Parents do matter: trajectories of change in externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence

This study examined the relative influence of three parenting behaviors (support, behavioral control, and psychological control) and deviant peers on trajectories of externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence. A white, working-to-middle-class sample of adolescents and their mothers and fathers in two-earner families participated in a 32-year longitudinal study (N = 109 families). The study began when the adolescents were in sixth grade (M age = 11.5 years). Analyses showed that parents' firm behavioral control seemed to halt the upward trajectory in externalizing problems among adolescents with deviant peers. Initial levels of internalizing problems were higher among adolescents with parents who reported lower levels of behavioral control and among adolescents with deviant peers. This study suggests that parenting exerts an important influence in adolescents' lives and may do so even in the face of potentially negative peer influence.     

Experiences of Counselors‐as‐Clients in Counselor Education

Eight professional counselors who routinely role‐play as clients in 1 counselor education program participated in a focus group investigating their portrayal experiences. Data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, which resulted in 3 superordinate themes: missions, influential factors, and repercussions. Findings reinforce instruction of idiographic and person‐centered care in counselor education.     

The effects of deeper learning opportunities on student achievement: Examining differential pathways

This study investigates relations between cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal opportunities, noncognitive outcomes, and student achievement in 1,096 students from 20 high schools (10 Deeper Learning [DL] network, 10 control) who participated in the Study of DL (SDL). DL is an umbrella term used to encompass the cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills and knowledge that students need to be successful in school and the workforce. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test a theoretical model that hypothesizes plausible pathways between DL opportunities to interpersonal, intrapersonal, and cognitive outcomes. Further, a multigroup structural equation modeling examined differences in these relations between DL and matched nonnetwork schools. Cognitive and intrapersonal opportunities were related to both interpersonal and intrapersonal outcomes. Further, cognitive opportunities were indirectly related to student achievement through interpersonal outcomes. Similar patterns of relations were found in DL and control schools. This study helps to build a stronger understanding of how types of DL opportunities and strategies can best develop the complex skills that students need to be successful in school and can also be used to inform future intervention designs and research studies.     

The effects of quarter of birth on academic outcomes at the elementary school level

This paper uses public schools data to examine the effects of age on student academic achievement in light of recent trends to delay children's entry into kindergarten. To avoid problems of endogeneity, students’ quarters of birth is employed as an instrument for age at entry. In particular, the effects of students’ quarters of birth on math and reading standardized test scores and grade retention at the elementary school level are estimated. Evidence of benefits to being among the oldest in one's age-grade cohort is found. Interestingly, over time, the youngest students begin to perform approximately on par with the oldest students, creating a u-shaped pattern to the data.     

Let’s be critically honest: towards a messier counterstory in critical race theory

This paper utilizes tools of critical race theory to interrogate the racial politics of the everyday. The authors contend that this type of critical policy analysis can yield understandings of/about the world that are too often silenced or ignored altogether. This paper argues that critical race theory does not aim to tell a “truer” account of reality, but a more honest one. Therefore, critical race scholars need not ask permission – nor seek forgiveness – for their counterstories, but hold themselves accountable to communicate stories and narratives that are not only honestly critical, but critically honest.     

Text messaging in the school lives of American high school girls

Digital technologies open new windows for ethnographic explorations of cultural experiences. In this paper, we examine text messaging among academically talented teenage girls of colour at three US urban high schools. Texting introduced a new communication modality into the girls’ lives and created a space for new discourses mediating their participation in school. We draw on the concept of ‘serious play’ to reveal the paradoxical nature of the girls’ texting. At each school, distinct text-messaged discourses emerged – with implications for ethnographic studies of discourse and young people’s commitments to schooling.     

Infant Attachment Security and Early Childhood Behavioral Inhibition Interact to Predict Adolescent Social Anxiety Symptoms

Insecure attachment and behavioral inhibition (BI) increase risk for internalizing problems, but few longitudinal studies have examined their interaction in predicting adolescent anxiety. This study included 165 adolescents (ages 14–17 years) selected based on their reactivity to novelty at 4 months. Infant attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation. Multimethod BI assessments were conducted across childhood. Adolescents and their parents independently reported on anxiety. The interaction of attachment and BI significantly predicted adolescent anxiety symptoms, such that BI and anxiety were only associated among adolescents with histories of insecure attachment. Exploratory analyses revealed that this effect was driven by insecure‐resistant attachment and that the association between BI and social anxiety was significant only for insecure males. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Mother-child and father-child mutually responsive orientation in the first 2 years and children's outcomes at preschool age: mechanisms of influence.

Mechanisms accounting for the effects of mutually responsive orientation (MRO) at 7, 15, and 25 months in 102 mother-child and father-child dyads on child internalization and self-regulation at 52 months were examined. Two mediators at 38 months were tested: parental power assertion and child self-representation. For mother-child relationships, the causal pathway involving power assertion was supported for both outcomes. Diminished power assertion fully mediated beneficial effect of mother-child MRO on internalization and partially mediated its effect on self-regulation. For father-child relationships, MRO predicted self-regulation, but the mediational paths were unsupported. Paternal power assertion correlated negatively with both outcomes but was not a mediator. Although MRO with both parents correlated with child self-representation, and it correlated with self-regulation, this mediational path was unsupported.