Journal of Adolescent Research

The purpose of the two studies reported in this paper was to examine the relationship between identity and self-esteem development during the late adolescent years. Subjects in Study 1 completed the Inventory of Psychosocial Development and a semantic differential measure of four components of self-esteem. Using a backwards stepwise multiple regression procedure the IPD scales that were significant predictors of the self-esteem measures were identified for males and for females. The subjects in the second study completed the same instruments. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine if the scales found to be significant predictors of self-esteem in the first study also predicted self-esteem in the second study. This was generally found to be the case except for the Masculinity/Femininity component of self-esteem for males. The findings were interpreted as demonstrating that resolution of identity issues has important implications for self-esteem, and that identity is differentially related to self-esteem for males and females.

The study examined the factors that contribute to the formation of sex-role attitudes of high school adolescents from the Cane Belt Area in Louisiana. The sample consisted of 101 females and 65 males who were 11th and 12th grade students in the 4-H Club program. Data from the questionnaire were correlated with variables of sex, grade, mother's employment, and parental educational attainment. While both sexes displayed consistently nontraditional attitudes, females uniformly expressed less traditional attitudes than males. The variables with the exception of mother's education and grade level of respondents were shown to have a significant impact on the development of sex-role attitudes in the respondents. Data in this study also indicated females expressed a more nontraditional attitude towards employment expectations than did their male counterparts.

The language environment of the classroom is a mutually constructed reality created by the teacher and students involved in that particular context. It is understandable that classroom observers on a once-only visit misinterpret, misunderstand, or overlook meanings being made by teachers and students. But teachers and students in their own classrooms can also misinterpret or overlook meanings being made by their companions in learning. By examination of examples taken from transcripts of classroom language in a variety of high school content areas, classroom practitioners can be alerted to communication situations in which learning and understanding have been lost. This chapter reports research on classroom discourse in Australian high schools, and the implications of the findings for teachers. Misunderstanding of each others' communication can occur for both teachers and students. The misunderstandings of students encountering unfamiliar or ambiguous subject-specific language are wellknown, as are the difficulties of students who are not at home with school language and its style of presentation. While these problems for students in understanding and expression have been explored in the past, such problems still continue to be overlooked, as indicated by examples taken from the transcripts. Less well documented is the ability of students to appear to be learning through engaging in classroom discourse while merely play-acting learning. Such students have an awareness of how classroom discourse operates which enables them to present a persuasive facade of understanding. In reality, all they understand is how to interact plausibly in classroom discourse. Some strategies for appropriate teacher-response to this range of misunderstandings are discussed.

Elkind and Bowen's study was used as a basis for examining ethnic differences in the Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS) and its two subscales, the Abiding Self (AS) and the Transient Self (TS). Eighty-five Sioux and 100 Caucasian adolescents in the 7th, 8th, 11th, and 12th grades were administered the IAS. Some of Elkind and Bowen's findings were replicated. Ethnic differences were found in correlations between the IAS and measures of self-concept. No ethnic differences in IAS scores were found for younger adolescents; however, older Caucasian adolescents had lower AS scores than older Sioux adolescents. The need for more research on the IAS with different racial and cultural groups was discussed.

Interrelations were examined between young adolescents' characteristic social conduct and their social inferencing ability. Factor analysis of 48 teachers' ratings of 119 seventh grade students' characteristic social conduct resulted in the extraction of two factors. The first represented integrative or other-enhancing behavior; the second represented assertive behavior. Social inferencing loaded on the second factor for boys, and on a third orthogonal factor for girls. These results are interpreted in terms of male and female adolescents' differential ways of processing experience.

Five hundred twenty-six students completed questionnaires designed to measure the use of reasoning, verbal aggression and violence as conflict resolution strategies. Significant differences in the reasoning and verbal aggression scores were found based on gender and on the interactive status of the violence within the relationship. No significant difference was found for the violence score based on sex but a significant difference was found based on the interactive status of the relationship. When the sex of the respondent was controlled an almost identical proportion of males and females reported that violence in their relationship was reciprocal in nature. The results of this study present a strong argument that violence within courtship should be viewed as the breakdown in attempts at conflict resolution and not as a phenomeon in and of itself.

Based on developmental formulations in different content areas of social cognitive functioning, a model and assessment procedure to determine adolescents' understanding of sexual behaviour was developed and psychometrically evaluated. A four stage model of sexual behaviour concepts was supported in a sample of 492 adolescents and young adults. The results showed the Sexual Behaviour Concepts measure has acceptable reliability (interrater, internal consistency, and test-retest) and construct validity in relation to age and Loevinger's measure of ego level development. There was no social desirability effect. Gender differences were in favour of females. The relevance of a construct of sexual behaviour understanding in the process of adolescent development was considered.

Despite the existence of theoretical statements to the effect that status dependents directly derive their own status from the adult male head of the household, there is little systematic research in support. Survey data from university students is made homogeneous on several dimensions and then subjected to regression analyses predicting the self-placement of these youths using status indicators of both mother and father. Among the findings are that the objective indicators are of little importance, that subjective definition of mothers is more important than that of fathers in one's self-placement, and that there are sex-specific effects. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Dating experiences, especially the type or stage of dating, have consistently been found to be related to premarital sexual behavior. Findings regarding the age at first date and sexual behavior have been less consistent. This paper examined the age at which dating began and the type of dating relationship as correlates of premarital sexual attitudes and behavior amond mid-teen adolescents. The analyses were based on a sample of high school students (n = 836), most of whom were between the ages of 15 and 18 when the surveys were conducted. Early dating, especially early steady dating, was related to permissive attitudes and to premarital sexual experience among both males and females. The relationship between early dating and intercourse experience was particularly strong among Mormons, a religious group which has institutionalized age 16 as the legitimate age to begin dating.