and consciousness factors explaining political behavior among two random samples of college and noncollege youth. Just prior to the 1972 presidential election, 373 Syracuse University students and 134 local Syracuse residents between the ages of 18 and 25 were surveyed to determine their presidential candidate support and urge to participate in a demonstration. Path analysis was used to examine the direct, indirect, and total effects of the variables in the model. Results indicated that (1) the relationships predicting youth politics differed within and between the two youth groups; (2) 55% of the variance in presidential candidate support and 33% of the variance in urge to demonstrate were explained by the variables in the college student model, and the comparable figures for the noncollege group were 39% and 38%, respectively; (3) family status and personal political attitudes differentiated candidate support and urge to demonstrate among college students, while demographic characteristics, family status, and institutional confidence explained considerable variance in politics among the noncollege youth. The form of Mannheim's generation unit model provided a useful tool for comparing youth groups within the same generation; the contents await replication and verification.Received Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University, 1969. Major research interests include political socialization, youth movements, and the sociology of generations.     

Factors Associated with Academic Achievement for Sexual and Gender Minority and Heterosexual Cisgender Students: Implications from a Nationally Representative Study

Research on sexual and gender minority student achievement indicates that such students report lowered achievement relative to other students. Increased victimization and less school belonging, amongst other factors, have been identified as contributing to these inequalities. However, supportive schooling structures and caregiver support may support their achievement. A nationally representative survey of secondary school students was used to identify specific factors that support achievement for sexual minority (n?=?485), gender minority (n?=?298), and heterosexual cisgender (where one’s sex assigned at birth “matches” a binary gender identity, i.e., a male assigned at birth identifies as a boy/man, n?=?7064) students in New Zealand. While reported victimization did not affect achievement for sexual and gender minority students, school belonging, and teacher expectations of success, emerged as significant factors. Differences emerged between sexual minority and gender minority achievement factors, suggesting a range of detailed policy implications and recommendations.

     

Resilience in Adolescents: Protective Role of Social Support,Coping Strategies,Self-Esteem,and Social Activities on Experience of Stress and Depression

In this study, 297 adolescents (141 eighth graders and 156 eleventh graders) were classified into 3 groups created from crossing scores of depressive symptoms and frequency of daily hassles: well adjusted, resilient, and vulnerable. A discriminant function analysis was performed to investigate group differences on self-esteem, social support, different strategies of coping, and different aspects of social life. The analysis revealed that self-esteem, problem-solving coping strategies, and antisocial and illegal activities with peers helped to discriminate groups: Well-adjusted adolescents had higher self-esteem than adolescents in the 2 other groups; in addition, resilient adolescents had higher self-esteem than vulnerable adolescents. For the second significant discriminating variables, antisocial and illegal activities with peers, both resilient and vulnerable adolescents had higher scores than well-adjusted adolescents. Finally, resilient adolescents had higher scores on problem-solving coping strategies than adolescents in the 2 other groups.     

Adolescent Emotional Distress: The Role of Family Obligations and School Connectedness

The current study draws upon ecodevelopmental theory to identify protective and risk factors that may influence emotional distress during adolescence. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine the relationship among family obligations, school connectedness and emotional distress of 4,198 (51% female) middle and high school students who were primarily (59%) European American. The overall model explained 21.1% of the variance in student emotional distress. A significant interaction effect was found indicating that school connectedness moderated the relationship between family obligations and emotional distress. Specifically, for students with low to moderate levels of family obligations, a stronger sense of school connectedness was associated with lower emotional distress. The buffering effect of school connectedness was weakened as the level of family obligations increased and completely disappeared for students who experienced high levels of family obligations. The creation of a program that takes a holistic approach, in order to curtail the levels of highly emotionally distressed adolescents, must continue to address the ever changing demands that adolescents encounter and prepare youth to deal with functioning within multiple contexts and do so while maintaining emotional well-being.     

Understanding Students’ Transition to High School: Demographic Variation and the Role of Supportive Relationships

The transition to high school is disruptive for many adolescents, yet little is known about the supportive relational processes that might attenuate the challenges students face as they move from middle to high school, particularly for students from more diverse backgrounds. Identifying potential buffers that protect youth across this critical educational transition is important for informing more effective support services for youth. In this study, we investigated how personal characteristics (gender, nativity, parent education level) and changes in support from family, friends, and school influenced changes in socioemotional adjustment and academic outcomes across the transition from middle to high school. The data were drawn from 252 students (50% females, 85% Latina/o). The results revealed declines in students’ grades and increases in depressive symptoms and feelings of loneliness across the high school transition, with key variation by student nativity and gender. Additionally, stable/increasing friend support and school belonging were both linked to less socioemotional disruptions as students moved from middle to high school. Increasing/stable school belonging was also linked to increases in school engagement across the high school transition. These findings suggest that when high school transitions disrupt supportive relationships with important others in adolescents’ lives, adolescents’ socioemotional well-being and, to a lesser extent, their academic engagement are also compromised. Thus, in designing transition support activities, particularly for schools serving more low-income and race/ethnic minority youth, such efforts should strive to acclimate new high school students by providing inclusive, caring environments and positive connections with educators and peers.     

Variables that discriminate bulimic from nonbulimic adolescent females

The present study identified variables that discriminated bulimic (N=71) from nonbulimic (N=71) adolescent females within a high school setting. A discriminant function analysis identified six variables that significantly differentiated these two groups. These variables included disturbed eating attitudes, negative perceptions of weight and body image, depressive symptomatology, and alcohol use. Post hoct tests indicated that, compared to the nonbulimic girls, the bulimic adolescents were significantly more depressed, viewed themselves as significantly more overweight, used alcohol significantly more frequently, possessed significantly more disturbed eating attitudes, had a significantly greater discrepancy between their current and ideal weight, and felt it was significantly more important to achieve this ideal weight. The implications of these findings for the etiology and early identification of bulimia in adolescence are discussed.Received Ph.D. from Kent State University. Research interest is applied clinical research.Received Ph.D. from University of Vermont. Research interest is behavioral medicine.