Test 2: Chapters 4-7

Uses and gratification approach

A perspective on media use that emphasizes the active role users play in selecting the media to which they are exposed

Media practice model

A perspective on media use that emphasizes the fact that adolescents not only choose what media they are exposed to but also interpret the media in ways that shape their impact

Cultivation theory

A perspective on media use that emphasizes the impact media exposure has on individuals

Foster care

A placement in a temporary living arrangement when a child's parents are not able to provide care, nurturance, or safety

Generational dissonance

Divergence of views between adolescents and parents that is common in families of immigrant parents and American-born adolescents

Crowds

Large, loosely organized groups of young people, composed of several cliques and typically organized around a common shared activity

Remarriage

Majority of youth whose parents remarry will experience a second divorce Because divorces generally occur faster in remarriages - one-fourth happen within 5 years - many children confront a second divorce before they have finished adapting to having a stepparent

Changes in peer groups during adolescence

Peer groups are an important feature of the social world of childhood Even though peer groups exist well before adolescence, during the teenage years they change in significant and structure

Correlation

The extent to which two things vary systematically with each other

Dyscalculia

Impaired ability in arithmetic

Dysgraphia

Impaired ability in handwriting

Dyslexia

Impaired ability in reading or spelling

Schools vouchers

Government-subsidized vouchers that can be used for private school tuition

Adolescent development and the internet

Many parents are concerned that the large amount of time that teenagers spend on the internet has had a negative effect on their social development and relationships Some worry that electronic interactions have replaced face-to-face ones, to the detriment of the development of social skills Others worry that adolescents are forming relationships with strangers and that these may take time away from intimacy with "real" friends Many adolescents suffer from sleep difficulties as a result of their late-night media use The amount of time adolescents spend watching tv and playing video games is inversely linked to the amount of time they spend in physical activity Health experts are concerned that the vast amounts of time teenagers spend on the internet is sedentary, which is associated with obesity, high BP, and other indicators of poor health Some of the time adolescents spend on the internet displaces physical activity, a fair amount simply replaces time that would have been spent watching tv, which is also correlated with obesity The ultimate value of the internet as an educational tool depends on the quality and content of the information conveyed Internet devoted to self-injurious behavior, like cutting, can provide valuable social support to adolescents who compulsively injure themselves, others encourage the behavior and provide instructions on various cutting techniques Social communication on the internet, like social communication face-to-face or over the phone, creates both positive and negative experiences Using a social network site does not seem to amount to all that much more than finding an efficient way to stay in touch with friends Although adolescents' media use can cut into time with their family, many families report that shared media use brings them closer Shared media viewing plays a role in many families' rituals (e.g., watching the same shows or movies together on holidays) Internet addiction is defined by 6 symptoms: salience (being online is the most important thing in life), mood change (one's mood fluctuates as a function of internet experiences), tolerance (needing more and more internet time to feel satisfied), withdrawal (experiencing negative feelings when prevented from being online), conflict (the internet has caused problems in one's relationships or some other aspect of life), and relapse and reinstatement (returning to addictive internet behavior after getting it under control Frequent instant messaging, especially with acquaintances who are not close friends, can become compulsive and lead to feelings of depression Some evidence that compulsive internet users are more introverted, less agreeable, and less emotionally stable Impact of social media on adolescents' moods depends on what they learn when they check their accounts: when adolescents seek and find social support, they feel better; when they seek it but don't get it, they feel worse Communicating over the internet with friends may be especially important for socially anxious adolescents, who may find it easier to interact online than in person The internet can help strengthen adolescents' close relationships if it is used to communicate with one's existing friends (and in this sense, using the internet to stay in touch is probably not all that different from spending time with one's friends on the phone), but has the potential to weaken friendships if it occupies the adolescent in activities that aren't shared, or cause adolescents to stress out if it leads friend to ruminate about their problems with each other Evidence suggests that adolescents with relatively more psychological problems and poorer family relationships are more likely than their peers to form close online relationships with strangers, but we do not know whether having these sorts of online relationships leads to or follows from maladjustment Despite the considerable media attention given to the topic, evidence linking psychological problems to excessive internet use is inconsistent, with some studies linking high internet use to insomnia, depression, social isolation, and missed school, but others finding no such effects

Gangs

Organized peer groups of antisocial individuals

Routine activity theory

"The less structured an activity, the more likely a person is to encounter opportunities for problem behavior in the simple sense that he or she is not occupied doing something else" It is hardly surprising that unstructured peer activity without adult supervision is associated with all sorts of problems - depression, delinquency, drug and alcohol use, violence, and precocious sexual activity Even something as positive sounding as spending time at a community recreation center can increase adolescents' problem behavior if their time is unstructured and minimally supervised Adolescents who spend 5 or more evenings out in an average week are at least 4 times more likely to be involved in antisocial activity than those who go out less than 2 times a week

Routine activity theory

A perspective on adolescence that views unstructured, unsupervised time with peers as a main cause of misbehavior

Family systems theory

A perspective on family functioning that emphasizes interconnections among different family relationships (such as marital, parent-child, sibling)

Divorce

40% of all first marriages end in divorce Because most divorces occur early in a marriage, adolescents are more likely than children to grow up in a divorced family than to actually experience their parents' divorce. It is important to keep in mine, however, that the divorce rate varies considerably among people with different levels of education - divorce is much less common among college graduate and non graduates

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

A biologically based psychological disorder characterized by impulsivity, inattentiveness, and restlessness, often in school situations

Learning disability

A difficulty with academic tasks that cannot be traced to an emotional problem or sensory dysfunction

Internet addiction

A disorder in which an individual's use of the internet is pathological, defined by six symptoms: salience, mood change, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse and reinstatement

Zero tolerance

A get-tough approach to adolescent misbehavior that responds seriously or excessively to the first infraction

Reference groups

A group against which an individual compares him or herself

Experience sampling method (ESM)

A method of collecting data about adolescents' emotional states, in which individuals are paged and asked to report on their mood and activity

Involvement in antisocial activity

A number of studies, involving both boys and girls from different ethnic groups, indicate that antisocial, aggressive adolescents often gravitate toward each other, forming deviant peer groups Friends tend to be antisocial as well Although adolescents with deviant friends show some of the same emotional problems as adolescent without friends, even those with deviant friends are less lonely than their friendless peers Adolescents with more antisocial friends are more likely to engage in antisocial activity, but some adolescents have personalities that make them especially susceptible to the influence of antisocial peers Gangs are antisocial peer groups that can be identified by name (often denoting a neighborhood or part of the city) and common symbols ("colors," tattoos, hand signs, jewelry, etc.) Adolescents who belong to gangs are at greater risk for many types of problems in addition to antisocial behavior, including elevated levels of psychological distress, impulsivity, psychopathic tendencies, exposure to violence, and violent victimization Adolescents who are gang members also are more likely to have behavioral and mental health problems in adulthood The relationships that antisocial adolescents have with their clique-mates are often less satisfying than are those between other adolescents and their friends

The 5 C's: Competence

A positive view of one's actions in domain-specific areas, including social, academic, cognitive, and vocational Social competence pertains to interpersonal skills (e.g., conflict resolution) Cognitive competence pertains to cognitive abilities (e.g. decision making School grades, attendance, and test scores are part of academic competence Vocational competence involves work habits and career choice explorations

Time after school

A prime time for unstructured and unsupervised leisure is during the afternoon on school days - after school has let out but before parents have returned home from work Delinquency is more common on weekday afternoons than at any other time While some youngsters whose parents are at work during the afternoon are involved in school- or community-based programs that provide adults supervision, others spend their after-school hours away from adults, in there homes, with friends, or simply hanging out in neighborhoods and shopping malls Most studies show that children in self-care do not differ from their peers when it comes to psychological development, school achievement, or self-conceptions Compared to young people who are supervised after school, those who aren't feel more socially isolated and depressed, and are more likely to have school problems, use drugs and alcohol, be involved in antisocial behavior, and be sexually active in earlier ages Adolescents who go straight home after school are far less likely to engage in problem behavior than are those who go to a friend's house or who just hang out Youngsters in self-care who are raised by authoritative parents and who are monitored by their parents from a distance - via telephone check-ins, for example - are no more susceptible to problem behavior than are children whose parents are home with them after school The harmful effects of low parental monitoring are especially bad in neighborhoods where other adults are unlikely to provide supervision if parents aren't around Self-care after school probably doesn't hold great benefits for youngsters and, under some conditions, may cause problems if adolescents' parents do not promote the development of responsible behavior when they are with their child

Common core

A proposed set of standards in language arts and mathematics that all American schools would be expected to use

Midlife crisis

A psychological crisis over identity believed to occur between the ages of 25 and 45, the age range of most adolescents' parents

The 5 C's: Caring/compassion

A sense of sympathy and empathy for others

Ethnography

A type of research in which individuals are observed in their natural settings

Viral marketing

A way of promoting products or services by encouraging individuals to pass information on to others

A time of reorganization and change

According to family systems theory, relationships in families change most dramatically during times when individual family members or the family's circumstances are changing, because it is during these times that the family's equilibrium often is upset One study of interactions between adolescent boys and their parents found that the peak time for this was around age 13 or 14; the researchers speculate that, because some of this transformation may be driven by puberty, in families with girls, this "disequilibrium" is more likely to occur earlier, around age 11 or 12 The specific concerns and issues characteristic of families at adolescence arise not just because of the changing needs and concerns of the young person but also because of changes in the adolescent's parents and in the needs and functions of the family But to fully understand family relationships during the adolescent years, we need to take into account characteristics of the adolescent's parents and of families at this stage as well

The problem of overcrowding

Achievement is lower in overcrowded schools because of stress on both students and teachers, the use of facilities for instruction that were not designed to serve as classrooms (such as gyms), and inadequate resources Many school districts use temporary structures, such as trailers, to provide additional classroom space

Relational aggression

Acts intended to harm another through the manipulation of his or her relationships with others, as in malicious gossip

Mass media and adolescent girls' body image

Adolescent girls who frequently read fashion magazines are more dissatisfied with their bodies than are girls who do not, and controlled experiments have indicated that showing girls images of thing models increases their body dissatisfaction Frequently reading magazine articles about dieting or weight loss leads to increases in unhealthy weight control behaviors, such as intentional vomiting and inappropriate use of laxatives Evidence that spending a lot of time on social networking sites can increase girls' body image concerns Although very few studies have examined the media's impact on males' body image, boys and men are more dissatisfied with their body after seeing advertising or music videos featuring muscular male models The same media that implicitly encourage adolescent girls to be thin and adolescent boys to be muscular devote considerable time and resources to encouraging adolescents to eat, and to eat unhealthy food

Orientation toward the teen culture

Adolescents and their friends generally listen to the same type of music, dress alike, spend their leisure time in similar types of activities, and share patterns of drug use In most high schools, it is fairly easy to see the split between cliques - in how people dress, where they eat lung, how much they participate in the school's activities, and how they spend their time outside of school Patterns of substance use is such a strong influence that it often serves as the basis for forming cross-ethnic group friendships, which, as we noted earlier, are not common

Orientation toward school

Adolescents and their friends tend to be similar in their attitudes toward school, their school achievement, and their educational plans, although this tends to be more true among white and Asian adolescents than among black adolescents How much time students devote to schoolwork affects their involvement in other activities Parents who stress achievement may insist that their teens only spend time with peers who do well in school Students' friendships are often drawn from the peers with whom they have classes, and if school track students on the basis of their academic achievement, their friends will be more likely to have similar records of school performance Someone who is always studying will not have many friends who stay out late partying, because the two activities conflict. When adolescents' academic performance change (for better or for worse), they tend to change their friendships in the same direction Students also influence each other's academic performance All the characteristics of friends that influence adolescents' behavior, their friends' school performance has the greatest impact, not only on their own academic achievement, but also on their involvement in problem behavior and drug use

Violence

Adolescents are also exposed to a great deal of violent imagery on tv, in movies, in certain music genres, and in video games Adolescents who spend a lot of time playing violent video games get into more fights and arguments than their peers, but it is difficult to know whether playing such games makes adolescents more hostile or impulsive, whether adolescents who are more aggressive and impulsive to begin with are simply more likely to want to play violent games, or both Although controlled experiments have shown that exposure to the lyrics of violent songs increases individuals' aggressive thoughts, many experts doubt that playing violent video games or listening to music with violent lyrics causes adolescents to engage in the sorts of serious violent acts that alarmists have raised concerns about, such as lethal school shootings One analysis indicated that the proliferation of violent video games has led to a drop in violent crime It is important to note, however, that other factors, such as experiences in the family or community, are likely far greater influences on adolescent violence than media exposure Although studies have found differences in brain anatomy between adolescents who report frequent exposure to television and movie violence and those who do not, it is not clear whether exposure to media violence causes brain changes or whether exposure to media violence causes brain changes or whether individuals with certain pattens of brain structure or function are more drawn to certain types of stimulation

Drugs

Adolescents are also exposed to alcohol and tobacco through films, which frequently depict actors smoking and drinking, a concern because teenagers are more likely to smoke if their favorite film star is a smoker Studies of exposure to ads for alcohol and tobacco as well as antismoking commercial messages, have shown that they are effective in changing teenagers' attitudes about drinking and smoking, both positively and negatively Although adolescents who report having seen ads for alcohol or tobacco are more likely to drink and smoke, this correlation could be due to the fact that people who use and enjoy a product are simply more likely to attend to depictions of that product being used and are therefore more likely to report having seen the ad or movie scene. (For instance, if you are shopping for a car, you are probably more likely to pay attention to car commercials) One problem in linking exposure to advertising and the use of alcohol or tobacco is that it is unethical to experimentally manipulate exposure in order to see whether increasing the number of ads adolescents see leads to an increase in their use of harmful substances

Adolescents and divorce

Adolescents from divorced homes have more difficulties than those form non divorced homes, the explanation for this fining is far more complicated than the conventional wisdom that "two parents are better than one" or "all children need a mother and a father"

Remarriage

Adolescents growing up in stepfamilies - especially if the remarriage occurred during early adolescence rather than childhood - often have more problems than their peers, a finding that holds regardless of whether the stepparents are legally married or cohabitating Youngsters growing up in single-parent homes are more likely than those in intact homes to be involved in delinquent activity, but adolescents in stepfamilies are even more at risk for this sort of problem behavior than are adolescents in single-parent families Exposed to a "double dose" of marital conflict - normal, everyday conflict between the parent and stepparent and additional conflict between ex-spouses - and because they are exposed to a new set of potentially difficult issues that arise from the blending of children from two different marriages Short-term effects of remarriage vary among children, although not necessarily in the same ways. In general, girls have not necessarily in the same ways. In general, girls have more difficulty in adjusting to remarriage, than boys, and older children have more difficulty than younger ones Both boys and younger children have more to gain from their mother's remarriage than do girls or older children, who may have become accustomed to having a single mother Gender differences in adjustment to remarriage disappear, and in remarriages that last more than 5 years, the adjustment of male and female children is similar Remarried parents and stepparents are less inclined than other parents to provide money to their children over the transition to adulthood

Adolescents and leisure

Adolescents in the US and other western countries spend nearly half their waking hours in leisure activities, such as socializing with friends, either in person, by phone, or electronically; watching television and listening to music; searching the internet and playing video games; playing sports, practicing a musical instrument, or working on hobbies; and sometimes not doing anything at all One important difference between leisure and other activities is that adolescents choose their leisure activities, whereas their time at school and work is dictated by others Adolescents report being in a better mood during leisure activities than during school or work Leisure activities that are both structured and voluntary - such as sports, hobbies, artistic activities, and clubs - provide special psychological benefits Although it would be possible to interview respondents at some later point and ask them to recall their moods at different points in the day, we can't be sure whether their recollections would be entirely accurate

Is there a separate youth culture?

Adolescents lived in a social world where academic success was frowned on, where doing well in school did not earn the admiration of peers, and where wealth, athletic ability (for boys), and good looks (for girls) mattered most Combination of physical attractiveness, athletic ability, and money was still associated with popularity. Academic success was valued, but an atmosphere of anti-intellectualism prevailed, and doing well in school clearly was not a pathway to popularity The world of adolescents usually reflects the broader context at that time

Rebels with a cause

Adolescents rarely rebel against their parents just for the sake of rebelling. In other words, rather than resisting all of their parents' attempts to make and enforce rules (the stereotype that many people have of teenagers), adolescents distinguish between rules they think their parents have a right to make (for instance, having to let their parents know what time they'll be home after going out) and rules that they think are out of bounds (for example, having to keep their bedroom orderly), a distinction that in many ways is quite understandable. Adolescents who see parents as having more legitimate authority have fewer behavior problems Adolescents who are less likely to believe that their parents have a right to know how they spend their time are more likely to conceal their activities form them Conflict between parents and children increases during early adolescence Adolescents come to see more and more issues they they previously saw as legitimate for their parents to regulate (for example, how late they can stay up on school nights) as matters of personal choice - a finding that has been replicated in numerous parts of the world, including North America, South America, and Asia, and among both white and black adolescents in the US Effects of feeling psychologically controlled by their parents, which has a negative impact on adolescents' mental health, are very different from the effects of feeling that their parents simply want to know where they do and what they do, which has a positive impact Adolescents who think their parents are over controlling are likely to become oppositional Snooping, as opposed to asking, is likely to lead to problems, as does close parental monitoring in the absence of a warm parent-adolescent relationship

Has the youth culture harmed adolescents?

