Showing papers in "Journal of Early Adolescence in 2004"

Attachment, Friendship, and Psychosocial Functioning in Early Adolescence

Abstract: Fifth-graders' (N = 162; 93 girls) relationships with parents and friends were examined with respect to their main and interactive effects on psychosocial functioning. Participants reported on parental support, the quality of their best friendships, self-worth, and perceptions of social competence. Peers reported on aggression, shyness and withdrawal, and rejection and victimization. Mothers reported on psychological adjustment. Perceived parental support and friendship quality predicted higher global self-worth and social competence and less internalizing problems. Perceived parental support predicted fewer externalizing problems, and paternal (not maternal) support predicted lower rejection and victimization. Friendship quality predicted lower rejection and victimization for only girls. Having a supportive mother protected boys from the effects of low-quality friendships on their perceived social competence. High friendship quality buffered the effects of low maternal support on girls' internalizing difficulties.

Changing Relationships, Changing Youth Interpersonal Contexts of Adolescent Development

Abstract: In the past quarter century, research on adolescence has expanded from a near exclusive focus on intraindividual processes to a concern with individuals in an interpersonal context. Today, studies of the impact of relationships within families, with peers, and with romantic partners account for a large proportion of research in the field. This article outlines three features of this transformation: an increasing focus on the nature of, changes in, and the developmental impact of adolescents’ relationships with significant others; the expansion and diversification of networks of significant others during adolescence; and the recognition of significant interrelations among these relationships. Contemporary studies require research designs that encompass multiple significant relationships and that assess a broad range of relationship properties.

The Relation of Early Adolescents' College Plans and Both Academic Ability and Task-Value Beliefs to Subsequent College Enrollment

Abstract: Although it is likely that plans to attend a 4-year college are made much earlier than the last 2 years of high school, few researchers have assessed the pre–high school factors that influence high...

Relational Aggression in Middle School: Educational Implications of Developmental Research

Abstract: With increasing attention to school violence and aggression, it is argued that more covert, natured, subtle conflicts among students should be carefully examined and addressed to prevent negative outcomes. This article provides an overview of current knowledge on relational aggression including its definition, its link to a number of adjustment difficulties, and contexts contributing to the maintenance of relational aggression. Based on the review of empirical findings, educational implications for teachers and school administrators are discussed with an emphasis on an urgent need to promote a greater understanding of relational aggression and develop effective, innovative approaches in schools. The discussion also includes specific recommendations for prevention and intervention of relational aggression in middle school.

Predicting Friendship Stability during Early Adolescence.

Abstract: This study examined the stability of early adolescent best friendships across a school year. Grade 7 students (N = 174) participated in group-testing sessions in the fall and spring of their school year. Participants completed peer-nomination measures, described the quality of their best friendships, their knowledge of their best friend, and their typical conflict-resolution strategies in response to peer conflicts. Approximately 50% of the reciprocated best friendships remained stable across the school year. Friendship quality and knowledge were unrelated to friendship stability. However, stability of boys’ friendships was positively correlated with minimization strategies, whereas stability of girls’ best friendships was negatively correlated with minimization strategies but positively related to greater use of negative (i.e., confrontational) strategies in response to peer conflict. Results are discussed with reference to the rules of friendship and to the conflicting demands for compliance and autonom...

Relations among maternal parenting style academic competence and life satisfaction in Chinese early adolescents.

Abstract: The relations among maternal concern and restrictiveness self-evaluated academic competence and life satisfaction were explored in a short-term longitudinal study of 346 7th-grade students (126 males and 220 females) in Hong Kong. The authors found that perceived maternal concern academic competence and life satisfaction significantly declined from the beginning to the end of the 7th grade. Mothers viewed themselves as higher in parental concern than adolescents viewed them. Structural equation modeling found that adolescents’ perceived maternal concerns and academic competences significantly predicted life satisfaction over time whereas perceived maternal restrictiveness did not. The data support the importance of perceived maternal concern and academic competence in predicting early adolescent life satisfaction. (authors)

A Validation Study of Early Adolescents' Pubertal Self-Assessments.

Abstract: This study aimed to determine whether self-assessed puberty is sufficiently reliable and valid to substitute for physician examination when feasibility of physician examination is low (e.g. behavioral research). Adolescents (convenience sample N = 178 endocrinology patients and N = 125 from educational trial; mean age 12.7 and 11.3 years respectively) participated. Self-assessments were validated against physician Tanner ratings and by associations with bone density gender and age. Highest exact agreement between physicians and adolescents was 54% for females’ and 55% for males’ ratings of pubic hair. More than 85% agreement within one stage was obtained for most measures. Significant associations were found for age and bone between adolescents in earlier and later stages of development and for developmental stage between genders for each age group. Results suggest predictive and discriminate validity of self-assessments. Self-assessments may be useful when estimates of pubertal development are sufficient and for studies barred from physician examination. (authors)

The Scientific Study of Adolescence: A Brief History.

