Decades of research indicate the important connections among academic motivation and achievement, social relationships, and school culture. However, much of this research has been conducted in homogenous American schools serving middle class, average achieving, Anglo-student populations. This edited volume will argue that school culture is a reflection of the society in which the school is embedded and comprises various aspects, including individualism, competition, cultural stereotypes, and extrinsically guided values and rewards. They address three specific conceptual questions: How do differences in academic motivation for diverse groups of students change over time? How do students' social cognitions influence their motivational processes and outcomes in school? And what has been done to enhance academic motivation? To answer this last question, the contributors describe empirically validated intervention programs for improving academic motivation in students from elementary school through college.

Adolescent Identity and Schooling: Diverse Perspectives examines a range of issues related to student adjustment and achievement through research on student identity. Drawn from leading experts in psychology and sociology, it attends to important contemporary topics in educational and developmental psychology. With special attention to how students assess and relate to their own identities, this book features chapters on pertinent but under-represented identities such as parental identity, immigrant identity, and model minority identity. It blends these new topics with chapters containing the most current perspectives on traditionally covered topics, such as race and social class. In ten chapters, this book provides readers with a comprehensive set of perspectives on the relationship between student identity and success in school, making it ideal for education courses on identity in education, educational psychology, and human development.

Black studies emerged from the tumultuous social and civil rights movements of the 1960s and empowered African Americans to look at themselves in new ways and pass on a dignified version of Black history. However, it also enriched traditional disciplines in profound and significant ways. Proponents of Black and ethnic studies confronted the false notion that scholarly investigations were objective and unbiased explorations of the range of human knowledge, history, creativity, artistry, and scientific discovery. As they protested against hegemonic notions like "universal" psychology and re-evaluated canonical texts in literature, a new model of academic inquiry evolved: one committed to serving a range of populations, that critiqued traditional politics, culture, and social affairs, and worked with activist energy for the transformation of the existing social order.
With an all-star cast of contributors, "The Black Studies Reader" takes on the history and future of this multi-faceted academic field. Topics include Black feminism, cultural politics, Black activism, lesbian and gay issues, African American literature and film, education, and religion. This authoritative collection takes a critical look at the current state of Black studies and speculates on where it may go from here.

Adolescent Identity and Schooling: Diverse Perspectives examines a range of issues related to student adjustment and achievement through research on student identity. Drawn from leading experts in psychology and sociology, it attends to important contemporary topics in educational and developmental psychology. With special attention to how students assess and relate to their own identities, this book features chapters on pertinent but under-represented identities such as parental identity, immigrant identity, and model minority identity. It blends these new topics with chapters containing the most current perspectives on traditionally covered topics, such as race and social class. In ten chapters, this book provides readers with a comprehensive set of perspectives on the relationship between student identity and success in school, making it ideal for education courses on identity in education, educational psychology, and human development.

Black Studies emerged from the tumultuous social and civil rights movements of the 1960s and empowered African Americans to look at themselves in new ways and pass on a dignified version of Black history. However, it also enriched traditional disciplines in profound and significant ways. With an all-star cast of contributors, the Black Studies Reader takes on the history and future of this multi-faceted academic field. Topics include Black Feminism, Cultural Politics, Black Activism, Lesbian and Gay Issues, African American literature and film, education, and religion. This authoritative collection takes a critical look at the current state of Black Studies and speculates on where it may go from here.

Child and Adolescent Development is a rich and continuously evolving field that offers a wealth of career opportunities. Careers in Child and Adolescent Development is the first textbook to guide students along each step of the career path-from the levels of academic degrees and programs available, to preparations for the professional world. It presents a brief description of the field, explores a broad array of career paths available to students, and offers some practical ideas for constructing a career plan. Students are provided with practical, up-to-date information about career opportunities, combined with real-life vignettes to illustrate the challenges and rewards these careers hold. The book presents traditional career paths in fields such as child and adolescent development, elementary education, educational leadership, and school counseling, as well as non-traditional or emerging career paths in child life and behavior analysis, research, academia, non-profit work, children's ministry, and family law. It will serve as a go-to reference for students, and can be used in a fieldwork class, a service learning class, a professional development class, or a capstone class.

Child and Adolescent Development is a rich and continuously evolving field that offers a wealth of career opportunities. Careers in Child and Adolescent Development is the first textbook to guide students along each step of the career path-from the levels of academic degrees and programs available, to preparations for the professional world. It presents a brief description of the field, explores a broad array of career paths available to students, and offers some practical ideas for constructing a career plan. Students are provided with practical, up-to-date information about career opportunities, combined with real-life vignettes to illustrate the challenges and rewards these careers hold. The book presents traditional career paths in fields such as child and adolescent development, elementary education, educational leadership, and school counseling, as well as non-traditional or emerging career paths in child life and behavior analysis, research, academia, non-profit work, children's ministry, and family law. It will serve as a go-to reference for students, and can be used in a fieldwork class, a service learning class, a professional development class, or a capstone class.

This volume examines the problem of null or negative evaluation findings, a topic rarely discussed in the literature but all too commonplace in the experience of evaluators. "The Southern California Center of Excellence on Youth Violence Prevention," housed in the "Robert Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies" at the "University of California, Riverside," has taken up the challenge to discuss candidly evaluation efforts that can be described only as challenging.

The individual chapters discuss a range of design, implementation, and analysis issues relevant not only to evaluation studies but also to interventions that can contribute to negative or null findings in the evaluation of an intervention program. These problems that are the realities of life for anyone who conducts prevention and intervention research are typically the stuff of research seminar comments and barroom digressions late in the evening at professional meetings. This issue brings those important lessons into the larger discussion that will influence prevention science and public policy. The contributors to this volume not only admit a set of problems and shortcomings but also attempt to draw general lessons, cautions, and advice for those who evaluate prevention and intervention efforts.

This is the 110th volume of "New Directions for Evaluation," a quarterly journal published by Jossey-Bass.