Age segregation certainly has increased over the past 60 years, but society has changed in there ways during this same time - ways that may also have contributed to increases in such problems as crime and drug use Adolescents experience enormous pressures from parents, peers, and the mass media. More important, even though society has continued to become increasingly age segregated, the rates of many adolescent problem behaviors - crime and drug use are good examples - have fluctuated considerably over the past three decades No evidence that today's young people are more susceptible to the influence of their friends than their counterparts were previously, nor has it been shown that teenagers are any worse off because peer groups have some to play a more prominent role Some peers influence each other to use drugs and spend time partying rather than studying, but other peer groups discourage drug use and value academic achievement. Although peers continue to remain highly influential, the directions in which they influence each other are highly variable

The nature of sibling relationships in adolescence

Adolescents rate their sibling relationships similarly to those with their parents in companionship and importance, but more like friendships with respect to power, assistance, and their satisfaction with the relationship Young adolescents often have emotionally charged relationships with siblings that are marked by conflict and rivalry, but also by nurturance and support Children mature from childhood to early adolescence, sibling conflict increases, with adolescents reporting more negativity in their sibling relationships than in their relationships with peers and less effective conflict resolution than with their parents Adolescents see aggression toward siblings as more acceptable than aggression toward friends, which sometimes leads to behavior between siblings that is absolutely ruthless Adolescents' relationships with siblings, and especially younger siblings, become more egalitarian but also more distant and less emotionally intense, although patterns of change in sibling relationships differ between same-sex and mix-ed dyads IN same-sex dyads, intimacy increases between preadolescence and middle adolescence, and then declines somewhat. In mixed-sex dyads, the pattern is the opposite; intimacy drops between preadolescence and mid-adolescence, brothers and sisters are closer than are same-sex siblings, although both types of relationships become closer as individuals leave home and move into young adulthood Siblings who are relatively closer during middle childhood are relatively closer as adolescents

The dynamics of popularity

Adolescents who hang out with popular adolescents may themselves become perceived as more popular over time but they may also become less well-liked, because they are seen as snobby status-seekers, especially by their less popular peers The potential costs of being popular in adolescence is that if you become too popular, you face the very real possibility of being the object of other classmates' meanness Popular adolescents are more likely to have close and intimate friendships, have an active social life, take part in extracurricular activities, and receive more social recognition (such as being selected as leaders of school organizations) Having friends outside school can buffer the harmful consequences of having few friends in school

Students at the extremes

Adolescents with a learning disability are those whose actual performance is significantly poorer than their expected performance (based on intelligence or aptitude tests, for example) and whose difficulty with academic tasks cannot be traced to an emotional problem such as coping with a parental divorce, or a sensory dysfunction, such as a visual or hearing impairment Most learning disabilities are neurological in origin Common types of specific learning disabilities include dyslexia (impaired ability in reading or spelling), dysgraphia (impaired ability in handwriting), and dyscalculia (impaired ability in arithmetic) Rates of learning disabilities significantly more common among boys than girls Separate special educational programs can be tailored to meet the specific needs of students and can target educational and professional resources in a cost-effective way Segregating students on the basis of academic ability may foster social isolation and stigmatization - either for being "stupid" or for being a "brainiac" Educators favor mainstreaming over separate classrooms for adolescents with special needs Argue that the psychological costs of separating adolescents with special academic needs from their peers outweigh the potential academic benefits Those who are integrated into regular classrooms have more positive academic self-conceptions than those assigned to special classes, and that these effects persist even after graduating One downside to being placed with students of high academic ability is that when students compare themselves to their high-achieving classmates, they don't feel as competent as they would if their point of comparison were students who were not so smart Students who participate in summer programs for the academically talented don't seem to suffer psychologically as a consequence High-ability students who attend schools where the student body is more diverse also have higher career aspirations, in part because they feel better about themselves in comparison to their peers Although high-ability students who attend schools with peers who are less talented feel better about themselves, they may actually learn less

Stability of adolescent friendships

Adolescents' cliques show only moderate stability over the course of the school year - with some members staying in the clique, others leaving, and new ones joining - although cliques become more stable alter in high school Even though some members of an adolescent's clique may leave and be replaced by others, the new members are likely to have attitudes and values that are quite similar to the former members' Instability is also the cause in best friendships in which adolescents name each other as their best friend Remaining friends over the course of a school year has nothing to do with the quality of the friendship Same-sex friendships tend to be more stable than opposite-sex friendships, and boys' friendships trend to be more stable than girls' Friendship stability is higher among well-adjusted adolescents than their more troubled peers, although it isn't clear whether this is because stability contributes to adjustment, because better-adjusted adolescents are better at maintaining friendships, or most likely, a combination of both Most common causes of broken friendships are jealousy, incompatibility, violations of intimacy, and aggression

Violations of expectations

Adolescents' cognitive abilities and how these changes may reverberate throughout he family Changes in the ways adolescents view family rules and regulations may contribute to increased conflict between them and their parents Early adolescence is also a time of changes in youngsters' views of family relationships and in family members' expectations of each other When questioned about whether adolescents were expected to disclose secrets to their parents, for example, adolescents' expectations for secrecy were such greater than parents'

Adolescents and adoption

Adopted individuals show relatively higher rates of delinquency, substance use, precocious sexual activity, psychological difficulties, and poorer school performance, but the magnitude of the difference between adopted and non adopted adolescents in small, especially when other factors, like family resources or pubertal timing, are taken into account Good deal of variability among adopted adolescents in their adjustment and in their feelings about being adopted. Adopted adolescents who are preoccupied with having been adopted are relatively more alienated from and mistrustful of their adoptive parents

Do adolescents inhabit a separate world?

Age segregation has so strengthened the power of the peer group that American adolescents have become alienated from and unfamiliar with the values of adults Problems such as youth unemployment, teenage suicide, juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol use, and teen pregnancy can be attributed to the rise of peer groups and the isolation of adolescents from adults All these problems have increased dramatically since the 1940s, as peer groups have become more prominent and age segregation has become more prevalent Their argument is that the increase in adolescents' problems can be directly linked to the rise in the power of adolescent peer groups

Instrumental aggression

Aggressive behavior that is deliberate and planned

Reactive aggression

Aggressive behavior that is unplanned and impulsive

The effect of divorce is small in magnitude

Although divorce clearly diminishes youngsters' well-being, the impact of divorce itself is small Although there are differences between children from divorced and non divorced homes in school achievement, behavior problems, psychosocial adjustment, and family relations - all favoring individuals from non divorced homes - the differences are seldom substantial Effects of divorce tend to be stronger among school-aged individuals than preschoolers or college students Effects of divorce are smaller among youngsters form the US than from other countries Divorce is more common in the US, and American children from divorced homes are less likely to be stigmatized and more likely to have access to psychological services, such as counseling

Family relationships at adolescence

Although it is incorrect to characterize adolescence as a time of high conflict in most families, it is important to keep in mind that adolescence is nevertheless a period of change and reorganization in family relationships and daily interactions. As they develop, adolescents spend increasingly less time in family activities, especially in activities with the family as a group

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Although it is not technically a learning disability, adolescents who have ADHD frequently have academic difficulties that can be traced to this problem ADHD is defined by persistent and impairing symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and/or hyperactivity, although the defining feature of ADHD in adolescence (as opposed to childhood) is generally inattention, rather than impulsivity or hyperactivity One reason the prevalence of ADHD declines with age is that some individuals develop better attention and impulse control as they mature from childhood into adolescence and adulthood Individuals with ADHD are also at risk for a wide range of non scholastic problems, including substances abuse, difficulties in delay of gratification, anxiety, problematic peer relations, obesity, and depression. ADHD also is present in many cases of serious juvenile delinquency ADHD is a biological disorder with a strong genetic component It can be caused by damage to the brain either prenatally (sometimes caused by maternal smoking or drinking during pregnancy) or shortly after birth (as the result of birth complications or low birth weight) Interestingly, individuals who do not have ADHD, but who are more hyperactive and impulsive than their peers, show patterns of brain development that are somewhere between those seen in adolescents with ADHD and adolescents who have very good impulse control, which suggests that ADHD may be an extreme point on a continuum rather than a qualitatively distinct category

Age segregation

Although many adolescents have friends who are one school grade ahead or behind, age grouping in junior and senior high schools makes it unlikely that an individual will have friends who are substantially older or younger Age segregation in adolescents' cliques appears to result mostly from the structure of schools. By way of comparison, adolescents' online friends are less similar in age than the friends they make in school

Adaption to divorce

Although many young people show signs of difficulty immediately after their parents split up - problems in school, behavior problems, and increased anxiety - two years later, the majority have adjusted to the change and behave comparably to teens whose biological parents have remained married Although adolescents whose parents have divorced have more problems than those whose parents remain married, the vast majority of individuals with divorced parents do not have significant problems

Popularity and aggression

Although psychologists used to believe that aggressive and antisocial adolescents are likely to be rejected by their classmates, it turns out that some of these teenagers are quite popular, although their popularity tends to wane as adolescents get older and antisocial behavior is not longer something that teenagers admire Not aggression alone, but the combination of aggression and difficulty controlling emotions or a lack of social skills that leas to problems with peers Aggressive adolescents who use their aggression strategically - what is referred to as instrumental aggression - are much more popular than aggressive adolescents whose aggression is unplanned - what is referred to as reactive aggression Important to distinguish between aggression, which may increase adolescents' popularity, and delinquency, which tends to diminish it

"Mean girls"

Although relational aggression was first noticed in observations of girls, studies show that both genders employ it, but that girls are more aware of it, more distressed by it, and more often the victims of it Girls are more likely than boys to say that it is morally wrong to exclude someone simply on the basis of the crowd to which he or she belongs Adolescents who use relational aggression often are more popular than their peers The reason some physically aggressive boys are often more popular than their peers is that physical aggression, that contributes to their popularity Many programs designed to reduce relational aggression may be ineffective because adolescents are reluctant to stop doing something that maintains their popularity, or even improved their friendships, even it it is at the expense of someone else

Genetic influences

Although some of the apparent effects of parental divorce are the result of exposure to such stressors as marital conflict or disorganized parenting, genetic differences between adolescents whose parents have divorced and those whose parents have not may account for part of this Adults who divorce are different from those who do not with respect to many traits that have strong genetic origins - such as predispositions to different sorts of emotional and behavioral problems, like depression or substance abuse - and these traits are passed on from parents to children One reason adolescents from divorced homes have more problems than their peers is that they have inherited form their divorced parents some of the same traits that may have influenced their parents' decision to get divorced in the first place

Youth unemployment

Although the employment of teenagers has become commonplace in contemporary America, some young people who wish to work are unable to find jobs Except for summer months, youth unemployment is not a pervasive problem, once the proportion of young people who are in school is taken into account Unemployment is especially likely among adolescents who have dropped out of high school The unemployment rate among recent high school graduates who have not gone on to college is not all that different from that of high school dropouts (in 2014, 29% of recent high school graduates who were not in college were unemployed, compared with 30% of high school dropouts) The high rate of unemployment among high school graduates who do not go to college is a recent phenomenon Success in the labor force increasingly requires at least some college education, if not a college degree

Adolescents with lesbian or gay parents

Although the right of same-sex couples to legally marry is not guaranteed under US law, in many states a parent's sexual orientation may be a consideration in adoption, custody, and parental visitation decisions, in part because of concerns about the impact of living with a lesbian or gay parent No evidence whatsoever that children or adolescents with lesbian or gay parents are psychologically different from those with straight parents, a finding that has now been replicated numerous times, across many different domains of psychological development, including gender identity and sexual orientation

Patterns of time use in contemporary America

Among both girls and boys, there was a significant decline in the proportion of time devoted to leisure; time devoted to housework also dropped among boys, but not among girls Both girls and boys spend a huge amount of free time in passive activities, like watching tv, talking on the phone, relaxing Only about 30 minutes a day are spent in activities thought to be mentally challenging, such as reading or playing a musical instrument, or physically beneficial (also about 30 mins a day), such as sports or exercise Although the study found that adolescents' time use patterns changed a but with age (as adolescents got older, they were more likely to spend at least some of their free time in a paid job), teenagers who were busy 9th grades were likely to be busy throughout high school Adolescents' free time is not best thought of as a "zero sum" phenomenon, where involvement in one activity displaces involvement in one activity displaces involvement in another. Rather, there are well-rounded adolescents who have substantial time commitments across many different activities, adolescents who tend to focus on one type of activity (usually sports), and adolescents who don't do much of anything outside of school Relatively busier adolescents are better adjusted and more accomplished than their classmates, but whether their better adjustment is a cause or consequence of their busy schedules isn't clear

Comprehensive high school

An educational institution that evolved during the first half of the twentieth century, offering a varied curriculum and designed to meet the needs to a diverse population of adolescents

The 5 C's: Confidence

An internal sense of overall positive self-worth and self-efficacy; one's global self-regard, as opposed to domain-specific beliefs

Familism

An orientation toward life in which the needs of one's family take precedence over the needs of the individual

Poverty

Approximately 20% of all adolescents in the US grow up in abject poverty, and an additional 40% grow up in low-income families Gap between the very poor and the very deathly is at an all-time high Poverty is much more likely to touch the lives of non-white adolescents; approximately 35% of black and 30% of hispanic children grow up in poverty. One reason for the large disparity in poverty rates between white and non-white children is the racial disparity rates of single parenthood: because non-white children are more likely to be raised in single parent homes, they are more likely to be poor Although increases in adolescents' problems between 1950 and 1980- as indexed by such indicators as drug use, suicide, and poor schools achievement, for example - occurred alongside many of these shifts in family life, it is difficult to say that the family changes caused the changes in adolescent behavior One group of young people whose psychological and behavioral profile has improved most markedly in the past 25 years - poor, minority youngsters - experienced the most dramatic "decline" in family life during this time Because the conditions under which divorce, single parenthood, and remarriage take place vary tremendously from family to family, it is hard to generalize about their effects Divorce may be a welcome end to family conflict and tension; for others, it may be extremely disruptive Adolescents whose biological parents are cohabiting have a rate of antisocial behavior that is 40% higher than those whose biological parents are married and a rate of antisocial behavior that is about the same adolescents who live in households with a biological mother and no other adult. Adolescents from "intact" families who live with both biological parents in families where one or both of the parents has a child from a prior marriage generally have a fairly high rate of problems, despite their living with both biological parents Variation within different family structures are likely to be more important than the differences among them

How romance changes the peer group

As boys and girls become more interested in one another romantically - but before romantic relationships actually begin - boys' and girls' cliques come together Boys and girls may go to parties or hang out, but the time they spend together mainly involves interaction with peers of the same sex As some adolescents become interested in romantic relationships, part of the group begins to split off into mixed-sex cliques, while other individuals remain in the group but in same-sex cliques. This shift is usually led by the clique leaders, with other clique members following along During middle adolescence, mixed-sex and mixed-age cliques become more prevalent, and in time, the peer group becomes composed entirely of mixed-sex cliques During late adolescence, peer crowds being to disintegrate. Pairs of adolescents who see themselves as couples being to split off from the activities of the larger group. The larger peer group is replaced by loosely associated sets of couples. Adolescents begin to shift some of their attention away from friends and toward romantic partners This passten - in which the couple becomes the focus of social activity - persists into adulthood The adolescent's capacity for close relationships develops first through friendships with peers of the same sex, and only later does intimacy enter into other-sex relationships. After adolescents have been slowly socialized into dating roles - primarily by modeling their higher-status peers - that the safety of numbers is no longer needed and adolescents being pairing off

Four parenting styles

Authoritarian Authoritative Indifferent Indulgent

Ethnic differences in parenting practices

Authoritative parenting is less prevalent among black, Asian, or Hispanic families than among white families, because parenting practices are often linked to cultural values and beliefs Even though authoritative parenting is less common in ethnic minority families, its effects on adolescent adjustment are beneficial in all ethnic groups. In other words, ethnic minority youngsters benefit from parenting that is responsive and demanding just as their non minority peers do Ethnic minority parents are also more demanding than white parents, even after taking ethnic differences in socioeconomic status into account, an approach exemplified by a type of parent described as a "tiger mother" Ethnic minority families are more likely to live in dangerous communities, authoritarian parenting, which its emphasis on control, may not be as harmful and may even offer some benefits

How authoritative parenting works

Authoritative parents provide an appropriate balance between restrictiveness and autonomy, giving adolescent opportunities to develop self-reliance while providing the standards, limits, and guidelines that teenagers still need More likely to give children more independence gradually as they get older, which helps children develop self-reliance and self-assurance Authoritative parenting promotes the development of adolescents' competence and enhances their ability to withstand a variety of potentially negative influences, including stress and exposure to antisocial peers More likely to engage their children in verbal give-and-take, they are likely to promote the sort of intellectual development that provides an important foundation for the development of psychosocial maturity Less likely than other parents to assert their authority by turning adolescents' personal decisions (such as over what type of music they listen to) into moral issues Family discussion in which decisions, rules, and expectations are explained help the child understand social systems and social relationships. This understanding plays an important role in the development of reasoning, abilities, theory of mind, moral judgement, and empathy Based on a warm parent-child relationship, adolescents are more likely to identify with, admire, and form strong attachments to their parents, which makes them more open to their parents' influence Regular family meals appears to have a strong protective effect, although it is the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship, rather than the frequency with which families eat together, that matters Child's own behavior, temperament and personality shape parenting practices Children who are responsible, self-directed, curious, and self-assured elicit warmth, flexible guidance, and verbal give-and-take Although parental monitoring does deter adolescent problem behavior, some of what often appears to be effective parental monitoring may actually be the end result of a warm parent-adolescent relationship in which the adolescent willingly discloses information The relationship between adolescent competence and authoritative parenting may be the result of reciprocal cycle in which the child's psychosocial maturity leads to authoritative parenting, which in turn, leads to the further development of maturity

The adolescent's parents at midlife

Because people typically have their first child around age 30, most parents are in their early 40s when he first child enters early adolescence. This age can be a potentially difficult time for many adults, whether they have children or not. Some theorists have gone so far as to describe it as a time of midlife crisis.