Abstract: This article provides an overview of the history of research on adolescence. In our view, the history of the scientific study of adolescence has had two overlapping phases and is now on the cusp of a third. The first phase, which began early in the 20th century and lasted about 70 years, was characterized by grand theoretical models that purportedly pertained to all facets of adolescent development. The major studies of adolescence during this period were atheoretical, descriptive accounts. The second phase, which began in the mid–1970s and continues today, has been characterized by more focused hypothesis testing, an interest in developmental plasticity and in diversity, and in the application of science to real-world problems. We are now seeing the emergence of a third phase, in which the field of adolescent development is serving as an exemplar of the sort of developmental science that can be used by policy makers and by practitioners to advance civil society and to promote positive development.

Externalizing and Internalizing Problems in Low-Income Latino Early Adolescents Risk, Resource, and Protective Factors

Abstract: The current investigation examined the role of cumulative risk, family routines, maternal monitoring, mother-child relationship quality, and youth socioemotional competence in adjustment outcomes o...

Students’ Perceptions of School Safety:: Effects by Community, School Environment, and Substance Use Variables

Abstract: An important element of the context in which children are educated is the safety in their schools. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships among student perceptions of community safety, school environment, substance use, and school safety with a total of 3,092 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Data were used from the School Safety and Discipline component of the National Household Education Survey. Path analyses provided evidence that the strongest predictors of student perceptions of safety and substance use in school were perceived safety in the school relative to their neighborhood, community safety, and school climate. We also found that actions taken by the school to enhance school safety were the weakest predictor of student perceptions of school safety and substance use. These findings offer implications for the initiatives to be taken by schools and the community to improve school safety.

The Generalizability of Substance Use Predictors Across Racial Groups

Abstract: Few studies have examined the predictors of substance use for ethnic minority adolescents. The current longitudinal study investigated whether factors predictive of substance use for Caucasian adolescents were also predictive for African American adolescents. Results indicated which predictors of substance use actually differ across African American and Caucasian adolescents (i.e., sensation seeking, peer substance use, and peer pressure resistance) and how they are different when race is crossed with gender. The current findings highlight the need for additional research on the similarities and differences in predictors of substance use across race. Directions for further research are provided including some discussion about contextual and cultural variables researchers might explore.

Predictors of Maternal and Early Adolescent Attitudes Toward Children’s Nurturance and Self-Determination Rights:

Abstract: Children’s rights to nurturance and self-determination have been included in social policy agendas for many years. Children’s and parents’ attitudes concerning children’s rights are likely an important determinant of whether rights on paper actually serve to protect the well-being of children, yet there is little research on factors associated with support for children’s rights. This study examined maternal (parenting style, sociopolitical attitudes) and child (emotional autonomy, role in family decision making) characteristics associated with attitudes toward children’s nurturance and self-determination rights. Maternal responsiveness was related to child support for both nurturance and self-determination rights and maternal endorsement of self-determination, whereas demandingness was negatively related to support for self-determination and children’s involvement in family decision making. Maternal conservatism was negatively related to mothers’ support for nurturance and self-determination rights. Suppo...

Guns, Gangs, and Gossip An Analysis of Student Essays on Youth Violence:

Abstract: Youth violence is an important public health problem, but few researchers have studied violence from youth’s perspectives. Middle school students’ essays about the causes of youth violence were ana...

Adolescent Ego-Development Trajectories and Young Adult Relationship Outcomes

Abstract: Adolescent ego-development trajectories were related to close-relationship outcomes in young adulthood. An adolescent sample completed annual measures of ego development from ages 14 through 17. The authors theoretically determined and empirically traced five ego-development trajectories reflecting stability or change. At age 25, the sample completed a close-relationship interview and consented for two peers to rate the participants'ego resiliency and hostility. Participants who followed the profound-arrest trajectory in adolescence reported more mundane sharing of experiences, more impulsive or egocentric conflict-resolution tactics, and less mature interpersonal understanding in their young adult relationships, and their young adult peers described these participants as more hostile. Participants who attained or maintained higher levels of ego development in adolescence reported more complex sharing of experiences, more collaborative conflict-resolution strategies, and greater interpersonal understanding, and their young adult peers rated them as less hostile and as more flexible.

