Social adjustment is critical to educational and occupational attainment. Yet little research has considered how the school's socioeconomic context is associated with social adjustment. In a longitudinal sample of Australian 4- to 8-year-olds (N = 9369; 51% boys) we tested the association between school average socioeconomic status and social…

Objective The goal of the current 3-year longitudinal study was to evaluate the association between maternal and paternal parenting styles and sibling relationships during the early to late adolescent transition. Our original sample consisted of 272 participants in grades 9 and 11 from a high school in the Northeastern US. After three years, time…

Research suggests a link between precocious transitions to adulthood (e.g., high school dropout) and maladaptation, and this association is typically assumed to be uniform. We propose that this monolithic portrayal of precocious transitions as problematic for adult functioning is unwarranted, particularly across identities defined by gender,…

Educational transitions involve a number of changes for adolescents and can be challenging for adolescents and parents alike. The present study was designed to gain a better understanding as to how adolescents' perceptions of parenting evolves across a major educational transition and how the parenting perceived across this transition may…

Adopting empowerment as a theoretical lens, this paper examines how a combination of structural (particularly class background) and individual factors (particularly empowering agents and a strong personal will to achieve) have contributed to school success and ethnic identity formation of minority students in China. Our longitudinal study on a…

The present cross-sectional study aimed to examine whether characteristics of the parent-child relationship in adolescence are important for adjustment and identity development. Participants were recruited from schools in central Sweden for a larger longitudinal study when the cohort was 13- to 14-year-olds (N = 3,667). Characteristics of the…

Identifying patterns of victimization continuity and discontinuity over time can inform school-based efforts to prevent and intervene with peer victimization. We conducted a four-wave longitudinal study of students through their transition from middle to high school. Participants were 135 diverse students from Grade 8 to Grade 11 who completed…

The formation of social ties is a major factor in the international student experience (Ramsay et al. in High Educ 54(2):247-265, 2007), influencing student wellbeing and adjustment to the new academic and sociocultural environment (Ward et al. in The psychology of culture shock. Routledge, Hove, 2001). Although a significant body of research in…

It is believed children stand to benefit from a greater male teacher presence in early childhood education (ECE) where, internationally, the vast majority of ECE teachers are female. This study (N = 180) examines the relationship between children's social adaptation and the educational practices of 53 ECE teachers, 23 (44%) of which were male.…

A number of studies report that from the first years of life, preterm children have more difficulty self-regulating and communicating in their social group. If these children show signs of difficulty adjusting socially, the question then is whether or not these problems continue and persist over time. The objective is to observe the combined…

Positive student-teacher relationships are related to students' academic achievement and behavioural and emotional adjustment. How a student's behavioural and emotional strengths are associated with these relationships and how the relationships influence students' academic performance remains unknown. We examined this framework using a…

The transition to kindergarten is a critical period for children and families, with successful transitions setting the stage for short- and long-term academic and social success. This study explored the practices used by kindergarten teachers to help ease children's and families' transition into primary school (termed "transition…

This study explored how nonpromotional school changes, a potentially major event for children, were associated with 3 forms of social maladjustment: isolation/withdrawal, affiliation with maladjusted peers, and aggression toward peers. Given that school mobility frequently co-occurs with family transitions, the moderating role of these transitions…

Identity formation is one of the key developmental tasks in adolescence. According to Erikson (1968) experiencing identity uncertainty is normative in adolescence. However, empirical studies investigating identity uncertainty on a daily basis are lacking. Hence, studying individual differences in daily certainty (i.e., identity commitment levels)…

Using a sample of 995 students living in residential housing at a selective, public research university, this study examined the relationship between student-parent interactions and adjustment to college and investigated differences between student-mother interactions and student-father interactions. Results indicate that students are generally…