The social organization of schools

Because the organization of a school affects students' day-to-day experiences, variations in school organization can have profound effects on adolescents' development and behavior Five key aspects of school organization: (1) school and classroom, (2) different approaches to age grouping, (3) tracking,, or the grouping of students in classes according to their academic abilities, (4) the ethnic composition of schools, (5) public versus private schools

Behavioral genetics and adolescent development

Behavioral genetics have provided new insights into this issue, as well as a host of others concerning the joint impact of genes and the environment on development Issue in three main ways: (1) studying adolescents who are twins, to see whether identical twins, to see whether identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins (2) studying adolescents are more like their biological parents than like their adoptive parents (3) studying adolescents and their siblings in stepfamilies, to see whether similarity between siblings varies with their biological relatedness Addition to examining whether and how much given traits are genetically versus environmentally determined, researchers also ask how these two sets of factors interact (for example, whether the same environment affects people with different genetic makeups in different ways, or whether people with different genetic makeup evoke different reactions from others

Consequences of rejection

Being unpopular has negative consequences for adolescents' mental health and psychological development - peer rejection and friendliness are associated with subsequent depression, behavior problems, and academic difficulties Aggressive individuals who are rejected are at risk for conduct problems and involvement in antisocial activity as adolescents, not just as a direct result of their rejection, but because the underlying causes of their aggression (for instance, poor self-control) also contribute to later conduct problems Withdrawn children who are rejected are likely to feel lonely and are at risk for low self-esteem, depression, and diminished social competence - again, both as a result of being rejected and in part because the underlying causes of their timidity (for instance, high anxiety) also contribute to later emotional problems Rejection is especially likely to lead to depression in adolescents who place a lot of importance on their standing in the peer group and who believe that they, rather than the peers who reject them, are at fault Adolescents who are both aggressive and withdrawn are at the greatest risk of all Unpopular aggressive children are more likely than their peers to think that other children's behavior is deliberately hostile, even when its not Hostile attributional bias plays a central role in the aggressive behavior of rejected adolescence Adolescents who are prone to make hostile attributions tend to have friends who view the world through a similar lens

Cyberbullying

Bullying that occurs over the internet or via cell phones

What causes peer groups to change?

Changes in the peer relations have their origins in the biological, cognitive, and social transitions of adolescence. Puberty stimulates adolescents' interest in romantic relationships and distances them from their parents, which helps to explain why adolescents' social networks increasingly include more other-sex peers and fewer adults The cognitive changes of adolescence permit a more sophisticated understanding of social relationships, which allows the sort of abstract categorization that leads to grouping individuals into crowds Changes in social definition may stimulate changes in peer relations as a sort of adaptive response: the larger, more anonymous social setting of the secondary school forces adolescents to seek out individuals whom they perceive as having common interests and values, perhaps as a way of re-creating the smaller, more intimate groups of childhood

Changes in crowds

Changes reflect the growing cognitive sophistication of the adolescent As adolescents mature intellectually, they come to define crowds more in terms of abstract, global characteristics ("preppies," "nerds," "jocks") than in terms of concrete, behavioral features ("the ballet crowd," "the mass effect crowd," "the kids who play basketball on 114th street") As adolescents become more cognitively capable, they become more consciously aware of the crowd structure of their school and their place in it Over the course of adolescence, the crowd structure also becomes more consciously aware of the crowd structure of their school and their place in it. Over the course of adolescence, the crowd structure also becomes more differentiated, more permeable, and less hierarchical, which allows adolescents more freedom to change crowds and enhance their status

Cliques and crowds

Cliques can be defined by common activities (e.g., the football players, or a group of students who study together regularly), or simply by friendship (e.g., a group of girls who have lunch together every day, or a group of boys who have grown up together). The clique provides the main social context in which adolescents interact with one another. It's the social setting in which adolescents hang out, talk to each other, and form close friendships. Virtually all cliques are small enough that the members feel they know each other well and appreciate each other more than people outside the clique do

Adolescent and their cliques

Cliques serve as a basis for adolescents' friendships and play an important role in their social development, many researcher have studied the determinants of clique composition

Sibling rivalry

Competition between siblings, often for parental attention

No child left behind

Concerns that inner-city schools were not producing graduates who could compete for high-skills jobs In response to a public increasingly interested in alternatives to conventional public education, such as charter schools or home schooling, schools were called upon to raise standards for all students No Child Left Behind Act, a sweeping and controversial piece of legislation mandating that states ensure that all students, regardless of their economic circumstances, achieve academic proficiency No Child Left Behind (NCLB) required that schools create and enforce academic standards by annually testing all students and by reporting the results of students' performance to the public One or the problems with NCLB as originally implemented is that it permitted individual states to set their own standards, which resulted in markedly different estimates of "proficiency" from one state to another As new research began to demonstrate the importance of having high-quality teachers, schools were encouraged to develop better ways of evaluating their teachers, helping teachers improve their classroom skills, and replacing poor teachers with better ones

Crowd membership and adolescent identity

Crowd membership is important not only because crowds are used by adolescents when talking about one another but also because membership in a crowd is often the basis for an adolescent's own identity Because the adolescent's peer group plays such an important role as a reference group and a source of identity, the nature of the growth with which an adolescent affiliated is likely to have an important influence on his or her behavior, activities, and self-conceptions Although most adolescents feel pressure from their friends to behave in ways that are consistent with their crowd's values and goals, the specific pressure varies from one crowd to another Crowd membership can also affect the way adolescents feel about themselves. Adolescents' self-esteem is higher among students who are identified with peer groups that have relatively more status in their school Adolescents whose peers identify them as members of low-status crowds fare better psychologically when they don't see themselves this way, but the opposite is true for adolescencts whose peers label them as members of high-status crowds, where denying one's affiliation with the crowd is associated with worse mental health Young-adult outcomes of high school crowd membership found that both "brains" and "jocks" showed the most favorable patterns of psychological adjustment over time. Individuals who had been members of antisocial peer groups fared the worst Adolescents often imitate the behavior of high-status peers - the crowd leaders. Crowds establish social norms - values and expectations - that members strive to follow. When crowd members behave in ways that are consistent with these norms, they are reinforced for doing so Adolescents are reinforced for following a crowd's norms, they feel better about themselves and further incorporate their crowd membership into their identity

How adolescents sort into crowds

Crowds are based on "the identification of adolescents who share a similar image or reputation among peers, or who have a common feature such as ethnicity or neighborhood, even it they do not consider each other friends or spend much time interacting with each other" In contemporary American high schools, typical crowds include "jocks," "brains," "nerds," "populars," and druggies." Unlike cliques, crowds are not setting for adolescents' intimate interactions or friendships, but instead serve 3 broad purposes: to locate adolescents (to themselves and to others) within the social structure of the school, to channel adolescents toward some peers and away from others, and to provide contexts that reward certain lifestyles and disparage others Key point is that membership in a crowd is based mainly on reputation and stereotype, rather than on actual friendship or social interaction An adolescent does not have to actually have "brains" as friends, or hand around with "brainy" students, to be one of the "brains." If he dresses like a "brain," acts like a "brain," and takes honors courses then he is a "brain" as far as his crowd membership goes Some individuals can be members of more than one crowd simultaneously, it their reputation is such that they fit into them Because crowds are based more on reputation and stereotype than on interaction, they probably contribute more to the adolescent's sense of identity and self-conception - for better and for worse - than to his or her actual social development

The rise and fall of the student worker

Depending on their social class, adolescents were either students or workers, but not both As a result of these social and legislative changes, the employment of American teenagers declined steadily during the first four decades of the twentieth century Policymakers began calling for tougher standards in high schools. Schools began requiring more from their students, and many implemented graduation requirements As adolescents workers became increasingly in demand as the service economy expanded during the last half of the twentieth century, the retraction of the economy during the first decade of the twenty-first century increased competition for the same jobs that teenagers could have just for the asking a couple of decades before The growth of new technologies during the first part of the twenty-first century expanded leisure opportunities for many teenagers, many of who simply preferred to spend their free time online when behind a cash register The amount of time adolescents devoted to paid employment shrank as the amount they spent on leisure increased As more and more attractive (and relatively inexpensive) leisure options became available, and as the economic benefits of working declined, teenagers saw less reason to take on after-school jobs

Sexual predators, pornography, and "sexting"

Despite the attention devoted to it in popular media, internet bullying is a far less prevalent problem than is face-to-face bullying, and most cyberbullying is very mild, taking the form of ignoring or disrespecting the victim Teenagers who engage in sexting are more prone to other sorts of risky activity, including risky sex Despite adults' concern about the dangers the internet poses to adolescents, the vast majority of teenagers use the internet in ways that are not only benign, but similar to their parents: to say in touch with friends, to download and enjoy popular entertainment, and to keep up with the world around them

Midlife meets adolescence

Developmental concerns of parents and adolescents are complementary At the same time that adolescents are entering into a period of rapid physical growth, sexual maturation, and, ultimately, the period of the life span that society had labeled one of the most physically attractive, their parents are beginning to feel increased concern about their own bodies, about their physical attractiveness, and about their sexual appeal At the same time that adolescents are developing the capacity to think systematically about the future and do, in fact, start looking ahead, their parents are beginning to feel that possibilities for changing their own lives are limited One reason for this shift may be that at midlife adults are reminded of their mortality because they see their own parents aging Consider the issue of power, status, and entrance into the roles of adulthood. Adolescence is the time when individuals are on the threshold of gaining a great deal of status. Their careers and marriages lie ahead of them, and choices may seem limitless. "Occupational plateau" This overlap of crises is likely to have an impact on family relationships The adolescent's desire for independence appears to be especially stressful for parents Adults ten to be older today when their children reach adolescence than was the case two decades ago. How being an older parent affects relationships during adolescence hasn't been adequately studied

Individual differences in the effects of divorce

Differences among children in how vulnerable they are to the short-term effects of divorce Immediate problems are relatively more common among boys, younger children, children with a difficult temperament, children who do not have supportive relationships with adults outside the family, and youngsters whose parents divorce during the transition into adolescence Early adolescence is a time during which individuals seem to be especially sensitive to stress, parental divorce at this time may have a relatively stronger impact Social support from other may be an especially important resource for inner-city children growing up in single-parent homes Studies of black youngsters have found that children growing up in home environments that include a grandparent as well as a parent fare significantly better than those growing up in single-parent home or in stepfamilies Relatives other than parents may play an extremely important role in adolescents' lives, especially within ethnic groups that historically have placed a great deal of importance on maintaining close ties to extended family members Helps explain why the impact of divorce on adolescent adjustment is weaker among black adolescents than among adolescents from other backgrounds

Sext difference in family relationships

Differences between the family relations of sons and daughters are minimal Sons and daughters report comparable degrees of closeness to their parents, amounts of conflict, types of rules (and disagreements about those rules), and patterns of activity Sons and daughters interact with their parents in remarkably similar ways Across many ethnic groups and cultures, adolescents tend to be closer to their mothers, and to feel more comfortable talking to their mothers about problems and other emotional matters; as a consequence, mothers tend to be more involved than fathers in their adolescents' lives Fathers often rely on mothers for information about their adolescent's activities, but mother rarely rely on fathers for this Fathers are more likely to be perceived as relatively distant authority figures to be consulted for objective information (such as help with homework) but not for emotional support (such as help with problems with a boyfriend for girlfriend) Adolescents also fight more often with their mothers than with their fathers and perceive mothers as more controlling, but this does not appear to jeopardize the closeness of the mother-adolescent relationship Time spent with fathers - perhaps because it is a relatively rarity - is more predictive of adolescents' social competence and feelings of self-worth

New media

Digital media typically accessed via computers, smartphones, or other internet-based devices

The specific impact of marital conflict

Divorce is generally associated with short-term difficulties for the adolescent, at least some of the differences between adolescents from divorced vs. non divorced homes were present before the parents divorced Children in the households that later divorced were exposed to higher levels of marital unhappiness and conflict and strained parent-child relationships, both of which are known to disrupt parenting and increase children's difficulties Children's maladjustment, in turn, adversely affects the quality of their parents' marriage, creating a vicious cycle Recognition that exposure to marital conflict, apart from and in addition to divorce itself, has harmful effects on children's development has prompted many researchers to study how the quality of the adolescent's parents' marriage affects teenagers' mental health and behavior Children are more adversely affected by marital conflict when they are aware of it than when it is more convert Marital conflict is particularly harmful when it is especially hostile, physically violent, or frightening. Exposure to overt marital conflict and domestic violence has been linked to a wide range of adolescent problems, including depression, aggression, and delinquency Children are more negatively affected when the marital conflict leads to feelings of insecurity or self-blame Adolescents who blame themselves for their parents' conflict, whose feelings of security are challenged, or who are drawn into their parents' arguments are more likely to feel anxious, depressed, and distressed Marital conflict more adversely affects the adolescent when the conflict disrupts the quality of the parent-child relationship Adolescents are directly affected by exposure to their parents' conflict, to be sure, but several studies have found as well that tension between spouses spills over into the parent-child relationship, making mothers and father more hostile, more irritable, and less effective as parents Adolescents who perceive their parents as hostile or uncaring are more likely to report a wide rends of emotional and behavioral problems than are their peers Individuals whose parents divorced during childhood or adolescence continue to have adjustment problems welling their 30s Effects do not appear to be ameliorated by parental remarriage; adolescents from stepfamilies score similarly, or worse, on measures of long-term adjustment, as do adolescents form single-parent, divorced homes

Changes in the balance of power

During early adolescence young people begin to try to play a more forceful role in the family, but parents may not yet acknowledge adolescents' input. Young adolescents may interrupt their parents more often but have little impact. By middle adolescence, however, teenagers act and are treated much more like adults. They have more influence over family decisions, but they do not need to assert their opinions through interruptions and similarity immature behavior Increases in the assertiveness and influence of adolescents as they get older reflect their changing needs and capabilities Parents and teenagers often in in "separate realities," perceiving their day-to-day experiences in very different ways Young adolescents may be especially sensitive - perhaps even overreact - to the emotional signals given off by others. A parent may speak to an adolescent in a serious voice, but the adolescent may experience it as anger

Sex segregation

During early and middle adolescence, cliques also tend to be composed of adolescents of the same sex Sex segregation begins in childhood and continues through most of adolescence, although it is stronger among white students than among black students, and it weakens later in adolescence Cliques are formed largely on the basis of shared activities and interests. Preadolescent and early adolescent boys and girls are interested in different things Proportion of other-sex friends more than double between 6th and 10th grades Sex segregation in adolescent peer groups concerns young adolescents' sensitivity about sex roles A consequence of these continual reminders that there are boys' activities and girls' activities, early adolescents - are very concerned about acting in sex-appropriate ways, although this is more true of boys than girls Once dating becomes the norm, adolescents who don't have relationships with peers of the other sex become the objects of equally strong suspicion and social rejection

On the wrong track

Early track placements set in motion an educational trajectory that is often difficult to change without the deliberate intervention of the student's parents Students in different tracks have markedly different opportunities to learn Being placed in a more advanced track has a positive influence on school achievement (how much the student actually learns over time), on subsequent course selection (what curriculum the student is exposed to), and on ultimate educational attainment (how many years of schooling the student completes) Because students are assigned to different tracks on the basis of test scores and other indicators of aptitude, and because students in the lower tracks receive an inferior education (which leads to lower test scores), the net effect of tracking over time is to increase preexisting academic differences among students Although students in the lower tracks usually get the short end of the educational stick, there are some exceptions - for example, schools in which classes in the lower tracks are taught by strong teachers who insist on maintaining high standards