Theory Development and Evaluation of Project WIN A Violence Reduction Program for Early Adolescents

Abstract: There is a need for an effective violence reduction program for early adolescents in schools. Social psychologists have had success teaching adolescents integrative negotiation strategies that help them to resolve potentially violent conflicts. The caveat is that these strategies are effective only in cooperative social contexts and backfire in competitive social contexts. To develop an effective violence reduction program, we must not only teach young people skills of integrated negotiation; we must also present complementary strategies to help them transform competitive social contexts into cooperative social contexts. The purpose of this study was to present a violence reduction program, entitled Project WIN (Working out Integrated Negotiations), which accomplished both of these goals. The target group was fifth-graders in a low-income, urban community. Plans for further evaluation of Project WIN and greater investment of educators and researchers in the behavioral technology of violence reduction are ...

Accessing Adolescents A School-Recruited, Home-Based Approach to Conducting Media and Health Research

Abstract: This article describes a protocol that was effective in collecting media-use pattern and sensitive health data from young adolescents. Students from three public school districts in the southeastern United States were recruited to participate in a study of the impact of the media on adolescents’ sexual health. Using a 34-page mailed survey, extensive media-use pattern data were gathered from 3,261 7th and 8th graders (a 65% response rate) after students were recruited in schools and parents mailed back consent forms. The media sample included responses from a large number of Black teens and males, subgroups that have been understudied in media research. A subsample of students who completed the media questionnaire was then recruited to participate in a 45-minute audio computer-assisted self-interview in-home health and sexuality interview. A random sample of 1,074 adolescents (a 90% response rate), stratified into equal Black and White male and female strata, completed the health survey. Both the media and the health samples were representative of the entire school population from which the samples were drawn. Strategies that were effective in recruiting respondents are discussed.

A Comparison of Teacher-Rated and Self-Reported Threats of Interpersonal Violence

Abstract: The association between teachers’ identification of children who use threats and children’s self-identification as threateners was explored. The role of age, gender, and various student characteristics in influencing teachers’ identification of threateners was examined. Participants were 3,201 children in Grades 3 through 6. Results indicated significant but low associations between teacher and child self-reports of threatening behavior. Although there was agreement among the majority (67%) of students, teacher and self-reports diverged for a significant number of students (33%), thereby revealing the unique perspectives each brings to the task of documenting verbal threats. Concordance rates between teacher identification and children self-reports of threatening behavior were lower for students with higher levels of aggression and peer rejection. Implications for schools are discussed.

Investigation of stressful experiences, self-evaluations, and self-standards as predictors of sexual activity during early adolescence

Abstract: Stressful experiences, self-evaluations, and self-standards associated with multiple contexts of development (ie, school, family, sports/athletics) were investigated as predictors of initiation o

Teen Mothers Parenting their Own Teen Offspring The Moderating Role of Parenting Support

Abstract: This study investigated whether parenting support moderated relations between age of mother at childbirth and parental responsiveness and monitoring. The sample included 212 African American families living in urban public housing; Offspring were entering adolescence when data were collected. Parenting support was measured by assessing the perceived assistance mothers received with parenting tasks. Child maternal and observer reports of maternal responsiveness and child and maternal reports of monitoring were used to measure parenting behaviors. Multigroup structural equation modeling was employed to examine the hypotheses. Results indicated that parenting support moderated the association between age of mother at childbirth and monitoring. Specifically the younger a mother is when she has her child the less she monitors her child but only if she perceives that she is receiving little parenting support. Among mothers who reported higher levels of parenting support no relationship existed between age of mother and monitoring behavior. (authors)

Honoring the Thornburgs Pursuing Policy-Relevant Research

Abstract: Hershel and Ellen Thornburg left a strong legacy to the field of adolescent research, especially through their pioneering work identifying early adolescence as worthy of special focus and through the links they made among research, practice, and policy. This article honors their legacy by pointing to areas of progress in research, needed progress in policy and practice, and future research priorities. Improved communication with policy makers and practitioners can lead to more effective research questions. Also needed is increased scientific rigor to provide answers to pressing societal questions.

A Comparison of Premenarcheal Expectations and Postmenarcheal Experiences in Chinese Early Adolescents

Abstract: The present study examined Chinese early adolescents’ expectations and experiences of their first menstruation. It included 952 participants 476 premenarcheal and 476 postmenarcheal girls matched by age and by grade level. Results showed that compared to experiences of postmenarcheal girls premenarcheal girls anticipated more negative emotional responses and more severe menstrual symptoms at menarche. Premenarcheal and postmenarcheal girls did not differ in levels of self-esteem gender-role identity perceived physical attractiveness and positive emotions to menarche. Compared to those who had their first menstruation on time or later adolescent girls who reported an early onset of menarche reported more severe menstrual symptoms. However the timing of menarche was unrelated to postmenarcheal girls’ levels of self-esteem gender-role identity perceived physical attractiveness and emotional experiences of menarche. (authors)