A research study examined inner-city junior high school students' coping processes in relation to stressful academic and social events in the school environment. Data on coping styles were collected from approximately 200 students (Grade 7-8) with the Academic Coping Inventory, a self-report measure with four dimensions (positive coping, projection, denial, and non-coping). The coping variables, alone and in interaction with perception of stressor frequency, were found to have very different effects on grade point average by sex and reading level. A subsample of 60 students was interviewed to further examine students' coping styles in stressful social as well as academic contexts within the school, and whether appraisal played a role in determining the nature of coping styles. Preliminary analysis of the interviews indicated that the adolescents appraised stressful academic situations as ones in which they could take the more constructive action, that both boys and girls reported more projection coping in social than academic contexts, and that boys reported more denial in social contexts than in academic, and more denial in social contexts than girls. (Author/KH)