School size and class size

Educators attempted to deliver a wider range of courses and services under a single roof. As a consequence, schools become larger and larger over the course of the twentieth century

Sleeper effects

Effects of divorce that may not be apparent until much later in the child's development Social scientists believe that increased drug use and higher rates of early pregnancy are consequences of the lower level of parental monitoring in divorced homes Younger children are unlikely to use drugs or be sexually active, no matter what their family background, the effect of the poor monitoring is not seen until adolescence, when individuals might begin using drugs and having sex Adolescence is a time when individuals first begin experimenting with intimate sexual relationships. If having one's parents divorce or being exposed to marital conflict affects one's conceptions of relationships or views of romantic commitment, it makes sense that some of the effects of early parental divorce will not be manifested until the adolescent begins dating and gets seriously involved in romantic relationships

Premature affluence

Having more income than one can manage maturely, especially during adolescence

The promotion of problem behavior

Employment during adolescence does not deter delinquent activity Several studies suggest that working long hours may actually be associated with increases in aggression, school misconduct, minor delinquency, and precocious sexual activity Studies also have found that rates of smoking, drinking, and drug use are higher among teenage workers than nonworker, especially among students who work long hours Working long hours leads to increases in substance use, but students who smoke, drink, and use other drugs also are more likely to want to work long hours The impact of working on drug and alcohol use probably reflects the fact that adolescents who work long hours have more discretionary income and, hence, greater opportunity to purchase cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs Drug and alcohol use are more common among adolescents who work under conditions of high job stress than among their peers who work for comparable amounts of time and money but under less stressful conditions - and many adolescents work in stressful work settings, like fast-food restaurants It may also be that working long hours disrupts adolescents' relationships with their parents, which, in turn, leads to problem behavior

Ethnic segregation

Ethnicity is not a strong determinant of clique composition during childhood, but it becomes increasingly powerful as youngsters get older Cross-ethnic friendships are less common in ethnically diverse schools than in schools where one ethnic group predominates Ethnicity continues to be an enormously powerful determinant of friendship patterns - far more powerful than socioeconomic status Ethnicity is such a strong determinant of adolescents' cliques that adolescents are more likely to have friends of the same ethnicity who come from the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum than to have friends from the same social class but a different ethnic group Cross-ethnic friendships are more common among Asian and Hispanic adolescents who are American born than among their peers whoa re immigrants have found that immigrants are less likely to have cross-ethnic friendships, perhaps because of language barriers Ethnic segregation in adolescents' cliques is only partly due to residential segregation Some ethnic segregation in friendship patterns is due to differential levels of academic achievement of adolescents from different ethic groups Ethnic differences in school achievement therefore may lead to ethnic separation in adolescent peer groups Parents' attitudes about the value of having friends from different ethnic groups makes a difference Ethnic segregation in adolescent peer relationships is far less common in Canada than in the US

Autonomy and attachment in the adolescent's family

Families with psychologically competent teenagers interact in ways that permit family members to express their autonomy and individuality while remaining emotionally connected to other family members Verbal give-and-take is the norm, and people are encouraged to express their own opinions, even then this leads to disagreements Adolescents are encouraged to consider how their actions may affect others Adolescents who are permitted to assert their won opinions within a family context that is secure and loving develop higher self-esteem and more mature coping abilities. Adolescents whose autonomy is squelched are at risk for developing feelings of depression and low self-esteem, whereas those who do not feel connected are more likely than their peers to develop behavior Adolescents appear to do best when they grow up in a family atmosphere that permits the development of individuality against a backdrop of close family ties Conflict between parents and adolescents can play a very important and positive role in the adolescent's social and cognitive development, because individuals are encouraged to express their opinions in an atmosphere that does not risk severing the emotional attachment

Lethal school violence

Far more children and adolescents are killed at home or in the community than in or around school; indeed, schools are among the safest place for adolescents to be Although the school shootings that garnered public attention generally involved white youth, a disproportionate number of homicides in schools involve non-white youth, both as perpetrators and victims It is virtually impossible to predict which students will commit acts of lethal violence Boys, students with mental health problems, and adolescents who have easy access to guns are more likely than others to be involved in school shootings, but identifying the specific students with these characteristics who will commit lethal crimes in school is a different matter altogether It is also essential to create a school climate in which students feel responsible for one another and are willing to take action if they hear a peer talking about "doing something dangerous"

The adolescent work environment

Few permit adolescents to behave independently or make decisions; they receive little instruction from their supervisors, and they are rarely required to use the skills they have been taught in school With occasional exceptions, most teenagers' jobs are repetitive, monotonous, and intellectually unchallenging. Some are even highly stressful, requiring that youngsters work under intense time pressure without much letup and exposing them to potential injury and accidents Only a small proportion of adolescents hold jobs where there is ample opportunity to learn new or higher-level skills Majority of adolescent workers describe their job favorably, saying that they learned things, liked the people with whom they worked, and had opportunities to exercise responsibility, and were satisfied with their pay Compared to school, where adolescents are frequently bored and seldom challenged, even menial jobs are comparatively satisfying There is something about earning money and having some responsibility, regardless of how modest, that makes adolescents feel better about themselves and translates into a positive description of their work experience

Ethnic composition

Following the landmark US Supreme Court rulings Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the court found that it was unconstitutional to maintain separate schools for children on the basis of race, many school districts adopted measures designed to make schools more diverse Did this either by assigning students to schools in a way that would create ethnic diversity or by encouraging voluntary desegregation, through measures like having "magnet" schools that would create diversity by drawing students from different neighborhoods (for instance, by having citywide schools specializing in the performing arts) Although the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that school districts may no longer use race as a factor in deciding how to assign students to schools, efforts to create ethnic and racial diversity through voluntary measures are still in use in many cities

Adolescents in foster care

Foster care is a broad term that refers to a placement in a temporary living arrangement when the adolescent's parents are not able to provide care, nurturance, or safety Can be with member of the extended family, non relatives, or in group homes Because adolescents are less likely to be adopted than younger children, teenagers tend to remain in foster care longer Adolescents generally enter the foster care systems for one of two reasons: parental maltreatment (when the adolescent's well-being or safety is endangered) or delinquency (when an adolescent's parents are unable to provide supervision necessary to keep their teenager from violating the law Adolescents who have spent time in foster care are at relatively greater risk for emotional and behavioral problems, some of which are the product of the abuse or neglect that necessitated their removal from their biological parents' home (maltreatment frequently causes psychological problems), some of which may have made it too difficult for their parents to adequately care for them (in which case the adolescent may be placed in a therapeutic environment designed for teenagers with psychological problems), and some of which may actually result from the foster care placement itself (e.g., placement in a group home increases the adolescent's risk for delinquency Many adolescents move in and out of different placements, back and fourth between their parent's home and a foster care placement, or between different foster care arrangements; frequent disruptions in living arrangements can lead to behavioral problems As you can imagine, making the transition to independent adulthood - already in a challenge for many youth who grew up in stable and supportive family environments - is even more difficult for adolescents whose lives have been so disrupted and who do not have parents on whom they can rely for support. Adolescents who have been in foster care are at higher risk for homelessness than other youth

Relational aggression

Girls also act aggressively toward peers, but their aggression is often social, not physical Girls engage in relational aggression - aggression intended to harm other adolescents through deliberate manipulation of their social standing and relationships Individuals use relationship aggression to hurt others by excluding them from social activities, damaging their reputations with others, or withdrawing attention and friendship Individuals who are frequent victims of physical aggression are also frequent victims of relational aggression Like physical aggression, the roots of relational aggression are often found in the family: adolescents who use a lot of relational aggression frequently have parents who are harsh or controlling

Characteristics of good schools

Good school emphasize intellectual activities Create this atmosphere in different ways, depending on the nature and size of the student body, but in these good schools, a common purpose - quality education - is valued and shared by students, teachers, administrators, and parents Learning is more important to students than athletics or extracurricular activities, and seeing that students learn is more important to teachers and administrators than seeing that they graduate All students are expected to learn, and all students are taught by teachers who use proven instructional methods Good schools have teachers who are committed to their students and who are given freedom and autonomy by administrators in the way that they express this commitment in the classroom In good schools, teachers are given relatively more authority to decide how their lessons are planned and how their classes are conducted Good schools are well integrated into the communities they serve Good schools are composed of good classrooms, where students are active participants in the process of education, not passive recipients of lecture material. The atmosphere is orderly but not oppressive Good schools are adolescents are staffed by teachers who are well-qualified and who have received specific training in teaching adolescents Studies conducted in many different countries find that students who attend schools with a high proportion of teachers who are certified, who majored in the subject they are teaching, and who are experienced achieve more and are more likely to graduate than their peers in schools with less qualified teachers

Peer groups

Groups of individuals of approximately the same age

American postsecondary education

In countries other than the US, postsecondary education is likely to be monopolized y monolithic public universities. Individuals are often separated into college and non-college-bound tracks early in adolescence, typically on the basis of standardized national examinations In the US, the postsecondary education system is composed of a wide variety of public and private two- and four-year institutions, some emphasizing a liberal arts education and other focusing more on technical, vocational, and preprofessional training The population of individuals enrolled in community college, which tends to be older than that attending four-year institutions, includes highly committed students who intend to transfer to a four-year college or are working toward a specific associate's degree or certificate (together, about half of all community college students). But it also includes students who are less committed and not sure why they are going to school (and whose attendance is sporadic), as well as some who are just taking a course here or there out of interest in the subject matter

Teenage employment in other nations

In developing nations where industrialization is still in a relatively early stage and a large percent of the population is poor, most adolescents leave school early - at least by American standards Very often, adolescents work for their families As more and more adolescents from developing nations have staying in school, the number of adolescents in these countries' labor force has declined at about the same rate School year employment is common in Canada and Australia, where about half of all students hold jobs, but it is nearly unheard of in Japan or Korea, where schoolwork is more demanding of teenagers' afternoons, evenings, and weekends School-year employment is rare in France, Italy, and Spain, but common in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden

The mental health of parents

In families with middle-aged adults, adjusting to adolescence may take more of a toll on the mental health of parents than their adolescents Nearly two-thirds of mothers and fathers describe adolescence as the most difficult stage of parenting, and this period is the low point in parents' marital and life satisfaction. In fact, a strained relationship between a midlife parent and his or her adolescent child may drive the parent to devote relatively more time to work At the same time, studies show that parents' mental health problems affect the way they interact with their adolescents, which in turn adversely affects the teenagers The notion that parents' mental health declines when they enter the "empty nest" stage is a myth, especially among mothers. Parents' mental health is worse when their teenage children are living at home than it is once they have moved out, and when children leave home, it is fathers, not mothers, who typically feel the greatest sense of low

Ethnicity and crowd membership

In multiethnic schools, adolescents from one ethnic group are less likely to see crowd distinctions within other ethnic groups than they are within their own group The meaning associated with belonging to different crowds also may differ across ethnic and socioeconomic groups, although this varies considerably from school to school The values we associate with being in one crowd as opposed to parent's the same across all school contexts

Tracking

In some schools, students with different academic abilities and interests do not attend classes together Some classes are designated as more challenging and more rigorous, and are reserved for students identified as especially capable The process of separating students into different levels of classes within the same school is called ability grouping, or tracking

The effects of financial strain

Income loss if associated with disruptions in parenting, which, in turn, lead to increases in adolescent difficulties, including a diminished sense of mastery, increased emotional distress, academic and interpersonal problems, and delinquency Financial strain increases mothers' and fathers' feelings of depression and anxiety, worsens marriages, and causes conflicts between parents and adolescents These consequences, in turn, make parents more irritable, which adversely affects the quality of their parenting In contrast, parents who are able to maintain a more positive outlook through the difficult time are more likely to protect their adolescents from the psychological harm associated with financial strain When adolescents are repeatedly exposed to marital conflict - especially when it is not resolved - they are more likely to become aggressive and depressed. And when adolescents themselves are the recipients of aggressive parenting, they are likely to imitate this behavior in their relationships with siblings and peers, and, later, in their own marriages

The adolescent's family in a changing society

Increased rates of divorce and childbearing outside of marriage, as well as a changing international economy, have dramatically altered the world in which children and adolescents grow up The divorce rate and proportion of single-parent families, which skyrocketed during the 1970s and 1980s, stabilized at their historically high levels atet the beginning of the 1990s and have changed relatively little since them Diversity in family forms is also reflected in the sizable numbers of adolescents who are raised by adoptive parents, lesbian and gay parents, and foster parents

Crowds as reference groups

Knowing where an adolescent fits into the social system of the school can tell us a lot about the person's behavior and values Crowds contribute to the definition of norms and standards for such things as clothing, leisure, and tastes in music Reference groups provide their members with an identity in the eyes of others. Adolescents judge one another on the basis of the company they keep, and they become branded on the basis of whom they hang out with

The non-college-bound

Individuals who drop out of high school before graduation fare especially poorly economically and suffer a wide range of problems, including unemployment, delinquency, unintended pregnancy, and substance abuse Even those who complete school and earn a diploma - who have done what they were supposed to do as adolescents - may have a hard time finding a satisfying, well-paying job Many individuals who do not go to college spend their early adult years floundering between periods of part-time work, underemployment (working at a job that is less challenging than they would like or are qualified for), and unemployment As manufacturing jobs began to be replaced by minimum-wage service jobs, the changes of making a decent living without a college degree has worsened appreciably The economic problems faced by non-college-bound youth have been compounded by the escalating costs of such essentials as housing and health care Rates of depression are significantly higher among young adults who are not in school than among those who are, and they are especially high among individuals who are neither in school nor steadily employed

The impact of extracurricular participation on development

It improves students' performance in school and reduces the likelihood of dropping out. It deters delinquency, drug use, and other types of risk taking. And it enhances students' psychological well-being and social status Participation in organized community-based activities also protects adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods from exposure to violence, by keeping them in safer settings after school Involvement in team sports, which is associated with many psychological benefits, such as better mental health, better sleep, and higher school achievement, is also associated with increased alcohol use and delinquency Extracurricular participation in high school is correlated with community involvement in adulthood Individuals who participate in sports during adolescence are likely to continue athletic activities in adulthood One study of a high school theater production also found that the experience contributed in important ways to adolescents' emotional development. Through the course of preparing for their performance, students learned how to better manage their emotions, better understand others' feelings, and learn how to deal more effectively with anger, frustration, and stress The quality of relationships adolescents develop with the adults they encounter in extracurricular activities is an especially important influence on the overall impact of the experience Researchers speculate that extracurricular activities have positive effects because they increase students' contact with teachers and other school personnel who reinforce the value of school (as when a coach or advisor counsels a student about plans for college) and because participation itself may improve students' self-confidence and self-esteem Some of the positive effects of extracurricular participation also stem from the fact that these activities bring adolescents into contact with peers who influence them in beneficial ways; extracurricular activities often lead to new friendships One study of male football players and wrestlers found that they were relatively more likely to get into serious fights (similar effects were not found for boys who played other sports) and that violence was most common among football players whose friends also played football Extracurricular sports have become more competitive, the number os young people injured during these activities has risen substantially While competitive athletics are a source of considerable pleasure for some adolescents, they are a source of equally considerable stress for others

Theories of media influence and use

It is extremely difficult to disentangle cause and effect, because adolescents choose which mass media they are exposed to and how much exposure they have Speculated that violent film images provoke aggression, for example, it is just as likely, if not more so, that aggressive adolescents are more prone to choose to watch violent images Sexual behavior may be correlated with listening to "sexy" music or watching tv programs with a lot of sexual content, but it is impossible to say which causes which Although several major studies of media use have found that adolescents who report a lot of media use are significantly more troubled (bored, unhappy, in trouble at home or school) than adolescents who use these media less often, it is not known whether large doses of mass media cause problems, whether adolescents with more problems spend more time online, as a way of distracting themselves from their troubles or alleviating boredom, or both Not all media exposure is the same, and that not all exposure is bad Any correlation between what adolescents are exposed to and what they do or think is due not to the influence of the media, but to the fact that individuals with particular inclinations choose media that are consistent with their interests Aggressive adolescents are more likely to purchase violent video games because they enjoy being aggressive; teenagers who are interested in sex are more likely to look for porn on the internet because they want to master-bate or feel aroused; adolescents who are involved with drugs like to listen to music that glorifies drug use; and beer-drinking adolescents are more likely to watch football and to be exposed to beer commercials (which after all, is why beer companies advertise during football games and not on the Animal Planet) According to the media practice model, the ways in which media do (or do not) affect adolescents depend on the ways in which the media are experienced and interpreted

