In this study of 62 African American families living in poverty, we examined the main and interactive effects of psychological, family, and school factors on students’ grade point average across the middle school transition. Both parent interviews and student surveys were collected, resulting in three major findings. First, students experienced a significant decline in grade point average acros...

Children's voluntary reading positively correlates with school grades, vocabulary growth, reading comprehension, verbal fluency, general information, and attitudes towards reading. Drawing on qualitative interviews collected alongside six waves of longitudinal survey data in an urban setting in eastern USA, We argue that voluntary reading by adolescents also provides learning opportunities that...

School bullying incidents, particularly experiences with victimization, are a significant social and health concern among adolescents. The current study extended past research by examining the daily peer victimization experiences of Mexican-American adolescents and examining how chronic (mean-level) and episodic (daily-level) victimization incidents at school are associated with psychosocial, p...

Food, eating, and the rituals surrounding food impact people as individuals, as groups, and as citizens. Through direct regulation, food aid, subsidies, and property rights, law shapes and even determines food choices in America. With it, law shapes, reflects, and may even--at times--dictate American identities. Perhaps nowhere is the law's impact on food and identity more immediately apparent ...

INTRODUCTION Few studies have simultaneously examined the influence of multiple domains of risk and protective factors for smoking among African Americans. This study identified individual-peer, family, school, and community risk and protective factors that predict early cigarette use among African American adolescents. METHODS Data from 1,056 African American 8th and 10th graders who complet...