Search

This study examines whether youth's goals for their future societal engagement affect their future political activities. We hypothesized, first, that youth's political interest would be a central predictor of their future political activities and, second, that their goals for future societal engagement would moderate their political interest. The greatest future political activity would be among youth who were both politically interested and had set high goals. A community sample of about 400 16-year-olds (M[subscript age]=16.62, SD=0.71, 50.8% females) was followed over four years. The theory of planned behavior was applied. Different types of political action were predicted: offline political activities, online political activities, membership of a political/civic organization, and taking a stance in public for a party pre and post voting in a national election. Age-16 political interest significantly predicted all age-20 political activities, except for being a member of political/civic organizations and actual voting. In line with the second hypothesis, significant interactions were found between political interest and setting societal goals for all the future political activities except voting. It was concluded that youth's early-developed agency in setting goals for their societal engagement has widespread predictive utility for their political activities over a lengthy period.

This study examines the idea that youth's perceptions of their political interactions with important others are influenced by their own political interest to a greater extent than the perceived political interactions that influence youth's political interest. Hence, it was proposed that youth's perceptions of important others' (parents', teachers', friends') political views, political interest, political influence, and support, as well as of being susceptible to others' political communication, are all affected by their own political interest. Community samples of 908 13-year-olds and 869 16-year-olds were followed over 1 year. Latent change models supported the idea that youth's political interest significantly affected their perceptions of important others' political views, influence, and support over time in both cohorts. In 11 out of 12 longitudinal analyses, youth's political interest strongly affected perceptions of their political interactions with others, but none of the 12 analyses showed that the perceptions of political interactions with others strongly predicted a change in youth's political interest. These results suggest that the political interest of young people is an input in their political development, making politically interested youth active agents in their political interactions with their important others.

This study aimed to analyze affiliations with violent peers as an underlying mechanism that associates ethnic harassment with violent behaviors among immigrant youth (N = 365; M[subscript age] = 13.93, SD = 0.80), and also identify the risk factors in this relation. The results revealed that identification with an immigrant peer crowd at school made ethnically harassed immigrant adolescents more inclined to associate with violent peers and, in turn, engage in violent behaviors over time. Immigrant youth's orientation toward the mainstream culture was not found to either elevate or buffer the effect of ethnic harassment on youth's affiliation with violent peers. Yet, ethnically harassed immigrant adolescents were shown to be more prone to violent behaviors over time when they were less orientated toward Swedish culture. The findings suggest that preventing ethnicity-based harassment and diversifying adolescents' peer groups at schools may be a way to prevent immigrant adolescents' involvement in violent behaviors.

The present study aims to investigate whether support from a friend protects against the negative effects of ethnic harassment on engagement in delinquent and violent behaviors among immigrant adolescents in Sweden (n = 365; X = 13.93, SD = 0.80). We found that when ethnically harassed immigrant adolescents received friend support, they were less likely to engage in problem behaviors concurrently. Yet, friend support did not moderate the longitudinal associations between ethnic harassment and problem behaviors. These findings highlight the important role of supportive friendship relations in counteracting the detrimental effects of ethnic harassment on externalizing problems, particularly in the short term.

Background: The implementation of preventive interventions is considered a crucial aspect of their success. However, few studies have investigated which components of implementation are most important. Objective: We aimed to understand whether the components of implementation integrity--adherence, quality of delivery, dose, and participants' involvement--influenced the effectiveness of four parenting programs. We also investigated factors associated with these components. Method: Data come from a national evaluation of parenting programs in Sweden. The study was a randomised controlled effectiveness trial, with a sample of 535 parents with 3-12-year-old children. Measures included parenting behaviors (angry outbursts, harsh parenting, attempts to understand, rewarding, and praising), child conduct problems (ECBI and SNAP-V), and measures tapping into the four components (adherence, quality of delivery, dose, and participant involvement). Results: We ran multilevel models and found that implementation quality (adherence and quality of delivery) did not influence the effects on parents and children. Conversely, participant involvement was associated with improvements in parenting and child conduct. Finally, parents' perceptions of their leaders as supportive and understanding were associated with parents' responsiveness and attendance. Conclusions: Our study highlights the importance of having actively engaged parents to maximise intervention effects.