The importance of student engagement

It is important to keep in mind that students, as well as teachers, influence the classroom climate The relationship between parents and adolescents is reciprocal - parents influence how their teenagers develop, but teenagers influence what their parents do - so is the relationship between teachers and their students Effective teachers can engage and excite their students, and engaged and excited students can motivate their teachers to be more effective Students who are engaged in school profit more than just academically from it: It enhances their mental health and protects them against the harmful effects of family problems, stress, and victimization Engaging students in school is also good for their overall mental health: Students who are disengaged from school are more likely to misbehave and engage in substance use, both because doing poorly in school leads to problem behavior and because students who engage in problem behavior are evaluated more negatively by their teachers Some disengaged students show their lack of interest in school through their behavior, by not showing up regularly or failing to complete assignments. Others disengage emotionally, losing interest in school and feeling that school is depressing or an unsafe place. Still others disengage cognitively, checking out mentally when they are in class and devoting little effort to their schoolwork Different forms of engagement feed on each other - someone who starts to feel disconnected from school (emotional disengagement) is more likely to start skipping school (behavioral disengagement), which in turn increases the likelihood that he or she will lose interest (cognitive disengagement)

The transition into secondary school

Many studies find that students' academic motivation and school grades drop as they move from elementary into middle or junior high school Transitioning to a new school affects student achievement and behavior School transitions, whenever they occur, temporarily disrupt the academic performance, behavior, and self-image of adolescents; more frequent schools changes are associated with lower achievement, as well as higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems Some experts believe that the poor performance of middle and junior high schools is due primarily to their failure to meet the particular developmental needs of young adolescents Because adolescence is a time during which relationships with peers and non familial adults become more important, independence becomes more desirable, and rules and regulations are increasingly scrutinized, these changes in school climate create a mismatch between what adolescents need and what their schools provide. This leads many young adolescents to disengage from school Disengaging from school increases the risk of developing behavior problems, whereas remaining connected to school protects against some of the harmful effects of poor family relationships

Patterns of media use

Mass media have become so much a part of the typical adolescent's life that for many, staying "connected" starts to take on qualities of an addiction Most research on the impact of the media on adolescent development focused on television, movies, and recorded music

The generation gap: fact and fiction

Most people believe that adolescents and adults hold different values and attitudes, but this is not the case. Teenagers and their parents usually have surprisingly similar beliefs about such things as the importance of hard work, educational and occupational ambitions, and the personal characteristics and attributes that they think are important and desirable. Adolescents and their parents share a common social, regional, and cultural background and these are the factors that shape our central beliefs Adolescents are more likely to be influenced by their friends than by their parents in these matters, and as a consequence, parents and teenagers often disagree about them. Because adolescents spend a great deal of time with their friends (and because much of that time is spent in activities in which taste in clothes, music, and so on is important), teenagers' preferences are likely to be shaped to a large measure by forces outside the family

The development of responsibility

Most people believe that working builds character, teaches adolescents about the real world, and helps them prepare for adulthood, but these assumptions are not generally supported by research Some research has found high rates of misconduct on the job among adolescent workers (e.g., stealing from employers, lying about the number of hours worked), especially those whose work is not closely supervised by adults One specific aspect of responsibility that working is believed to affect is money management Holding a job may provide many opportunities for learning how to budget, save, and spend money wisely The majority of adolescent workers spend most of their earnings on personal expenses, like clothes are cars Many working teenagers may develop premature affluence - which results from getting used to having a relatively luxurious responsibilities, like rent, food, or utility bills As a consequence, adolescents who have earned (and spent) a lot from their jobs while in high school are less satisfied with their financial situations as young adults, because they had become accustomed to living in an unrealistic world in which they had a large amount of discretionary income and few obligations Many adults say that their jobs as teenagers helped them learn things like punctuality, ways to deal effectively with strangers, and even cope with work one didn't necessarily want to do In jobs in which adolescents are given genuine responsibility, make important decisions, and perform challenging tasks, they are more likely to come away feeling more mature, competent, and dependable In jobs in which the work is repetitive, stressful, and unchallenging, they probably will gain very little from the experience It is possible for an adolescent to benefit psychologically from working, it is not probable In fast-food restaurants or retail stores, for example - ranked highest in stress and in interference with other parts of life, and lowest in their likelihood of providing skills or leading to a career

What divorced parents tell their teenagers

Mothers were equally likely to talk to sons and daughters, and their conversations were similar, consistent with a point made earlier - namely, that for the most part adolescent males and females are treated similarly by their parents Among mothers who disclose these sorts of feelings, an important motive for doing so is not the mother's need for a confidante, but her desire to shape her daughter's impression of her and the circumstances surrounding the divorce Adolescents whose mothers complain to them about their ex-husbands or discuss their financial concerns report more psychological distress, in the form of anxiety, depression, tension, and psychosomatic complaints Adolescents are especially likely to worry about family finances and the impact of the divorce on their future

Custody, contact, and conflict following divorce

Nature of the relationship between the adolescent's divorced parents, and not which one he or she lives with, is the ket factor Years immediately following a divorce, children may fare a bit better in the custody of the parent of the same sex, but these effects are not long-lasting; over time, both male and female adolescents fare equally well either in dual custody or in sole custody, a finding that was replicated in a study of lesbian couples who have separated More important, especially for adolescents who have dual residences, are two factors: whether the ex-spouses continue to fight and place the child between them, and whether the adolescent's discipline is consistent across the two households. Adolescents whose parents have a consistent and appropriate discipline from both homes report less emotional difficulty and fewer behavioral problems Adolescents whose parents have divorced also vary in the extent to which they have contact with the parent they no longer live with, typically their father. Contact between adolescents and their father following a divorce usually diminishes very quickly after the father moves out and continues to decline over time, especially among men who remarry or enter into a new romantic relationship Adolescents who have regular post divorce contact with their father have fewer problems, but not all studies have reached this conclusion, and some have concluded that it is healthy adolescent functioning that influences fathers' involvement, rather than the reverse Adolescents benefit from contact with their nonresidential parent when conflict between their parents is minimal, but suffer from such contact when parental conflict is intense Adolescents benefit when they have frequent contact with a nonresidential parent with whom they had a close relationship when their parents were married, but suffer from contact with one with whom they didn't get along prior to divorce Financial support from fathers is associated with less problem behavior and higher academic achievement

The importance of the family in adolescent development

No factor seems to influence adolescent adjustment more than the quality of relationships at home Adolescents who believe their parents or guardians are there for them - caring, involved, and accepting - are healthier, happier, and more competent than their peers, however health, happiness, or competence is assessed Holds true regardless of the adolescent's age, sex, ethnicity, social class, or country, and across all types of families, whether married or divorced, single-parent or two-parent, rich or poor Despite the tremendous growth and psychological development that take place as individuals leave childhood on the road toward adulthood, despite society's pressures on young people to grow up fast, despite all the technological and social innovation that have transformed family life, and contrary to claims that parents don't really make a difference (that by adolescence, parents' influence is overshadowed by the peer group or mass media), adolescents continue to need the love, support, and guidance of adults who genuinely care about their development and well-being Being raised in the presence of caring and committed adults is one of the most important advantages a young person can have in life. Although parental love may be expressed in different ways in different parts of the world, its importance for healthy adolescent development is unquestionable, regardless of cultural context

Shared environmental influences

Nongenetic influences that make individuals living in the same family similar to each other

The origins of adolescent peer groups in contemporary society

Not all societies have peer groups that are as narrowly defined and age segregated as those in contemporary society The spread of compulsory education was a major factor in the development of peer groups as we know them today. Educators first developed the idea of free public education, with students grouped by age - a practice known as age grading - in the middle of the nineteenth century It was not until the second quarter of the twentieth century, however, that most adolescents were directly affected by educational age grouping Adolescent peer groups based on friendships formed in school were not prevalent until well into the twentieth century

How secondary schools differ from elementary schools

Not only are junior high schools larger and less personal, but middle and junior high school teachers hold different beliefs about students than do elementary school teachers - even when they teach students of the same chronological age Teachers in junior high schools are less likely to trust their students and more likely to emphasize discipline, which creates a mismatch between what students at this age desire (more independence) and what their teacher provide (more control) Teachers in junior high schools also tend to be more likely to believe that students' abilities are fixed and not easily modified through instruction - a belief that interferes with student achievement Teachers in junior high or middle schools are less likely than other teachers to feel confident about their teaching ability The issue is not that the adolescents must make a transition; it is the nature of the transition they must make Teachers come into the junior high classroom with negative images of adolescence - that teenagers are inherently unruly, unteachable, or perplexing - their preconceptions may interfere with their work as educators

The broader context of US secondary education

Not only are there considerably more youngsters enrolled in school today than there were 50 years ago, but today's students also spend more days per year in school Adolescents also remain in school for more years now than they did in previous eras

Bullies and victims

Often with an antisocial adolescent repeatedly harassing a withdrawn classmate Adolescents who are bullies are also likely to assist and reinforce other bullies and, like the bullies they support, are also more likely to have conduct problems and be callous and indifferent to the problems of others Rates of victimization vary considerably from country to country, although around the world, adolescents who come for less affluent families are more likely to be bullied The prevalence of bullying is higher in schools and in countries characterized by greater income inequality It is more acceptable for the strong to victimize the weak in countries where having a gap between the economically "strong" and economically "weak" is also more widely tolerated

Free time and adolescent development

On the positive side, adults take pride in watching their children's sports teams and creative activities, and they believe that these productive uses of leisure time help build character and teach important skills, such as teamwork and perseverance Most adults view holding a part-time job as a worthwhile activity that provides opportunities for learning and the development of responsibility One the other hand, adults view many adolescent leisure activities as wasted time or, worse, as preludes to trouble Because industrialized society has "given" adolescents a good deal of free time, adults expect them to use it productively By definition, free time is supposed to be time that can be used for purposes other than being productive One potential benefit of participation in leisure activities is that it helps adolescent feel happier, more competent, and more connected to others Most people are equally sure that working is good for teenagers, even though studies show that the costs of intensive involvement in part-time work during the school year outweigh the benefits Although adults believe that the mass media have an uniformly negative effect on adolescents' behavior, studies show that adolescents' interest affect their media use more than vice-versa Because adolescents choose the media to which they are exposed, it is very difficult to demonstrate that adolescents are actually affected by what they see and hear Important to keep in mind that the mass media can be used to promote positive behavior and healthy development, to provide information about a rapidly changing world, and to facilitate communication with others By valuing adolescents' free time only when it is used productively, adults may misunderstand the important functions that leisure time serves in the psychosocial development of young people Free time plays an important role in helping young people develop a sense of themselves, explore their relationships with each other, and learn about the society around them

Is bigger better?

One advantage enjoyed by larger schools is that they can offer a more varied curriculum - a large high school, for instance, may be able to offer many specialized courses that a small school is unable to staff One of the most consistent conclusions to emerge form recent evaluations of school reform efforts is that student performance and interest in school improve when their schools are made less bureaucratic and more intimate Students' attachment to school is weaker in larger schools, particularly the the number of students in a grade exceeds 400 While school size may affect academic outcomes, it does not necessarily affect students' emotional attachment to the institution or their mental health No evidence that rates of student victimization are higher in larger schools, although victimization is less likely in schools where the student-teacher ratio is lower, perhaps because it is easier for schools to establish and enforce norms about how to behave On the positive side, creating schools within schools leads to the development of a more positive social environment; on the negative side, though, if not done carefully, schools may inadvertently create "schools" within one school that vary considerably in their educational quality Research on school size concern participation in extracurricular activities rather than classroom achievement In larger schools, students tend more often to be observers than participants in school activities

The social map of adolescence

One helpful scheme for mapping the social world of adolescence classifies crowds along two dimensions: how involved they are in the institutions controlled by adults, such as school and extracurricular activities, and how involved they are in the informal, peer culture "Jocks" and "populars," for example, are very involved in the peer culture, but they are also very involved in the institutions values by adults (sports and school organizations) "Brains" and "nerds," in contrast, are also involved in adult-controlled organizations (in their case, academics), but they tend to be less involved in the peer culture "Partyers" are on the opposite side of the may from "nerds": these adolescents are very involved in the peer culture but are less so in adult institutions "Burnouts" and adolescents who are members of delinquent gangs are not involved in either the peer culture or adult institutions. Other crowds, such as "normals" or "druggies," fat somewhere between these extremes

Unstructured leisure time

One important distinction is between structured and supervised leisure activities, like school- or community- sponsored extracurricular activities, and unstructured leisure activities, such as hanging out with friends without any organized activity in mind Participation in structured leisure activities tends to have positive effects on adolescent development Time spent in unstructured leisure activities does the reverse

Adolescents' free time in contemporary society

One indirect effect of compulsory high school, then, was to increase the amount of free time available to young people - time that previously would have been occupied by work Organized leisure became an institutionalized part of adolescence as a supplement to school and replacement for full-time employment A second influence on the rise of free time for adolescents in contemporary society was the increased affluence of Americans following WWII

Parental demandingness

One of the two important dimensions of parenting; demandingness refers to which the parent expects and insists on mature, responsible behavior form the child

Parental responsiveness

One of the two important dimensions of parenting; responsiveness refers to to the degree to which the parent responds to the child's needs in an accepting, supportive manner

Media saturation

One problem that has prevalence of texting a great deal of attention is the high prevalence of texting while driving among teenagers - a dangerous practice and half of all American teenagers do monthly Adolescents' total medial exposure - the amount of time they spend each day using one of the mass media - is extremely high, and substantially higher than it was 20 years ago Although adolescents' time spent viewing television programs at their regularly scheduled times has declined, the availability of recorded programs and tv content on other devices (like computers) has led to an overall increase in time spent viewing video content The highest levels of media use are reported by early adolescents, and by black and hispanic teenagers On some experimental tests of attention and self-control, individuals who report that their devotion and self-control, individuals who report that their devotion to online gaming is a problem appear similar to individuals with other types of addiction Online gaming appears particularly likely to be associated with compulsive internet use Given that most of these games involve violence, it is not surprising that pathological video gaming is correlated with self-reported aggressive behavior Aggressive teenagers may be more drawn to aggressive games The issue is further complicated by the fact that the impact of gaming on psychological development depends on the adolescent's motives for playing: playing for fun decreases negative consequences, whereas playing to escape increases them Playing prosocial games can lead to increases in empathy, which may increase adolescents' inclination to help others

Helping unpopular teens

One type of program has been designed to teach social skills - self-expression, leaderships, and how to converse A second approach has been to have unpopular adolescents participate in group activities with popular ones under the supervision of psychologists Some social competence programs focus on a combination of behavioral and cognitive abilities, including social problem solving Social-problem-solving programs, such as PATHS (promoting alternative thinking strategies), are designed to improve individuals' abilities to judge social situations and figure our acceptable ways of behaving Adolescents are taught to calm down and think before they react, to decide what the problem is, to figure out what their goal is, and to think of positive approached toward reaching that goal. PATHS has been shown to effectively reduce behavioral problems among elementary school children

Authoritative parents

Parents who use warmth, firm control, and rational, issue-oriented discipline, in which emphasis is placed on the development of self-direction Child-centered, democratic, flexible Establish firm behavioral guidelines Engage adolescent in decision making Warm, accepting, involved, trusting Monitoring Supports assertiveness, responsiveness, and self-regulation Encourages psychological autonomy

Cyberbullying

Online harassment is far less common than most people think, and, more importantly, less common than in-person harassment (either verbal or physical) Cyberbullying is common, and it affects victims in ways that are similar to physical bullying Adolescents who engage in traditional bullying also frequently engage in cyberbullying, and adolescents who are frequent victims of traditional bullying are also the victims of electronic harassment Most internet bullying is not anonymous, and most victims of online bullying suspect a friend or someone else from their school Bullies who "specialize" in cyberbullying, which takes a bit of planning, tend to be less reactive in their aggression and more instrumental, often using electronic bullying to enhance their own social status Interestingly, whereas conventional bullying tends to make adolescents less popular, cyberbullying tends to have the opposite affect Adolescents are more likely to engage in cyberbullying if they believe that their friends are, too One reason that bullying and victimization are often seen in the same children is that some adolescents react to victimization by becoming more aggressive and bullying other children The climate of the school, for instance - may increase or decrease the likelihood of aggression between classmates Adolescents' responses to being bullied vary 4 categories of victims: those who were mainly passive (e.g., ignoring the bully or walking away), those who were mainly aggressive (e.g., fighting back, either physically or verbally), those who were support-seeking (e.g., telling a parent), and those who did a little of everything Victims who used passive strategies reported fewer emotional or behavioral problems than those who fought back, sought help, or used a mixture of approaches, although feeling supported by parents or teachers (if not directly asking for their help) seems to have a protective effect against the adverse effects of victimization Although it is hard to persuade adolescents that these are the most effective responses, it helps to explain that bullies do what they do in order to get attention, and that when they are ignored, they are likely to seek other targets

Similarity between friends: selection or socialization?

