Bidirectional Influences Between Dimensions of Coparenting and Adolescent Adjustment

Research on coparenting documents that mothers’ and fathers’ coordination and mutual support in their parenting roles is linked to their offspring’s adjustment in childhood, but we know much less about the coparenting of adolescents. Taking a family systems perspective, this study assessed two dimensions of coparenting, parents’ shared decision-making and joint involvement in activities with their adolescents, and examined bidirectional associations between these coparenting dimensions and boys’ and girls’ risky behaviors and depressive symptoms across four time points (6 years) in adolescence. Participants were 201 mothers, fathers, and adolescents (M = 11.83, SD = .55 years of age at Time 1; 51 % female). Parents of sons shared more decisions, on average, than parents of daughters. On average, shared decision-making followed an inverted U shaped pattern of change, and parents’ joint involvement in their adolescents’ activities declined. Cross-lagged findings revealed that risky behavior predicted less shared decision-making, and shared decision-making protected against increased risky behavior for boys. For girls and boys, parents’ joint involvement predicted fewer risky behaviors, and lower levels of risky behavior predicted higher levels of joint involvement. In contrast, boys’ and girls’ depressive symptoms predicted less joint involvement. The discussion centers on the nature and correlates of coparenting during adolescence, including the role of child effects, and directions for future research on coparenting during this developmental period.     

Correlates of Cyber Dating Abuse Among Teens

Recent advancements in technology (e.g., social networking, texting) have created new ways for dating youth to relate to one another, including in abusive ways via “cyber dating abuse.” Cyber dating abuse is a form of teen dating violence that overlaps with other types of abuse (e.g., psychological) but also has several unique characteristics. Given the phenomenon’s limited presence in dating violence literature, we focus on identifying how experiencing cyber dating abuse relates to youths’ individual behaviors and experiences (e.g., substance use, sexual activity), psychosocial adjustment, school connection, family relationships, and partner relationships. A total of 3,745 youth (52 % female, 74 % White) in three northeastern states participated in the survey and reported currently being in a dating relationship or having been in one during the prior year. We found that experiences of cyber dating abuse were most significantly correlated with being female, committing a greater variety of delinquent behaviors, having had sexual activity in one’s lifetime, having higher levels of depressive symptoms, and having higher levels of anger/hostility. Further, cyber dating abuse appeared somewhat more strongly related to depressive symptoms and delinquency than did other forms of teen dating violence and abuse.     

Psychological Distress and Student Engagement as Mediators of the Relationship between Peer Victimization and Achievement in Middle School Youth

Peer victimization is a well-known national and international problem, contributing to a range of emotional, social, and behavioral consequences. Using structural equation modeling, the authors tested a theoretical model suggesting that psychological distress and student engagement mediate the association between the experience of victimization and concurrent academic achievement. Participants were 469 (46.4 % male, 53.6 % female) 6th to 8th grade students, from randomly selected classrooms in 11 middle schools in a southeastern school district. Structural equation models of the hypothesized effects demonstrated adequate fit to the data, with both symptoms of psychological distress and engagement mediating the relationship between victimization and academic achievement. In general, the results suggest that victimization predicts diminished academic achievement by way of psychological distress and poorer engagement in classroom and academic tasks. However, the direct relationship between victimization and measures of achievement lacked significance across many correlational and path analyses conducted. These findings have implications for researchers and practitioners in understanding how psychological distress and student engagement are associated with the academic performance of students who experience peer victimization.     

Processes Linking Parents’ and Adolescents’ Religiousness and Adolescent Substance Use: Monitoring and Self-Control

Empirical evidence suggests that religiousness is related negatively to adolescent substance use; yet, we know little about how such protective effects might occur. The current study examined whether parents’ and adolescents’ religiousness are associated positively with parental, religious, and self-monitoring, which in turn are related to higher self-control, thereby related to lower adolescent substance use. Participants were 220 adolescents (45 % female) who were interviewed at ages 10–16 and again 2.4 years later. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that higher adolescents’ religiousness at Time 1 was related to lower substance use at Time 2 indirectly through religious monitoring, self-monitoring, and self-control. Higher parents’ religiousness at Time 1 was associated with higher parental monitoring at Time 2, which in turn was related to lower adolescent substance use at Time 2 directly and indirectly through higher adolescent self-control. The results illustrate that adolescents with high awareness of being monitored by God are likely to show high self-control abilities and, consequently, low substance use. The findings further suggest that adolescents’ religiousness as well as their religious environments (e.g., familial context) can facilitate desirable developmental outcomes.     

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.     

Relating self and other in Chinese and Western thought

Abstract

Recent debates in international relations seek to decolonize the discipline by focusing on relationality between self and other. This article examines the possibilities for preserving a particular type of otherness: ‘radical otherness’ or ‘alterity’. Such otherness can provide a bulwark against domination and colonialism: there is always something truly other which cannot be assimilated. However, two problems arise. First, if otherness is truly inaccessible, how can self relate to it? Does otherness undermine relationality? Second, can we talk about otherness without making it the same? Is the very naming of otherness a new form of domination? This article draws out and explores the possibilities for radical otherness in sinophone and anglophone relational theorizing. It addresses the difficulties presented by the need for a sense of radical otherness, on the one hand, and the seeming impossibility of either detecting it or relating to it, on the other. By constructing a typology of four accounts of otherness, it finds that the identification and preservation of radical otherness poses significant problems for relationality. Radical otherness makes relationality between self and other impossible, but without radical otherness there is a danger of domination and assimilation. This is common to both sinophone and anglophone endeavours.