In Sweden, as in many other European countries, poor neighborhoods with ethnically diverse inhabitants and high crime rates have grown up around big cities in the last decades. We hypothesized that, compared with adolescents in advantaged neighborhoods, adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods would perceive their schools as relatively safe, due to their contrast with the more threatening and dangerous neighborhoods they lived in. Also, they would perceive their schools as relatively more open to their influence, due to the contrast with a lack of influence in their families. More broadly, they would experience their schools as supporting environments to a greater extent than adolescents in advantaged neighborhoods. We tested these ideas using a sample of 1390 adolescents (M[subscript age] = 14.34, SD = 1.01) in a Swedish city. The hypotheses were supported, and the findings were most salient for immigrant adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Thus, particularly for immigrant adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods, schools can be supporting environments, which should have implications for local policies regarding resource allocation to schools and student influence. Overall, schools seem to be able to play an important role in students' lives by functioning as a positive contrast to negative out-of-school experiences in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

This study examined age-related changes in friend similarity on delinquency to determine whether deviant behavior homophily peaks during mid-adolescence. A community sample of 1,663 male and 1,826 female Swedish youth from Grade 5 (M = 11.21 years) to Grade 10 (M = 16.25 years) provided self-reports of delinquency. Friendships were identified from nominations. Intraclass correlations revealed age group differences in friend delinquency similarity, independent of normative age-related changes in deviant behavior. Cross-sectional results indicated that similarity was greatest in the seventh grade (M = 13.21 years). Longitudinal results from a subsample of participants revealed an increase in friend similarity from ages 11 to 13 (Grades 5 to 7) and a decline in friend similarity from ages 14 to 16 (Grades 8 to 10). The findings demonstrate that similarity between friends in delinquent behavior peaks in mid-adolescence, independent of normative age-related changes in participation in deviant acts.

How parents and adolescents perceive each other's life values is a key to understanding successful value transmission. In the value socializations literature, it has been proposed that parents' values become internalized when children correctly perceive their parents' values and decide to adopt them as their own. In the current study, we propose that interpersonal value perception of broader life values is characterized by a perceptual bias--projection--which propels adolescents to perceive their parents' values to be similar to their own, and propels parents to perceive their adolescents' values to be similar to theirs. This cross-sectional study examined 518 dyads of adolescents and their parents. Adolescents rated how important different humanistic, environmental, and achievement values were to them, and how important these values were to their parents. Parents similarly rated how important these values were to them and to their adolescents. Using structural equation modeling, an interpersonal value perception model was constructed that estimated how much parents and adolescents projected their own values when perceiving each other's values. The results supported the idea that both parents and adolescents substantially project their own values when perceiving the others' values, and that they perceive the others' values with low accuracy. We discuss our findings in light of value socialization in both research and practice.

Using a longitudinal design, we asked 2 age cohorts of adolescents (15- and 18-year-olds) whether they, during the last year, had experienced events that had increased their civic interest and about details of their experiences. Based on self-determination theory, we predicted that the adolescents who reported having experienced events of this kind had already been more interested and had had more positive feelings about politics much earlier in time, and that this original interest would have increased more over time, than that of other adolescents. Second, we proposed that the adolescents who had encountered events that triggered their civic interest would have been engaged in behaviors that reflected their needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence, much earlier in time, and that, over time, they would have increased these behaviors more than other adolescents. These 2 predictions were largely confirmed. As for the content of the events the adolescents reported, many of them concerned national and international issues experienced as threatening, and that challenged the adolescents' beliefs and morality. Overall, a previous interest in politics and engagement in exploratory behaviors that reflect the adolescents' psychological needs seem to play crucial roles in understanding why adolescents in their everyday life encounter events that trigger their civic interest. Further, the findings show that having had everyday experiences that trigger the adolescents' civic interests are associated with a later increase in political interest more broadly.

Immigrant youth are at risk of experiencing harassment in school; however, we have only limited understanding of what makes youth harass their peers on ground of their ethnic origin. To address this major limitation, we examined (a) whether youth's negative attitudes toward immigrants impact their engagement in ethnic harassment over time and (b) whether youth's impulsivity, their tendencies to engage in risky behaviors, and a chaotic surrounding school environment moderate the link between their negative attitudes toward immigrants and their involvement in ethnic harassment. The sample included 583 Swedish youth (X-bar[subscript age] = 13.93, SD = 0.71). Youth with negative attitudes toward immigrants ethnically were found to harass their immigrant peers when they had high levels of impulsivity and violent tendencies. Contrary to our expectation, youth perceptions of school atmosphere did not act as a moderator. The present study highlights the importance of identifying risk factors to reach a comprehensive understanding of ethnic harassment.

This study tests the hypothesis that adolescents with romantic partners are less similar to their friends on rates of alcohol abuse than adolescents without romantic partners. Participants (662 girls, 574 boys) ranging in age from 12 to 19 years nominated friends and romantic partners, and completed a measure of alcohol abuse. In hierarchical linear models, friends with romantic partners were less similar on rates of alcohol abuse than friends without romantic partners, especially if they were older and less accepted. Follow-up longitudinal analyses were conducted on a subsample (266 boys, 374 girls) of adolescents who reported friendships that were stable across 2 consecutive years. Associations between friend reports of alcohol abuse declined after adolescents became involved in a romantic relationship, to the point at which they became more similar to their romantic partners than to their friends.