The current study investigated the role of ethnic-racial identity (ERI) on early adolescents' school adjustment, as moderated by their school friends' aggregate ERI. The study drew data from a longitudinal socioemotional project in a Midwestern U.S. middle school. Surveys were administered twice over a 6-month interval with a sample of 161 African…

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of primary pre-service teachers engaged in a peer-group mentoring program during a professional experience placement. Pre-service teachers completed weekly questionnaires and an interview about their experiences. Questionnaire and interview responses were coded and analysed according to three…

Gang involvement is associated with many negative outcomes. However, the social and emotional development of gang-involved youth has received little empirical investigation. This study examines the social and emotional outcomes of gang-involved youth. Data come from the 2009 Fairfax County Youth Survey administered to eighth, 10th, and 12th grade…

High school peer crowds are fundamental components of adolescent development with influences on short- and long-term life trajectories. This study provides the perspectives of contemporary college students regarding their recent high school social landscapes, contributing to current research and theory on the social contexts of high school. This…

The benefits of reading for pleasure and positive reader identities have been well established in previous research. However, much discussion regarding young people's reading is underpinned by a discourse of deficit, placing emphasis on what young people should be reading. In an attempt to move away from this discourse, this article considers…

Students' executive functions (EFs) are linked to school success. Although school-age children spend much of their time interacting with peers, few studies have explored how children's classmates may promote EF development in elementary school. In this study, we test whether mean levels and variability in classmates' EF skills are associated with…

The authors introduce the Preparation in STEM Leadership Program at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. This NSF-Funded program and research study creates a centralized training program for peer leaders that includes a battery of assessments to evaluate peer leaders' content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, communication skills, and…

This study analyzes the types of peer discussion that occur during lecture-based tutorial sessions. It focuses in particular on whether discussions of this kind have certain characteristics that might indicate success in the post-testing phase. The data were collected during an introductory physics course. The main data set was gathered with the…

This Directions paper, written by two former Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Leaders, (West and Jenkins) and a PAL Tutor (Hill), will support any geographer considering a PAL role. It reflects their experiences of participating in a PAL scheme at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, United Kingdom, and research conducted with…

This experimental study extends conflict elaboration theory (1) by revealing social influence dynamics for a knowledge-rich computer-supported socio-cognitive conflict task not investigated in the context of this theory before and (2) by showing the impact of individual differences in social comparison orientation. Students in two conditions…

Peer mentoring is a way to help guide and form valuable relationships between two or more students and plays an important role in the success, both academically and socially, of students. At Morehead State University (MSU), the International Peer Mentoring Program (IPMP) was designed and implemented in the Fall of 2016 to assist in the academic…

Purpose: Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) mispronounce more speech sounds than is typical for their age and a growing body of research suggests that a deficit in speech perception abilities contributes to development of the disorder. However, little work has been done to characterize the neurophysiological processes indexing speech…

The "invisible hand" is a metaphor that refers to teachers' impact on the classroom peer ecology. Although teachers have the capacity to organize the classroom environment and activities in ways that contribute to students' social experiences, their contributions are often overlooked in research on students' peer relations and the…

This article investigates citation and research collaboration habits of faculty in four engineering departments. The analysis focuses on similarities and differences among the engineering disciplines. Main differences exist in the use of conference papers and technical reports. The age of cited materials varies by discipline and by format.…

"Falling out" of education is a rampant problem among gifted children and adults in the Netherlands. An educated guess is that one-third of the gifted adults are unhappy with where they are in their lives and careers. This article discusses ways in which parents or teachers can make a difference by seeing the whole gifted child, creating…