We examine how Black high school students, participants in a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) program, understand issues of racial discrimination and inequality in their schools. Through semi-structured individual interviews conducted early in the program, eight students (six boys and two girls) recount experiences of racial…

Ethnic socialization and racial socialization were examined as discrete concepts using a semistructured interview to assess message content for each form of socialization. We were interested in whether adolescents distinguished between these forms of socialization. Fifty-five African American 11th- and 12th-grade students were asked separate…

This study explores developing conceptions of feminism among Latina adolescents, their prevalence of feminist endorsement, and whether home environment and well-being are related to feminist identity. One hundred and forty Latina girls (Grades 9 to 12, M age = 15) wrote personal narratives of their understanding of feminism and whether they…

What type of work goals provide adolescents with the sense that schoolwork is important and that their lives are meaningful? This mixed-methods study of a diverse sample of 6th-, 9th-, and 12th-grade adolescents (N = 148) investigated the relationship between work goals, purpose, and meaning using a semistructured interview and a survey. Interview…

This study presented and tested a model of sexual satisfaction for late adolescent girls. In this model, sexual self-concept and approach sexual motives were tested as predictors of adolescent girls' sexual satisfaction with their most recent experience of sexual intercourse. A total of 116 girls in 12th grade (ages 16-19) completed measures of…

The open-ended responses of 701 7th to 12th graders to the question "What does democracy mean to you?" were analyzed. In logistic regressions, age, parental education, political discussions, and participation in extracurricular activities distinguished youth who could define democracy (53%) from those who could not. Case clustering revealed three…

The present study was conducted to determine if participation in extracurricular activities predicts multiple positive outcomes such as attending college, voting in national and regional elections, and volunteering for community and religious organizations. From analyses of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, a nationally…