Adolescent Development and Schooling

How the context of school and its relationship to other major context developments (family, peer group, and neighborhood) influence the social, emotional, and cognitive development of secondary school-aged youths. Metatheoretical approaches (mechanistic, organismic, developmental contextualist metamodels) and methods of conducting research on schooling and development (laboratory, survey, ethnographic, intervention). Topics: school transitions during adolescence; the role of school functioning in broader patterns of competence or distress; and how the organization of academic tasks, classrooms, and school environments as a whole can influence adolescent development. Focus is on middle and high school years. (PSE)