“Making It”: Understanding Adolescent Resilience in Two Informal Settlements (Slums) in Nairobi,Kenya

Many adolescents living in contexts characterized by adversity achieve positive outcomes. We adopt a protection–risk conceptual framework to examine resilience (academic achievement, civic participation, and avoidance of risk behaviors) among 1,722 never-married 12–19 year olds living in two Kenyan urban slums. We find stronger associations between explanatory factors and resilience among older (15–19 years) than younger (12–14 years) adolescents. Models for prosocial behavior and models for antisocial behavior emerge as key predictors of resilience. Further accumulation of evidence on risk and protective factors is needed to inform interventions to promote positive outcomes among youth situated in an ecology of adversity.     

Peer Selection and Socialization in Adolescent Depression: The Role of School Transitions

Previous studies have indicated homophily in depressive symptoms among adolescent friends, resulting from both peer selection and socialization processes. However, developmental differences and the role of school transitions in these processes have not been elucidated. A sample of 367 (51% female) adolescents was followed from 6th to 11th grade to investigate prospective relationships between adolescents’ and their friends’ depressive symptoms in middle school and in high school. Results revealed that students selected friends with similar levels of depressive symptoms after each school transition. Additionally, friends appeared to socialize adolescents to become more similar in depressive affect in late middle school years. These findings suggest normative selection effects after school transitions, followed by socialization effects in middle school, but not high school.     

The Pivotal Role of Adolescent Autonomy in Secondary School Classrooms

Student engagement is an important contributor to school success, yet high school students routinely describe themselves as disengaged. Identifying factors that alter (increase) engagement is a key aspect of improving support for student achievement. This study investigated students’ perceptions of autonomy, teacher connection, and academic competence as predictors of changes in student engagement within the classroom from the start to the end of a course. Participants were 578 (58% female) diverse (67.8% White, 25.2% African American, 5.1% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian American) high school students from 34 classrooms who provided questionnaire data both at the start and the end of a single course. Novel results from a cross-lagged model demonstrated that students who perceived their classrooms as allowing and encouraging their own autonomy in the first few weeks increased their engagement throughout the course, rather than the typical decline in engagement that was demonstrated by students in other classrooms. This finding is unique in that it extended to both students’ perceptions of engagement and observations of student engagement, suggesting a fairly robust pattern. The pertinence of this finding to adolescent developmental needs and its relationship to educational practice is discussed.     

Associations Between Fifth Graders’ Gender Atypical Problem Behavior and Peer Relationships: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

An accruing body of evidence supports associations between self-perceived gender typicality and peer relationship difficulties; however, researchers have yet to evaluate peers' perceptions of problem behaviors to gain insight into the social correlates of gender typicality. A short-term longitudinal study was conducted to evaluate associations between gender atypical problem behavior and subsequent peer relational difficulties for 2,076 fifth graders (M age= 10.27; 53% female). Peer nomination methodology was used to assess participants' classroom peer relationships, problem behaviors, and social-emotional characteristics. Findings showed that youth characterized by gender atypical, compared to gender typical, problem behavior (withdrawn boys/aggressive girls vs. withdrawn girls/aggressive boys, respectively) evidenced higher levels of subsequent peer difficulties; moreover, participation in a mutual friendship was associated with decreased risk for peer relationship maladjustment, particularly among youth characterized by gender atypical problem behavior. Results further revealed that, compared to friendless youth, friended youth earned higher prosocial and peer liking scores and, for withdrawn youth, lower emotional sensitivity scores. The present research contributes to our understanding of the potential short-term consequences of youth's gender atypical problem behavior. Findings underscore the need for supplemental conceptualizations of gender typicality as well as multifaceted interventions designed to promote the acceptance of gender nonnormativity, support the development of adaptive peer relationships, and reduce the occurrence of problem behaviors.     

A Prospective Study of Mexican American Adolescents’ Academic Success: Considering Family and Individual Factors

Mexican American youth are at greater risk of school failure than their peers. To identify factors that may contribute to academic success in this population, this study examined the prospective relationships from 5th grade to 7th grade of family (i.e., human capital [a parent with at least a high school education], residential stability, academically and occupationally positive family role models, and family structure) and individual characteristics (i.e., externalizing symptoms, bilingualism, gender, and immigrant status) to the academic performance of 749 Mexican American early adolescents (average age = 10.4 years and 48.7% were girls in 5th grade) from economically and culturally diverse families as these youth made the transition to junior high school. Results indicated that while controlling for prior academic performance, human capital and positive family role models assessed when adolescents were in 5th grade positively related to academic performance in 7th grade. Further, being a girl also was related to greater 7th grade academic success, whereas externalizing symptoms were negatively related to 7th grade academic performance. No other variables in the model were significantly and prospectively related to 7th grade academic performance. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.     

Loyalty and Disloyalty in the Mexican Party System

Why do politicians in Mexico switch parties? The party‐switching literature suggests that politicians generally switch parties for office‐seeking or policy‐seeking motives, whereas literature on the Mexican party system suggests that switching may be related to party system realignment during the democratic transition. Using data on party switching across the political careers of politicians who served as federal deputies between 1997 and 2009, this study argues that party switching in Mexico can primarily be explained by the office‐seeking behavior of ambitious politicians. Only in rare instances do politicians switch parties because of policy disagreements, and party system realignment fails to explain a large number of party switches. This article also suggests that the ban on consecutive re‐election encourages party switching; after every term in office, Mexican politicians have the opportunity to re‐evaluate their party affiliation to continue their careers.     

Bullies, Gangs, Drugs, and School: Understanding the Overlap and the Role of Ethnicity and Urbanicity

Recent media attention has increased interest in behavioral, mental health, and academic correlates of involvement in bullying. Yet, there has not been much interest in investigating the co-occurrence of other health-risk behaviors, such as gang membership, weapon carrying, and substance use. The potential influence of contextual factors, such as youth ethnicity, urbanicity, and school characteristics, also has been overlooked in previous research. The current study examined different subtypes of involvement in bullying—as primarily a victim, as primarily a bully, as both a victim and bully, and no involvement—and the association with significant health-risk behaviors, including engaging in violence and substance use, as well as academic problems. The analyses use self-report data from 16,302 adolescents (50.3 % female, 62.2 % Caucasian, 37.8 % African American) enrolled in 52 high schools. A series of three-level HLM analyses revealed that bullies and bully/victims were generally at greatest of risk of being involved in violence, engaging in multiple types of substance use, and having academic problems. These findings extend prior research by emphasizing a potential link between involvement in bullying and multiple health-risk behaviors, particularly among urban and African American high school youth.     

Examining Associations Between Race, Urbanicity, and Patterns of Bullying Involvement

Research on the role of race and urbanicity in bullying involvement has been limited. The present study examined bullying involvement subgroups that relate to race, urbanicity, and the perceived reason for the bullying. Self-report data were collected from 10,254 middle school youth (49.8 % female; 62.4 % Caucasian, 19.0 % African American, and 5.6 % Hispanic) and latent class analyses were used to identify three subtypes of bullying involvement: low involvement (50 %), victim (31.3 %), and bully-victim (18.7 %). Irrespective of urbanicity (urban vs. non-urban), African American youth were more likely to be members of either the victim or bully-victim classes than the low involvement class. Further exploration of the community context suggested that urbanicity was associated with the increased likelihood of having been racially bullied. Urban bully-victims were also more likely to have been bullied about money than non-urban bully-victims. Findings underscore the importance of addressing both race and urbanicity for culturally sensitive prevention programming.