Self-Esteem and Family Challenge: An Investigation of Their Effects on Achievement

This study uses longitudinal data on a sample of 10th graders to investigate the associations between self-esteem, family challenge, and 2 indicators of adolescent achievement: high school grades and extracurricular involvement. Research on self-esteem and on family challenge has linked both of these factors to achievement in adolescents, but studies have not simultaneously examined the effects of these factors on achievement. The present study finds that family challenge and self-esteem are correlated with one another, and examines the effects of each of these factors on achievement while controlling on the other factor. Controlling on self-esteem, family challenge was positively associated with grades in school, and was marginally associated with extracurricular participation. Controlling on family challenge, we did not find self-esteem to be predictive of grades or extracurricular involvement in longitudinal analyses, but we did find some evidence for a relationship in the opposite direction, with grades in 10th grade predicting self-esteem in 12th grade. Results also suggest differences in academic achievement and extracurricular participation by race/ethnicity. Implications of these findings for the role of family challenge and self-esteem in the positive development of adolescents are discussed.     

Legal developments and industry issues relevant to IT,media and telecommunications law in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific

This column provides a country by country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

A note on portraying the accuracy of violence predictions

We discuss two major reviews of the accuracy of dichotomous (yes/no) violence predictions (Monahan, 1981; Otto, 1992), which reported rates offalse positive errors that were calculated using conceptually and mathematically dissimilar methods. We outline potential problems that result from analyzing data in the form of 2×2 contingency tables and offer some recommendations for future research on the prediction of violence.     

Will words ever harm me?: escalation from verbal to physical abuse in sixth-grade classrooms

Based on in-depth qualitative interviews, this article gives the opportunity to 145 sixth graders to tell, in their own words, how they felt and reacted when verbally and emotionally abused by their classmates. Content analysis of interviews revealed gender differences in students' reactions to verbal aggression. Another interesting finding was the differentiation between verbally aggressive messages meant to be for fun from those that were not so meant based on (1) contextual cues, (2) other peers' reaction, and (3) the malleability of the personal features that were the topic of the attack. Observing friendly peers were found to play an important role in reducing tension and preventing the escalation of violence. However, when the verbally aggressive message targeted a permanent physical characteristic or the student's social or ethnic identity, then suffering, anger and humiliation legitimized the escalation from verbal to physical aggression for students of both genders.     

Interviewing Former 1- and 2-Year Olds About Medical Emergencies 5 Years Later

Five years earlier, 1- and 2-year-old children who had been injured seriously enough to require hospital ER treatment had been recruited from the ER. For this study, as many of these children as could be found participated. The majority of former 1-year olds recalled nothing about these highly stressful events, whereas most former 2-year olds recalled a great deal. For those former 1-year olds who did recall the target events, quality of recall was problematic. In particular, they made considerable source confusions or intrusions into their accounts of details from other related events, producing an account that amalgamated various events into one recollection. Forensic implications are discussed.