Parents often feel that if their teenager runs with the wrong crowd, he or she will acquire undesirable interests and attitudes Studies indicate that both selection and socialization are at work across a variety of attitudinal and behavioral domains, including school achievement, happiness, drug use, mental health, and delinquency Spending time with friends who use these substances increases the adolescents' own use as well (an example of socialization) The more substance-using friends an adolescent has, and the closer he or she feels to them, the more the adolescent is likely to use alcohol and drugs Adolescents who are bullies or who sexually harass others are more likely to have friends who have similarly Antisocial adolescents who have few friends, and few aggressive friends in particular, are likely to become less antisocial over time, whereas those with antisocial friends who become even more antisocial friends who become even more antisocial themselves become more delinquent Adolescents who report more depressive symptoms are likely to choose other depressed adolescents as friends, which, in turn, negatively affects their own mood and that of their other friends Socialization is far stronger over day-to-day preferences in things like clothing or music than over many of the behaviors that adults worry about, such as binge drinking or risky sex, or even obesity Selection is a stronger factor than socialization when it comes to problem behavior and drug use Adolescents who use drugs or engage in delinquency are more likely to select friends with these tastes than to be corrupted by them Adolescents' friendship groups fell into one of four profiles: high functioning (a network of high-achieving friends who were involved in school-based extracurricular activities and who reported low use of alcohol and few symptoms of depression), maladjusted (friends were not engaged in much of anything, including drinking), and engaged (friends were engaged in school, achieved decent grades, and neither abstained from nor abused alcohol Individual adolescent's behavior could be predicted on the basis of her or his friendship group's profile Adolescents' socioeconomic background and family situation were strongly related to characteristics of their friendship network, with teenagers from more educated, two-parent families more likely to fall into the high-functioning and engaged groups

Indifferent parents

Parents who are characterized by low levels of both responsiveness and demandingness Adult-centered, passive, dismissing Poor few demands on the adolescent Poor or little communication Do not monitor or supervise behavior Detached, distant, withdrawn, absent

Indulgent parents

Parents who are characterized by responsiveness but low demandingness, and who are mainly concerned with the child's happiness Child-centered, indulgent, appeasing No guidelines, non directive Avoid confrontation, rarely discipline adolescent Warm, accepting, nurturing Overinvolved, blurred roles Few rules or expectations

Authoritarian parents

Parents who use punitive, absolute, and forceful discipline, and who place a premium on obedience and conformity Adult-centered, autocratic, rigid Strict rules and expectations Unilateral decision making Little warmth or communication Expects obedience, distrusting Punitive punishment Discourages open communication

The peer group and psychosocial development

Peers play an extremely important role in the psychological development of adolescents Problematic peer relationships are associated with a range of serious psychological and behavior problems during adolescence and adulthood Individuals who are unpopular or who have poor peer relationships during adolescence are more likely than their socially accepted peers to be low achievers in school, drop out of high school, show higher rates of delinquent behavior, and suffer from an array of emotional and mental health problems as adults The peer group provides more frequent opportunities for interaction and leisure, which contributes to the development of intimacy and enhances the adolescent's mood and psychological well-being

The impact of chronic poverty

Persistent poverty, like temporary economic strain, undermines parental effectiveness, making mothers and fathers harsher, more depressed, less vigilant, less consistent, and more embroiled in conflict Negative effects on adolescent adjustment, which are manifested in creases in anxiety and depression, more frequent conduct problems, diminished school performances, and less prosocial behavior Poor adolescents are more likely to be exposed to violence, to feel more alienated form school, and to be exposed to high levels of stress. Homeless adolescents share many of the same problems with other youth who experience chronic poverty, including higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts, academic difficulties, and behavior problems Studies of families living in poverty also tell us what parents living in poor neighborhoods can do to help protect their children from the adverse consequences of growing up in poor inner-city or rural neighborhoods Families fare better when they have adequate sources of social support and when they have strong ties to religious institutions Although adolescents in poor neighborhoods benefit from consistent parental monitoring - perhaps even from monitoring that is more vigilant than the used by families in more advantaged communities - they do not thrive when their parents exercise excessive control

Standards-based reform

Policies designed to improve achievement by holding schools and students to predetermined set of standards measured by achievement tests

Determinants of popularity and rejection

Popular adolescents are generally more socially skilled than their unpopular peers, there is surprising variability among popular teenagers with respect to other characteristics Sociometric popularity, referred to how well-liked someone is Perceived popularity refers to how much status, or prestige, someone has Sociometric popularity is determined mainly by social skills, friendlessness, sense of humor, and so forth, which are valued by people of all ages and backgrounds, the determinants of perceived popularity are highly variable Adolescents tend to affiliate with peers who have a similar level of popularity within their school, mainly because the more popular kids reject the less popular ones Predicting perceived popularity is further complicated by the fact that peer norms change, and socially competent adolescents are skilled at figuring them out, adjusting their behavior in response to them, and even influencing them Adolescents often behave in ways they believe popular students at, although these perceptions are not always accurate

The 5 C's: Connection

Positive bonds with people and institutions that are reflected in bidirectional exchanges between the individual and peers, family, school, and community in which both parties contribute to the relationship

Pros and cons of tracking

Proponents of tracking note that ability grouping allows teachers to design class lessons that are more finely tuned to students' abilities Tracking may be especially useful in high school, where students must mater certain basic skills before they can learn such specialized subjects as science, math, or foreign languages Effects of tracking are not limited to academic outcomes Tracking can polarize the student body into different subcultures that are often hostile toward each other Some school counselors may assume that ethnic minority or poor youngsters are not capable of handling the work in advanced classes and may automatically assign them to average or remedial classes, where less material is covered and the work is less challenging

Charter schools

Public schools that have been given the autonomy to establish their own curricula and teaching practices

A network of relationships

Quality of the parent-adolescent relationship influences the quality of relations among brother and sister Harmony and cohesiveness in the parent-adolescent relationship are associated with less sibling conflict and a more positive sibling relationship The quality of adolescents' relationships with their friends influences how they interact with their siblings The quality of the sibling relationship also affects adolescents' psychological well-being Positive sibling relationships contribute to adolescents' academic competence, sociability, health, autonomy, and self-worth Having a close sibling relationship can partially ameliorate the negative effects of family stress and of not having friends in school, and siblings can serve as sources of advice or and guidance Younger sisters of adolescent mothers are relatively more likely to engage in early sexual activity and to become pregnant during adolescence Also influence each other's drug use and antisocial behavior

The growth of college enrollment

The increase in enrollments has been especially dramatic among women Youth from immigrant families, despite the fact that their parents typically did not attend American colleges themselves, and despite often having to support their family financially, are just as likely to enroll in succeed in college as are American-born youth

Quality matters

Quality of the relationships the young person has with the important adults in her or his life matters more than the number of parents present in the home Adolescents form stepfamilies have as many, if not more, problems than those from single-parent homes, even though adolescents in stepfamilies have two parents in the home Youngsters form single-parent families that have not experienced divorce (e.g., losing a parent to death, or single mother who never married) have fewer difficulties than their counterparts from divorced or remarried homes Adolescents in two-parent homes do not always have warm and close relationships with their parents Adolescents living in father-absent homes have a higher self-esteem than adolescents who live in two-parent homes but who feel that their father has little interest in them Adolescents in divorced, single-parent families describe their parents as friendlier than do adolescents whose parents are married and are in a relatively more positive mood when with their family than when with friends Adolescents and their parents argue less often in single-parent households, perhaps because single parents tend to be more permissive, which may make for less parent-adolescent conflict

Reverse causation

Relationship in which the correlation between two things is due not to the first thing causing the second, but to the second causing the first

Spurious causation

Relationship in which the correlation between two things is due to the fact that each of them is correlated with some third factor

Difficulties adjusting to parental remarriage

Remarriage during the adolescent year is extremely stressful when families are unable to accommodate the new stepparent relationship Having to integrate a new type of relationship into a family that is already undergoing a great deal of change may be more than some families can cope with Find it difficult to adjust to a new authority figure moving into the household, especially if that person has different ideas about rules and discipline, and particularly if the new authority figure is not legally married to the child's biological parent Especially true when the adolescent is already vulnerable, either because of previous psychological problems for because of a recent divorce or other stressful event Many stepparents find it difficult to join a family and not be accepted immediately by the children as the new parent. Stepparents may wonder why love is not forthcoming from their stepchildren, who often act critical, resistant, and sulky Many stepfathers and their adolescent stepchildren establish positive relationships, the lack of a biological connection between stepparent and stepchild - coupled with the stresses associated with divorce and remarriage - make this relationship especially vulnerable to problems Adolescents in remarried households fare better when their stepparent can establish a consistent, supportive, authoritative style of discipline Children's adjustment declines somewhat each time they must cope with a change in their family's household composition, in part because parenting may become less effective during each family transition Given the fact that the benefits of authoritative parenting are just as strong in divorced and remarried families as they are in older homes, experts believe that marital transitions should help parents learn and adopt this parenting style Big difference in the adjustment of children in stepfamilies is the nature of the relationship they have with their noncustodial parent - the biological parent with whom they no longer live Children fare better when there is consistency in discipline between their custodial and noncustodial parents and when they have a good relationship with the noncustodial parent, especially in the years immediately following the remarriage Close relationship with the noncustodial parent does not appear to undermine the relationship with the custodial parent, nor does it undermine the relationship between the adolescent and the stepparent Adolescents who feel close to both their father and stepfather have better outcomes than those who feel close to one but not the other

Effects of desegregation

Research indicates that segregation has surprisingly little impact on the achievement levels of either minority or white youngsters Some evidence suggests that minority youngsters' self-esteem is higher when they attend schools in which they are in the majority Students fare better psychologically when the cultural environment of their neighborhood is consonant with the cultural environment of their school In schools that mix students from low- and high- income neighborhoods, students from low-income neighborhoods actually do worse than they do when they attend schools that are less socioeconomically diverse, especially if they are black or hispanic Students who have been bused to school out of their neighborhood report weaker feelings or attachment to their school Students' attachment to school also is higher when they attend schools where relatively more of their classmates are from the same ethnic group Students feel safer, less lonely, and less harassed in relatively more diverse multiethnic schools (i.e., where the proportions of students from different ethnic groups are similar) than in multiethnic schools that are less balanced Being in the minority in one's school is hard on students Male and female students from ethnic minority groups often have different experiences with peers when they attend schools in which they are a small minority Cross-ethnic friendships are more common among male than female students, in part because males are more likely to be involved in athletics, which provides opportunities for white and minority students interact

Electronic media and adolescent development

The increased availability of electronic communication has undoubtedly influenced the way that adolescents socialize The impact of internet socializing on adolescents' behavior and development is interesting, poorly understood, and controversial

Mainstreaming

The integration of adolescents who have educational handicaps into regular classrooms

How cliques structure social networks

Researchers categorized adolescents as clique members (individuals who have most of their interaction with the same small group of people), liaisons (individuals who interact with two or more adolescents who are members of cliques, but who themselves are not part of a clique), and isolates (individuals who have few or no links to others in the network Despite the popular image of adolescents as "cliquish," fewer than half the adolescents in any school were members of cliques Girls were more likely than boys to be members of cliques, whereas boys were more likely than girls to be isolates Adolescents' positions in their school's social network were relatively stable over time This does not mean that the membership of specific cliques is stable - typically, it isn't - only that individuals who were members of a clique at one point of time were members of a clique 1 year later Developing a social network is especially hard on students whose families move frequently

Genetic and environmental influences on adolescent development

Researchers distinguish between two types of environmental influences. Shared environmental influences are factors in the environment that individuals, such as siblings, have in common and that make the individuals similar to personality and behavior. Nonshared environmental influences are factors in the environments of individuals that are not similar and that, as a consequence, make the individuals different form one another Indicate that both genetic and non shared environmental influences, such as differential parental treatment, peer relations, and school experiences, are particularly, strong adolescence Family socioeconomic status or the neighborhood in which two siblings live, are less influential Studies of siblings, nonshared environmental influences can include factors within the family as well as outside of it. For example, if two siblings are treated very different - that is, the non shared environmental influence Genetic factors strongly influence many qualities that previously had been assumed to be shaped mainly by environment. Aggressive behavior is especially driven by genetics, although shared and non shared environmental influences on adolescents' antisocial behavior, including aggression, also have been found Also have been linked to various emotional and behavioral problems, such as risk for suicide and depression and alcohol dependence Strong genetic influences on adolescent competence, self-image, and self-conceptions Intelligence in adolescence (as indexed by IQ) is also under strong genetic control, with genetic influences compounding over time and ultimately becoming more influential than the family environment Maturation of brain regions associated with complex reasoning also becomes increasingly under genetic control over time Adolescents with the same genetic predisposition (such as genes associated with risk for depression) develop differently if they grow up in different environment Genetic influences on antisocial behavior are stronger among adolescents who have delinquent peers and weaker among those who do well in school Genetic influences on intelligence are stronger in families with highly educated parents, because the influence of genes on intelligence is stronger in environments that provide more learning opportunities, allowing children to benefit from their genetic advantages Genes may shape tendencies, but whether these tendencies are actualized often depends on the environment

The 5 C's: Character

Respect for societal and cultural rules, possession of standards for correct behaviors, a sense of right and wrong (morality), and integrity

Age grouping and school transitions

School districts have moved away from housing young adolescents separately and are returning to a two-school model (usually K-8 and 9-12), in light of many studies showing that students demonstrate higher achievement and fewer behavioral problems under this arrangement The particular grade configuration of a school is less important than the school's educational climate and quality of instruction In one study, 6th grade girls attending elementary school, where they were the oldest students, reported more fighting and more suicidal thoughts than their counterparts who were in middle school, and in another, which was conducted in small, rural communities, there was more bullying in K-8 and K-12 schools than in districts that had separate elementary and secondary school

School reform: past and present

Schools are also potentially important tools of social intervention, because it is through schools that the greatest number of young people can most easily be reached One reason that schools today are asked to do so much more than educate adolescents is that new demands are placed on schools every time a different social problem involving adolescents widespread attention

Sex

Sexual content is found across virtually all tv genres, so teenagers are exposed to sex on tv whether their tastes run toward comedies, action shows, or dramas, although the content in which set is depicted varies across different categories Most sexual content on prime-time tv does not contain graphic images of individuals having sex, but instead is made up of humorous and suggestive comments The most common sexual messages involve men seeing women as sex objects, sex as a defining aspect of masculinity, sex as a competition, and sex as fun and exciting The message that women are sex objects is one that teenager seem especially susceptible to Exposure to sexually explicit websites increased the likelihood of sexual activity among adolescents who has just entered puberty, but decreased it among those who were sexually mature Whether such exposure affects adolescents' attitudes and behaviors because it changes their beliefs about what is normative, or whether it works by actually making adolescents more sexually aroused, is not known

In what ways do peer groups change?

Sharp increase during adolescence in the sheer amount of time individuals spend with their peers and in the relative time they spend in the company of peers vs adults During the transition into adolescence, there is a dramatic drop in the amount of time adolescents spend with parents; for boys, this is mainly replaced by time alone and time with friends During adolescence, peer groups function much more often without adult supervision than they do during childhood, partly because adolescence are more mobile and partly because they seek, and are granted, more independence Groups of younger children typically play in the presence of adults or in activities organized or supervised by adults (e.g., organized sports), whereas adolescents are granted far more independence During adolescence, increasingly more contact with peers is between males and females During childhood, peer groups are highly sex segregated The shift from same-sex peer groups to mixed sex groups tends to occur around the beginning of high school Adolescence makes the emergence of larger collectives of peers, called crowds Crowds typically develop their own minicultures, characterized by particular styles of dressing, talking, and behaving

Why are siblings often so different?

