Localized understandings of adolescent romantic relationships are needed to expand our knowledge of the diversity of adolescent romantic experiences and to challenge negative discourses of adolescent heterosexual relationships. This study explored the constructions of intimacy of 20 adolescent men and women in romantic relationships from one…

Although peer status has been studied extensively in childhood and adolescence, little is known about social status in peer groups of emerging adults. The current study filled this gap by testing whether preference and popularity are distinct dimensions of peer status and uniquely associated with social behavior in emerging adulthood. Participants…

This article examined the future plans constructed by Latina adolescent girls and their mothers within a lower income urban community. Seventeen high school juniors and their mothers were interviewed about the girls' pursuit of a trade during high school and anticipated postsecondary pathways in the nursing field. Thematic content analyses…

Stanley Hall's (1904) description of adolescence as a time "suggestive of some ancient period of storm and stress when old moorings were broken and a higher level attained" is arguably one of developmental psychology's most vivid and powerful metaphors. Its relatively insignificant contribution to Hall's treatise (Arnett, 2006), the early demise…

Identity research has focused primarily on outcomes associated with identity formation. Far less attention, however, has been given to understanding the facilitating contextual elements of this process. This qualitative study examined a context, a 2-week adventure recreation program for youth, quantitatively shown in previous research to have…

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for adolescents in most developed countries. In some countries including the United States, parents play a critical role in teaching adolescents to drive; however, little is known about what parents believe to be necessary in developing safe, skilled drivers, including the kind of instruction…

This qualitative study explores the future life goals reported by a sample of HIV-positive gay/bisexual male emerging adults. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 54 participants ages 17-24 at four geographically and demographically diverse adolescent HIV medicine programs to explore the content of participants' goals, perceived…

Rural adolescents are at risk for early initiation and problematic substance use, but to date few studies have examined the rural context of substance use. To better understand substance offers in the rural context, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 118, 12- to 19-year-old adolescents (M = 13.68, SD = 1.37) from Appalachian, rural…

Twenty-eight early adolescent boys and girls suspended from school for bullying provided accounts of the importance of reputation in their daily lives, specifically how they initiated, promoted, and then maintained their reputation through bullying. Overall, bullying was a deliberate choice perpetrated to attain a nonconforming reputation and was…

"I go to the hospital with my mother when she is sick. I can't go to school and leave her in so much pain. I won't concentrate." Millions of adolescents live with AIDS-affected parents or primary caregivers. Little is known about educational impacts of living in an AIDS-affected home, or of acting as a "young carer" in the…

Attitudes formed in adolescence create a foundation for family-formation decisions in adulthood. Drawing on qualitative interviews with fifty American adolescents, this article details five relationship-relevant factors that emerge in the teens' discussions of their relationship views. These are personal communication style, divorce acceptance,…

Mother-daughter communication plays an influential role in adolescent development. The impact of maternal HIV infection on family communication is not clear. This study explores how living with HIV impacts sexual risk communication between mothers and daughters and whether maternal HIV status influences adolescent choices about engagement in HIV…

Social network websites are widely used by adolescents, but disclosing in this environment has inherent risks, as does connecting with others online. In a sample of 256 adolescent "Facebook" users, the authors explore the relationship between having a negative experience, privacy knowledge, and behavior. Their reports of bad experiences on…

The data drawn from interviews with 55 second-generation Iranian American adolescents revealed that pride in ancient Persian culture, the adolescents' physical characteristics, perceived stereotypes, and community point of reference all combined to affect ethnic identity as well as to reinforce a sense of ethnic loyalty. The contextual factors…

Grounded theory principles were systematically employed to reveal key differences in pregnancy risk and underlying disparities in contraceptive use in (a) never-pregnant (b) pregnant-terminated and (c) pregnant-continued teenagers. Analysis of 69 semistructured interviews revealed a bicausal model of pregnancy protection that accounted for…