Siblings actually may have very different family experiences, because they have been treated differently by their parents, they perceive similar experiences in different ways, or because they grew up in the same household at different times in the family's life Unequal treatment from mothers or fathers often creates conflict among siblings and is linked to a variety of problems, such as depression, antisocial behavior, and early pregnancy Differences in siblings' real and perceived family experiences are related to different patterns of development Better adjusted adolescents are more likely than their siblings to report that they had close relationships with their parents, that their relations with brothers or sisters were friendly, that they were given a high levels of responsibility around the house Sibling relationships are strained only when this differential treatment is perceived as unfair Treating siblings differently may actually be good thing for parents to do, so long as each sibling is treated well. when siblings are treated different by their parents, they get along better - presumable because this differential treatment makes them feel unique and lessens sibling rivalry Sibling deidentification Although having an older sibling who is academically successful seems to promote younger adolescents' achievement, too much academic support from an older sibling may actually undermine a younger adolescent's success in school

Cliques

Small, tightly knit groups of between 2 and 12 friends, generally of the same sex and age

Education in the inner cities

Some commentators have argued that the problem of low student achievement is not an across-the-board problem, but one that is concentrated mainly among poor and minority youngsters living in inner cities All social scientists concur that the education crisis, and its implications for the future of the education crisis, and its implications for the future of the labor force, is especially urgent within inner-city public schools The concentration of poverty in many inner-city communities has produced a population of students with an array of personal and situational problems - problems that few schools are equipped or able to address Students in urban schools report less of a sense of "belonging" to their school, which leads to disengagement and poor achievement Many reformers now believe that to fix the problems of urban education, we must change the entire context in which inner-city children live, not merely what goes on in their schools

Family relationships and adolescent development

Some parents are stricter than others. Some adolescents are given a great deal of affection, while others are treated more distantly In some households, decisions remade through open discussion and verbal give-and-take; in others, parents lay down the rules, and children are expected to follow them Although we tend to see children's behavior as the result of their parents' behavior, socialization is a two-way street Just as parents affect their adolescents' behavior, adolescents affect how their parents behave Harsh discipline leads to increases in adolescent behavior problems, but when adolescents behave badly, parents respond by becoming more punitive, over controlling, or detached Adolescents who have a greater genetic risk for developing problems (by virtue of their family history) are more likely to evoke from their parents the sort of behavior that has been shown to lead to the development of problems

Occupational plateau

The point at which they can tell how successful they are likely to be

Social promotion

The practice of promoting students from one grade to the next automatically, regardless of their school performance

Tracking

The practice of separating students into ability groups, so that they take classes with peers at the same skill level

Possible benefits for poor youth

Some researchers have found that working, even in the sorts of jobs available to teenagers, has special benefits for inner-city adolescents form single-parent families, from poor families, with poor school records, or with histories of delinquency Working during junior high school or the early high school years increases the changes that poor minority youth will drop out of school and engage in problem behavior, whereas working later in high school does not It is important, therefore, that working complement, rather than take place of, school One recent study of juvenile delinquents found that working during high school was only beneficial if the adolescent was also attending school regularly Studies of work and adolescent development point to a complicated pattern of cause and effect that unfolds over time Adolescents who are less attached and committed to school, and who are more involved in problem behavior, are more likely to choose to work long hours Intensive employment during the school year most threatens the school performance and psychological well-being of those students who can least afford to suffer the consequences of overcommitment of a job

The effects of school on adolescent development

Staying in school is preferable to dropping out, not only in terms of future earnings but in terms of intellectual development as well Schooling affects adolescents' achievement score more than their performance on tests of cognitive skills, such as memory, suggesting that the impact of school may be primarily through students' acquisition of new information, rather than improved information processing abilities Adolescents who stayed in school gained far more intellectually over the 2-year interval in a variety of content areas The adverse effects of dropping out were most intense among socioeconomically disadvantaged youth Among higher socioeconomic status (SES) students, academic progress during the school year was comparable to that during the summer, in large measure because their parents encouraged them to continue at least some intellectual pursuits over summer vacation One benefit of summer school for disadvantaged students is that it diminishes the decline in achievement that would otherwise occur between the spring and fall semesters Far less is known about the impact of schools on psychosocial development Attending a school that has a positive climate can even help protect against some of the adverse effects of exposure to the sort of family environment or peer group that increases the risk of alcohol and drug use Important to recognize that despite adults' intentions and objectives, students do not view school solely in terms of its academic agenda Students' happiness in school is most influenced by their relationships with their peers Students' experiences within a school can vary widely according to their track, their peer group, and their extracurricular activities Academically talented and economically advantaged students have a more positive experience in school than their less capable or less affluent counterparts do - positive not only with respect to what they learn in class but also with respect to the impact of school on their feelings about themselves ad individuals The structure of a school - its size, its tracking policy, its curricula - provides different intellectual and psychosocial opportunities for students who occupy different places within that structure

Boring classes, bored students

Students frequently say they are bored while in school - especially high school students, who find school far more boring that do middle school students The make-work, routinized, rigid structure of most classrooms, in which teachers lecture at students rather than engage them in discussion, alienates many adolescents from school and undermines their desire to achieve Lack of engagement is associated with more frequent reports of school stress, cheating, and a variety of stress-related disorders, including depression, aggression, and psychosomatic problems, such as headaches and exhaustion Students are engaged when teachers provide opportunities for students to genuinely display their competencies, when schools facilitate students' feelings or belonging to their school, and when students are assigned work that is "authentic" - challenging, fun, and relevant to the real world There is nothing more alienating to students than being asked to perform tasks that are boring, uninteresting, and irrelevant

The strengths of small schools

Students in small schools are more likely than students in large schools to be active in a wider range of activities, they are more likely to report doing things that help them develop their skills and abilities, allow them to work closely with others, and make them feel needed and important Students in small schools also are more likely to be placed in positions of leadership and responsibility, and they more often report having done things that made them feel confident and diligent School size especially affects the participation of students whose grades are not very good In large schools, academically marginal students often feel like outsiders and rarely get involved in school activities More inequality in students' educational experiences in larger schools, where students may be sorted into tracks of differing quality In small schools, in contrast, it is more likely that all students are exposed to the same curriculum, if only because the school cannot afford to offer more than one

The waxing and washing of crowds

Students of all ages agreed that is was less acceptable to deny students resources because of crowd membership (which virtually all students viewed as immoral) than to exclude them from an activity (which was less often seen as a moral issue) This pattern of a decline in the salience of peer crowds parallels developmental changes in adolescents' susceptibility to peer pressure As crowds become less important, between middle and late adolescence, their influence over the individual's behavior weakens Just as the changes in the structure of cliques play a role in the development of intimacy, changes in the salience of crowds play an important role in adolescent identity development As adolescents become more secure in their identity as individuals, the need for affiliation with a crowd diminishes The breakup of the larger peer group in late adolescence may both foreshadow and reflect the emerging of each adolescent's unique and coherent sense of self

Gifted students

Students who are unusually talented in some aspect of intellectual performance

Individual differences in the extent of transitional problems

Students who have more academic and psychosocial problems before making a school transition cope less successfully with it Students scoring high in social competence before the transition into a new school become even more competent over the course of the changes Factors other than students' prior record also influence their transition to middle or high school Adolescents who have close friends before and during the transition adapt more successfully to the new school environment, although the benefits of staying with their friends accrue only to students who had been doing well previously. Students who had been doing poorly actually adjust better if they enroll in a different school than their friends, perhaps because their friends were contributing to their poor performance Transition into secondary school does not have uniform effects on all students More vulnerable adolescents, adolescents with fewer sources of social support, and adolescents moving into more impersonal schools are more susceptible to the adverse consequences of this transition than their peers are. Not surprisingly, studies of poor, inner-city youngsters, who often are coping with problems associated with economic stress and neighborhood disadvantage, find especially significant negative effects of the school transition on these students' self-esteem, achievement, perceptions of the school environment, reports of social support, and participation in extracurricular activities Boys, ethnic minority students, and students from poor families are more likely to become disengaged from school during early adolescence Among black and Latino students, transitioning to a school where the proportion of students form the same ethnic background is lower than it had been at their previous school is associated with greater disengagement from school, lower grades, and more frequent absences

Schools within schools

Subdivision of the student body within large schools created to foster feelings of belongingness

Alternatives to public schools

Substantial minority attend private schools, either parochial (i.e., with a religious affiliation) or independent, or specially created public schools, like charter schools or magnet schools States provide parents with school vouchers that could be used to "purchase" education at a school of their choosing - private or public States permit the development of charter schools - independent public school that are freer to operate as they wish, without some of the constraints imposed by the state's education bureaucracy Some studies have found that students' test scores are higher in private schools (especially Catholic schools), this appears to be due more to the characteristics of the students who attend them than to the private schools themselves, although some studies have found genuine advantages for Catholic school students, especially among poor, inner-city, minority youth Students who attend private school may also be encouraged (or required) to take more advanced courses than students in public schools, which contributes to their superior performance on achievement tests Private schools typically assign more homework and are more orderly and disciplined (an important element of the climate in good schools) Students who attend private schools (Catholic or otherwise) are substantially less likely to report feeling unsafe, being exposed to gangs, or witnessing fighting between ethnic groups

Teacher expectations and student performance

Teachers' expectations are often accurate reflections of their students' ability, and because teacher expectations actually create "self-fulfilling prophecies" that ultimately influence how their students behave Children from poor families are particularly vulnerable to the effects of teacher expectations, benefiting when expectations are high but suffering when they are low Teachers are likely to base their expectations in part on students' ethnic and socioeconomic background These factors sometimes influence tracking decisions, they may consciously and unconsciously shape teachers' expectations Teachers may call on poor or minority students less often than they call on affluent or white students - conveying a not-so-subtle message about whose responses the teacher believes are more worthy of class attention Not all minority students are perceived negatively by white teachers, however: Asian students are actually viewed more positively than white students, and white teachers' perceptions of latino students don't differ from their perceptions of white students There is also evidence that teachers are more likely to give undeserved positive feedback to students who have done poor work when the students are black or latino than when they are white, which undermines minority students' achievement by lowering the standards to which they are held Biased treatment by teachers - having low expectations for some ethnic groups and high expectations for others - can increase students alienation and feelings of hostility between students from different ethnic groups Parents also play an important role in the links between teacher expectations and student achievement One factor that helps protect low-income students against the impact of low teacher expectations is having high expectations for achievement from their parents

Patterns of time use in other countries

Teenagers in the US spend far more time on leisure, and far less time is productive activities, than their counterparts in other countries American teenagers spend relatively more time playing sports, socializing with friends, caring for their physical appearance, and working at after-school jobs

The role of puberty

The adolescent's biological and cognitive maturation likely plays a role in unbalancing the family system during early adolescence. Family relationships change during puberty, with adolescents and their parents bickering more frequently and feeling less close Although puberty seems to distance adolescents from their parents, it is not associated with familial "storm and stress" Rates of outright conflict between parents and children are not dramatically higher during adolescence than before or after. Rather, disputes between parents and teenagers are typical of the sorts of arguments people have when a more powerful person (the parent) is trying to get a less powerful one (the adolescent) to do something Diminished closeness is more likely to be manifested in increased privacy on the part of the adolescent and less physical affection between teenagers and parents, rather than any serious loss of love or respect between them The distancing that takes place between parents and teenagers in early and middle adolescence is temporary Parent-child relationships tend to become less conflicted and more intimate during late adolescence and show no decline in closeness as the adolescent enters young adulthood. Bickering can take a toll on parents' and teenagers' mental health Family conflict actually leads to the development of mental health problems and emotional distress, regardless of ethnicity. Conflict at home spills over into the adolescents' school life and relationships with friends, causing problems and emotional distress Asian households, there is an increase in conflict, as in non-Asian families, but not until later in adolescence. Comparing black families with white families, found that white parents tended to give adolescents relatively more autonomy over decisions, although opportunities for adolescent decision making increased in both ethnic groups over time Mexican American families found lower rates of parent-adolescent cohesion during mid-adolescence among more highly acculturated families than in less Americanized ones, probably because in traditional Mexican families, adolescents are less likely to challenge their parents Part of the problem is that conflicts between teenagers and parents tend to be resolved not through compromise but through one party giving in or walking away, neither of which enhances the quality of the relationship or contributes to anyone's well-being As relationships between parents and adolescents become more egalitarian they get better at resolving conflicts

Causation

The correlation between two things attributable to the effect one thing has on the other

Flow experience

The experience of high levels of both concentration and interest at the same time

Conflict and stress

The exposure of children to marital conflict, disorganized or disrupted parenting, and increased stress in the household, often due to loss of income. Adolescents living in two-parent families in which no divorce has occurred are also harmed by marital conflict, suboptimal parenting (especially parenting that is too lenient, too harsh, or inconsistent), and loss of income The adverse, and usually temporary, effects of divorce or remarriage on adolescent well-being usually reflect the heightened conflict, disorganization, and stress surrounding the event, not the divorce or marriage per se. The most important pathway through which divorce may adversely affect adolescent adjustment is via its disruptive impact on parenting

Student engagement

The extent to which students are psychologically committed to learning and mastering the material rather than simply completing the assigned work

Changes in family needs and functions

The family as a unit changes as well in the economic circumstances, its relationship to other social institutions, and its functions The financial demands placed on parents in the "sandwich generation" (this is, sandwiched between their adolescent children and their aging parents) require considerable adjustment How adolescents and parents adjust to this shift in orientation varies across ethnic groups, since certain cultured are more likely to stress family obligations - like helping with household chores - than others Many immigrant families place an especially high value on familism, an orientation toward life in which the needs of one's family take precedence over the needs of the individual. Adolescents who value familism and assist their families are less likely to get depressed and less likely to get involved with antisocial peer groups, which lessens their chances of drinking or using illicit drugs Different expectations between immigrant parents and teenagers are a significant source of stress for adolescence and parents alike, especially when the adolescent is more Americanized and the parents are less so, a phenomenon known as generational dissonance Importance changes in family functions also take place during adolescence Making the transition form the family functions of childhood to the family function of adolescence is not necessarily easy, especially in contemporary society, where preparation for adulthood - one of the chief tasks of adolescence that was once carried out primarily by the family - is increasingly performed by other institutions, such as the school. Many parents feel at a loss to figure out just what their role during adolescence is. It's important that they know that having close family relationships is just as important in adolescence as it was in childhood

Positive youth development

The goal of programs designed to facilitate healthy psychosocial development and not simply to deter problematic development

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The idea that individuals' behavior is influenced by others' expectations for them

Changes in the size of the youth population

The most important factor influencing the rise of adolescent peer groups in contemporary society was the rapid growth of the teenage population between 1955 and 1975. Following the end of WWII, many parents wanted to have children as soon as possible, creating what has been called the postwar baby boom Patterns of change in the size of the adolescent population vary considerably around the world, mainly because of different birthrates Changes in the number of adolescents may warren changes in the allocation of funds for social services, educational programs, and health care, since adolescents' needs are not the same as those of children or adults Changes in the size of the adolescent population have implications for understanding the behavior of cohorts. A cohort is a group of individuals born during a particular period, such as the baby boomers (born in the early to mid-1950s), Gen X (born in the early 1970s), the millennials (the adolescent children of the baby boomers, born in the 1980s and early 1990s, also known as generation Y), or generation Z (born during the 1990s, and sometimes referred to as the iGeneration, because of the growth of the internet during their time

Similarity among clique members

The most important influence on the composition of cliques is similarity Adolescents' cliques typically are composed of people who are of the same age, ethnicity, and - at least during early and middle adolescence - the same sex

Classroom climate

The most important school-related influence on learning and psychosocial development during adolescence is what takes place in the classroom Various aspects of the high school climate have important effects on youngsters' learning and achievement How teachers interact with students, how classroom time is used, and what sorts of standards and expectations teachers hold for their students are all more important than the size of the school, its ethnic composition, its approach to ability grouping, or the way age groups are combined

Structured leisure activities

The most popular extracurricular activity in the US is athletics, in which about half of all adolescents participate; it is also the extracurricular activity that has been most extensively studied The other two main extracurricular activities are those related to music (about one-fifth of adolescents are members of a school band, chorus, orchestra, or glee-club) and those related to academic or occupational interests (about one-fifth are members of clubs devoted to science, foreign languages, or certain careers) It is more prevalent among adolescents from more affluent families, among students who earn better grades, and among students from smaller schools and smaller, more rural communities, where school activities often play a relatively more central role in the lives of adults and adolescents alike (e.g., where an entire community may turn out for Friday night football) Middle-class parents encourage their children to participate in extracurricular activities primarily as a means of self-improvement (often, with the child's future in mind), whereas working-class families are more likely to do so as a way of keeping their teens safe and out of trouble during after-school hours Extracurricular participation is stable over time - students who are highly involved in these activities at the beginning of high school are likely to stay highly involved through graduation

Nonshared environmental influences

The nongenetic influences in individuals' lives that make them different from people they live with

Standards-based reform

The past three decades have been dominated by what is called standards-based reform, which focuses on policies designed to improve achievement by holding school and students to a predetermined set of benchmarks measured by achievement tests This gave rise to proposals that American schools adopt the Common Core, a set of standards in English language arts and mathematics that schools across the country would be expected to use to evaluate whether their students were learning what they ought to learn in each grade Educators haven't been able to agree on the body of knowledge and skills that comprise what high school graduates should know and be able to do We should focus on the ways in which we train, certify, place, and compensate teachers

Out-of-school influences on student engagement

The peer group's support, values, and norms also exert an important influence, especially in high schools Adolescents with friends who support academic achievement are more likely to feel connected to their school. Those with antisocial friends are more likely to feel alienated Cliques and crowds differ enormously in the extent to which they encourage or discourage academic success Students whose parents are involved in school activities (such as parent-teacher conferences and "back-to-school" nights), who encourage and emphasize academic success, and who use authoritative parenting practices do better in secondary school than their peers After-school employment and extracurricular participation also affect school achievement Involvement in school-based extracurricular activities strengthens students' attachment to school In contrast, students who overextend themselves on the job may jeopardize their school performance

The role of parents

The process of antisocial peer group formation in adolescence begins in the home, during childhood Problematic parent-child relationships - ones that are coercive and hostile - lead to the development of an antisocial disposition in the child, and this disposition contributes, in elementary school, to both school failure and rejection by classmates Improvements in parenting during adolescence reduce teenagers' association with antisocial peers, which, in turn, reduces problem behavior Adolescents whose parents act as consultants in this way are less likely to be involved in drug use and delinquent activity and report more positive relationships with their friends Excessive attempts to control an adolescent's chose of friends may backfire; when parents forbid adolescents from associating with peers the parents disapprove of, they may inadvertently drive adolescents to become closer to those peers, perhaps in defiance of these restrictions on their independence Parents play a role in socializing certain traits in their children, and these orientations, whether toward aggression or academic achievement, predispose adolescents toward choosing certain friends or crowds with which to affiliate When adolescents have relatively more antisocial friends, having better relationships at home and a stronger attachment to school will make them less susceptible to their friends' negative influence - even in the context of a gang Iatrogenic effects are the undesirable consequences of well-intentioned treatments - for example, when the side effects of a medication are far worse than the problem it is intended to treat. When antisocial adolescents spend time with like-minded peers, they frequently teach each other how to be "more effective" delinquents and reward each other for misbehavior Individuals who has a history of involvement in antisocial behavior engaged in more spontaneous conversation about antisocial activities and rewarded each other in the way they responded (e.g., "we were so wasted last Friday" "oh yeah, that was insane" "remember the time we stole that vodka?" "that was so awesome")

Age grading

The process of grouping individuals within social institutions on the basis of age

Sibling deidentification

The process through with siblings deliberately try to be different from each other

Big fish-little pond effect

The reason that individuals who attend high school with high achieving peers feel worse about themselves than comparably successful individuals with lower-achieving peers

The origins of secondary education

The rise of secondary education in America was the result of several historical and social trends that converge at the turn of the twentieth century. Most important were industrialization, urbanization, and immigration Eager to improve living conditions for the masses, social reformers envisioned education as a means of improving the lives of the poor and working classes Anxious to see that foreign-boring immigrants were well socialized into the American way of life, reformers presented universal secondary education as a necessary part of the process of Americanization By the middle of the twentieth century, the high school has come a long way from its exclusive focus at the turn of the century on the intellectual developed of the elite

The best classroom climate for adolescents

The same factors that influence positive adolescent adjustment at home are important at school Students achieve and are engaged more in school when they attend schools that are responsive and demanding Students and teachers are more satisfied in classes that combine a moderate degree of structure with high student involvement and high teacher support, a finding that has emerged in studies of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic groups, and countries Students do best when their teachers spend a high proportion of time on lessons (rather than on setting up equipment or dealing with discipline problems), begin and end lessons on time, provide clear feedback to students about what is expected of them, and give ample praise to students when they perform well One of the strongest influences on how much students enjoy going to school is the extent to which they feel their teachers respect and care about them The pattern of classroom variables associated with positive student behavior and attitudes is similar to the authoritative family environment The combination of positive student-teacher relationships in the context of an elderly and well-managed classroom and school not only facilitates academic achievement, but also reduces behavior problems Schools that provide both structure and support have lower rates of suspension than other schools

Behavioral genetics

The scientific study of genetic influences on behavior

The adolescent consumer

The size of the adolescent population, the prevalence of student employment, and the fact that adolescents save less than any other age group make young people an attractive target for a variety of business Much of adolescents' money is spend on discretionary purchases related to leisure activities Advertising aimed at teenagers takes advantage of the fact that they are more impulsive and self-conscious than adults American's economy is driven by consumer spending, and the segments of our economy that are devoted to leisure and recreation depend on the adolescent market Among the most important industries are those connected with movies, music, sports, and tv Because adolescents are likely to use technologies that can easily and instantly connect them to thousands of other teenagers, using young people to spread the word about new products is highly effective Teenagers often have considerable influence over their parents' purchases, which gives added incentive for advertisers to market products with young people's tastes in mind

Economic stress and poverty

The studies of family income loss and adolescent adjustment suggest a number of parallels with the research on divorce and remarriage

The transformation of the nerds

The study found that many individuals managed to transform themselves from "nerds" into "normals" during high school Accomplished because the high school peer structure was more differentiated and permeable The transition to "normal" came about through gains in self-assurance that came with physical and social development. And for still others, the transformation was facilitated by a more sophisticated confident view of the social hierarchy - one that permitted them to reject the premise that whatever the popular kids valued was necessarily desirable In essence, the transformation of "nerds' to "normals" was enabled by a combination of factors both within the context (the increasing differentiation and permeability of the peer crowd system) and within the adolescent (the physical, cognitive, and social maturation of the individual)

Secondary educational system

The system of middle schools, junior high schools, and high schools

Hostile attributional bias

The tendency to interpret ambiguous interactions with others as deliberately hostile

The transition from high school to college

The transition from high school to college parallels the transition from elementary to secondary school Going to school means entering an even larger, more formidable, and more impersonal environment The transition may coincide with other life changes, such as leaving home, breaking off or beginning an important romantic relationship, or having to manage their own residence or finances for the first time The US has the lowest college completion rate in the industrialized world While many of the students who leave after 1 year eventually finish their degree program, if not necessarily at the same school they started in, one-third of all students who enroll in the college never finish. In other words, although a great deal has been done to make college entrance more likely, rates of college graduation lag far behind rates of enrollment

Changes in clique and crowd structure over time

There are important changes in the structure of cliques and crowds during the adolescent years, driven in large measure by the increased importance of romantic relationships

The internet and cognitive development

There inso evidence that adolescents' school performance is either helped or harmed by playing video games A few studies show that playing video games may enhance visual skills, reaction time, hand-eye coordination, information-processing skills, and problem solving abilities Despite concerns about the impact of internet use on brain development, credible scientific research on the topic is virtually nonexistent

School violence

These problems are especially common in middle schools Victimization is less common in more ethnically diverse schools, but within such schools, students who are in the smallest minority are the most likely to be victimized Violence is more common in overcrowds schools located in poor urban neighborhoods One study of violence in a multiethnic, urban high school found that Asian students were often the victims of violence and verbal harassment at the hands to their black and latino classmates, in part because they believed that teachers favored Asian and discriminated against their non-Asian classmates Suspending or expelling students from school increases their likelihood of getting into further trouble School violence is more effectively reduced through programs that attempt to create a more humane climate Students who are at risk for misbehavior in schools are less likely to get into trouble in schools where students generally feel more connected to school than in schools where students are more alienated

What do adolescents and parents usually fight about?

They squabble about things like curfews, leisure time activities, clothing, and the cleanliness of bedrooms And, although conflict between adolescents and parents over these mundane matters is generally less frequent in ethnic minority than in white families, the topics of disagreement are similar across ethnic groups and cultures The most common sources of conflict between adolescents and parents were everyday issues, such as time spent on schoolwork, household chores, and choice of friends A major contributor to adolescent-parent bickering is the fact that teenagers and their parents define the issues of contention very differently - a finding that has been replicated across many cultural and ethnic groups. Parents view many issues as matters of right and wrong - not necessarily in a moral sense, but as matters of citation or convention. Adolescents, in contrast, are likely to define these same issues as matters of personal choice.

Critical thinking

Thinking that involves analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting information, rather than simply memorizing it

Common interests among friends

Three factors appear to be especially important in determining adolescent clique membership and friendship patterns: orientation toward school, orientation toward the teen culture, and involvement in antisocial activity

The adolescent workplace today

Today, the majority of teenagers are employed in the retail and service industries Older students are more likely to hold formal jobs (for example, retail or restaurant work) than are younger students, who are more likely to hold informal jobs (such as babysitting or yard work) Working teenagers in rural areas are more likely to be employed in agricultural occupations than are their urban or suburban counterparts Job opportunities are nearly as restricted for older teenagers: restaurant work (such as a counter worker in a fast-food restaurant) and retail sales work (such as a cashier in a clothing store) account for more than half of all working students' jobs

Transformations in family relations

Together, the biological, cognitive, and social transitions of adolescence; the changes experienced by adults at midlife; and the changes undergone by the family during this stage set in motion a series of transformations in family relationships. There is a movement away from patterns of influence and interaction that are asymmetrical and imbalanced toward ones in which parents and adolescence - when this shift toward more egalitarian relationships first begins - may be a time of temporary disruption in family relationships

The effects of tracking on student achievement

Tracking has positive effects on the achievement of high-track students, negative effects on low-track students, and negligible effects on students in the middle Decisions about whether to implement tracking in non tracked schools, or whether to "detrack" schools that use tracking, are often controversial Parents of students in the higher tracks favor the practice, while parents of students in the lower tracks oppose it For high-ability students, within classroom ability grouping raises their expectations for them; for low-ability students, the opposite is true: they have lowered expectations and get worse grades from their teachers In classes with mixed ability groups, the high-ability students look better, and the low-ability students look worse, than they would in a congenitally tracked school or in a school in which ability grouping is not used Within classroom ability grouping also exposes students in different groups to different levels of educational quality, with students in the high-ability groups receiving more challenging instruction and more engaging learning experiences

Parenting styles and their effects

Two aspects of the parent's behavior toward the adolescent are critical: parental responsiveness and parental "demandingness" Parents vary on each of these dimensions. Some are warm and accepting, while others are unresponsive and rejecting; some are demanding and expect a great deal, while others are permissive and demand very little

Iatrogenic effects

Unintended adverse consequences of a treatment or intervention

Rejected adolescents

Unpopular adolescents comprises teenagers who have trouble controlling their aggression Withdrawn adolescents make up a second unpopular set; these adolescents are shy, anxious, and inhibited and boys of this sort are frequently victims of bullying A third group is both aggressive and withdrawn. These adolescents have problems controlling their hostility, but like other withdrawn children, they tend to be nervous about initiating friendships with other adolescents The origins of peer rejection in adolescence can frequently be traced to earlier periods of development Adolescents who are rejected by their peers had experienced peer rejection during middle childhood, and this rejection, in turn, was the consequence of behavioral and emotional difficulties apparent in early elementary school Others are rejected in adolescence mainly because they've been rejected in the past Rejection by peers is a significant source of stress for adolescents, who show greater brain activation to rejection than children do, as well as a stronger biological stress response to it

Victimization and harassment

Unpopular withdrawn children are excessively anxious and uncertain around other children, often hovering around the group without knowing how to break into a conversation of activity Their hesitancy, low self-esteem, and lack of confidence make other children feel uncomfortable, and their submissiveness makes them easy targets for bullying The more these children are teased, rejected, and victimized, the more anxious and hesitant they feel, and the more they blame themselves for their victimization, which only compounds their problem - creating a sort of cycle of victimization One of the most pernicious effects of victimization is that it undermines feelings of academic competence, academic performance, and school engagement, which has cascading effects well beyond adolescence - even after taking into account background factors, victimization during adolescence is associated with lower educational attainment, and, as a consequence, diminished earning in adulthood Not all rejected students are bullied Children who are victimized but who have supportive friends are less likely to be caught in this vicious cycle than those who are don't Helps to be good looking and wealthy, as well as a good athlete or student; rejected adolescents with any of these traits are less likely to be actively picked on than other rejected teens Peer harassment is something that students can be exposed to both directly (when they are the victims) or indirectly (when they witness harassment but aren't themselves victimized) Being victimized or witnessing the harassment of others makes students anxious, but, oddly enough, witnessing the harassment of other appears to buffer some of the harmful effects of being victimized Presumably, being singled out for harassment feels worse than being just one of many who are picked on

The experience sampling method

Using a technique called the experience sampling method (ESM), researchers collect much more detailed information about adolescents' experience over the course of the day The ESM has been used to chart adolescents' moods, monitor their social relationships, and catalog their activities in far greater detail than has been previously available Adolescents' moods are most positive when they are with their friends and least positive when they are alone; their moods when with their family fall somewhere between Between grades 5 and 9, adolescents' moods while with their friends become more positive, whereas their moods while with their family become more negative between elementary and middle school (between grades 5 and 7) and then rise between middle school and high school (between grades 8 and 9) When adolescents are in school, they report moderate levels of concentration but very low levels of motivation or interest in what they are doing When they are with friends, teenagers report moderate levels of motivation and interest but low levels of concentration It is only when adolescents are playing sports or involvement in the arts, a hobby, or an extracurricular organization that they report high levels of both concentration and interest The positive combination of high motivation, concentration, and engagement was most commonly observed when young adolescents were involved in sports or arts enrichment While adolescents are in unstructured leisure activities, like watching tv, they tend to show the same pattern of moderate interest but low concentration as when they are socializing with friends Participation in structured extracurricular activities, such as hippies or sports, has been shown to be the most positive way for adolescents to spend free time, in terms of their current and future psychological development

Variations in class size

Variations within the typical range of classroom sizes - from 20 to 40 students - do not affect students' scholastic achievement once they have reached adolescence Small classes benefit young elementary school children (up until third grade), who may need more individualized instruction, but adolescents in classes with 40 students learn just as much as those in classes with 20 An important exception to this finding involves situations that call for highly individualized instruction or tutoring, where smaller classes are more effective One implication of these findings is that it may be profitable for schools that maintain regular class sizes of 25-30 students to increase the size of these classes a bit and cut down on the number of classrooms in order to free some instructors, and to trim the sizes of classes for students who need specialized, small-group instruction

Promoting positive youth development

Well-designed programs not only will deter problem behavior by providing adolescents with adult supervision but can also promote positive youth development Goals espoused by proponents of positive youth development programs today bear a striking resemblance to the stated goals of youth programs that have been around for ages, like the YMCA, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, 4-H clubs, and scouting One of most widely citied emphasizes the Five C's of positive youth development: competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring/compassion The EPOCH model of positive adolescent psychology, stresses similar attributes: engagement, perseverance, optimism, connectedness, and happiness These characteristics, in one form or another, are often the focus of contemporary community-based programming for youth, including programs emphasizing community service, volunteer activity, mentoring, and skill building A key component to program success is the extent to which participants volunteer their commitment, are placed in demanding roles, are encouraged to meet high expectations, are expected to take responsibility for their behavior, and are helped to understand the consequences of failing to fulfill their obligations Adolescents must stick with their job, even in the face of challenges Youth benefit most when they perverse and derive a sense of accomplishment from their success This leads to changes in adolescents' self-conceptions - they come to see themselves as more dependable and mature, which affects how they behave outside the program as well Expecting adolescents to behave responsibly helps them develop a sense of responsibility Leads parents to see their teens as more self-reliant, which may increase parental autonomy-granting, further contributing to the development of independence Parents frequently report that their teenagers had become more attentive and considerate after having been in a well-run program

Single parenthood

When youngsters live with only one of their biological parents, either in single-parent or in two-parent households, it is usually with the mother; only about 15% of children who live with one parent lives with their father Important racial and ethnic differences in these patterns of family life. Whereas close to 85% of all Asian children, 75% of all white children, and 60% of all hispanic children live with two parents, only 33% of black children do. Black youngsters are far more likely to experience parental divorce and to be born outside of marriage, but they are far less likely to experience their parents' remarriage. As a consequence, black adolescents spend longer periods of time in single-parent households

The impact of schooling

Working more than 20 hours a week jeopardizes adolescents' school performance and engagement Youngsters who work long hours are absent from school more often, are less likely to participate in extracurricular activities, report enjoying school less, spend less time on their homework, and earn slightly lower grades Working long hours takes an especially bad toll on achievement among white and Asian students from middle-class families Intensive involvement in a part-time job may even increase the likelihood of dropping out of school Students who spend a lot of time on the job have less ambitious plans for further education, and they complete fewer years of college, in part because students with low aspirations for the future choose to work longer hours than their peers Working fewer than 20 hours per week does not appear to have these adverse effects A large number of students are able to manage school and work effectively, as long as they keep their work hours in check. Many benefit from learning how to manage their time effectively The impact of working on students' actual grades and achievement test scores is small, but extensive employment during the school year may take its toll on school performance in ways that are not revealed by looking only at grade point averages or test scores When students work a great deal, they often develop strategies for protecting their grades. These strategies include taking easier courses, cutting corners assignments, copying homework from friends, and cheating When large numbers of students in a school are employed, even those who don't have jobs can be affected indirectly

The power of authoritative parenting

Young people who have been raised in authoritative households are more psychosocially mature than peers who have been raised in authoritarian, indulgent, or indifferent homes More responsible, self-assured, creative, intellectually curious, socially skilled, and academically successful Authoritarian homes, in contrast, are more dependent, more passive, less socially adept, less self-assured, and less curious Better to have at least one authoritative parent than two non authoritative ones who hare the same point of view The link between authoritative parenting and healthy adolescent development has been found in studies of a wide range of ethnicities, social classes, and family structures, not only within the US, but also in parts of the world as diverse as Iceland, the Czech Republic, India, China, Israel, and Palestine Evidence favoring authoritative parenting is so strong that some experts have suggested that the question of which type of parenting benefits teenagers the most need not be studied anymore

Baby boom

the period following WWII, during which the number of infants born was extremely large