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We report on a grounded theory study of late-arriving immigrant youth (LIY) who arrived in the United States at 16-18 years of age and were referred to daytime General Education Diploma (D-GED) programs. These programs provide an alternate path to a high school diploma for youth with insufficient knowledge of English to complete graduation requirements before turning 19 years. Based on interviews with 38 youth from Latin America, we propose the core category of our grounded theory to be students Navigating Child and Adult Immigrant Narratives while making educational and career decisions. This process begins before immigration when youth imagine ambitious alternate selves--ideal educational and career selves in the United States, consistent with the American Dream and immigrant child narrative. The D-GED programs represent a compromise between a child and adult educational pathway. Students in these programs felt excluded from the regular high school but received social and emotional support while on a faster track to graduation and self-sufficiency as adults. However, students lacked concrete information and roadmaps for how to attain their ambitious goals. The study highlights the unique challenges faced by LIY as they develop ambitious and realistic education and career goals.

In community interventions more generally, the concept of fidelity refers to the degree to which a program is delivered as intended. The present paper discusses ways in which fundamental aspects of participatory research challenge the concept of fidelity and differ from more traditional science-dominated approaches. We begin with a discussion of the fidelity concept and some of its strengths and limitations. We then discuss both social problems and proposed solutions as representing complex problems defying simple or permanent solutions. We suggest that three prominent aspects of participatory research highlight this complexity and pose challenges in assessing fidelity. First, in participatory research, the goal is not only scientific but also social action on a local issue as well. Second, the participatory process among varied partners is itself part of the intervention itself to be understood as affecting both processes and outcomes. Third, the goals of participatory research include community-level as well as individual-level changes. These issues are illustrated in a discussion of how culture is conceptualized and acknowledged in fidelity assessment. We conclude with some recommendations for approaching fidelity in participatory research in a way that appreciates its differences from more traditional paradigms underlying community interventions.

The concept of ecology has, over time, become increasingly important as a frame for conducting community interventions. While multiple ecological frameworks have been proposed both within and outside public health, most have drawn on Bronfenbrenner's work and the concern with multiple levels of the ecological context. The present article presents an ecological metaphor for community intervention developed in community psychology over the past 50 years. This perspective was specifically developed to conduct community research and intervention in the spirit of community development. The article begins with a brief discussion of social problems as "wicked problems" defying preordained and prescribed solutions. It then organizes the presentation of the ecological metaphor around five Cs that, together, provide an overview of the main points of the perspective: contextualist philosophy of science, community as a multilevel concept, culture and diversity as critical community-defining concepts, collaboration as a fundamental part of the ecology of intervention, and commitment (to community over time). Each of these five Cs adds to an appreciation of the differing aspects of the community intervention process as an ecological enterprise. Embedded in the five Cs are four ecological processes drawn from field biology that are metaphorically useful in providing a cognitive map for understanding community and assessing community impact: interdependence, cycling of resources, adaptation, and succession. Together, this ecological perspective both reflects and differs from extant perspectives in public health and, as such, is intended to contribute to furthering ecological thinking and acting more generally in community interventions.

This paper addresses two major and potentially conflicting movements: the importance of diversity as both a conceptual and political issue and the rise of the evidence-based practice movement in education. This tension is particularly important when evaluating and reporting universal interventions because of their intended applicability across diverse groups of children and adolescents. This study contributes to this discussion through an analysis of published school-based universal social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention evaluations in terms of their theoretical and empirical attention to student diversity characteristics. We defined student diversity in terms of five characteristics: gender, race/ethnicity, SES, disability status, and sexual orientation/gender identity. We assessed how and when demographic characteristics were reported, how these characteristics were analyzed as moderators of program outcomes, and how differential effects based on diversity were incorporated into reported intervention generalizability discussions. Results showed that diversity characteristics were inconsistently reported across articles. Most studies did not test for moderating effects, but those that did found inconsistent effects across diversity characteristics. Further, conceptual and/or empirical support for conducting the moderation analyses was often not provided or sufficiently supported by previous literature or a hypothesis. This research highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of how SEL program effects may be moderated by student demographic characteristics and suggests caution about the generalizability of the reviewed SEL programs across diverse groups of children and adolescents.

Assessment of the impact of varied forms of participatory research is enhanced by specific attention to the ripples, such work initiates in the social context. Ripples are defined as consequences either unintended or unanticipated by those carrying out the participatory research. Following a brief documentation of the range of reported ripples in reports describing participatory research, an ecological perspective drawing on the interdependence principle of ecological systems theory is presented as a framework for assessing impact by attending to ripples in the local context. Community asset mapping and social network analysis are described as examples of ways of describing and documenting environmental ripples, and strategies for both anticipating and reviewing ripples "post hoc" are discussed. The importance of developing cognitive maps of local ecology is stressed as critical to the assessment of the multiple potential impacts of participatory research.

The present study depicts an ecological portrait of the work lives of 16 ELL high school teachers in an urban context in the United States. Results suggest that their work lives take place within a complex school ecology which affects the kinds of activities they engage in and the opportunities they have to support their students. In this context they demonstrate an unusual dedication to aiding students and their families in activities related to the transition to a new country. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research explicating further the school ecology of this group of teachers. (Contains 1 table.)

In recent years, ecological perspectives have become more visible in prevention, health promotion, and public health within the school context. Individually based approaches to understanding and changing behavior have been increasingly challenged by these perspectives because of their appreciation for contextual influences on individual behavior. The ecological perspective from community psychology integrates community research and intervention and encourages intervention and analysis at multiple levels within the system. The purpose of this article is (a) to trace briefly and through examples the evolution of ecological thinking in prevention, health promotion, and public health, and (b) to illustrate how the ecological perspective from community psychology can extend ecological thinking and acting with respect to research and intervention in the school context.

Recent discussions about the conduct of community interventions suggest the importance of developing more comprehensive theorizing about their nature and effects. The present study is an effort to infer how community interventions are theorized by the way they are represented in the peer-reviewed scholarly literature. A coding of a random sample of 200 community intervention reports in eight journals encompassing public health, community psychology, and prevention science suggests the enduring influence of the laboratory tradition of psychology in both research design and the relationship of community interventionists to communities. Reflection on the underlying assumptions of community intervention theory and how community interventions are reported is recommended as critical to becoming more effective in improving community health. (Contains 2 tables and 1 footnote.)

A differentiated model of acculturation was used to assess the relationship of acculturative styles to school adaptation among a group of 110 refugee adolescents from the former Soviet Union. Acculturation was assessed with respect to both American and Russian cultures and, within each culture, distinguished among language competence, behavior, and identity. School adaptation was assessed in terms of academic (GPA), behavioral (disciplinary infractions), and attitudinal (sense of school belonging) components. Results suggested that differing patterns of overall American and Russian acculturation were associated with differing school outcomes, as were language competence, behavior, and identity with respect to the different cultures. In general, higher levels of American acculturation predicted school adaptation while aspects of Russian acculturation were differentially related to school adaptation for different subgroups. Results indicated the importance of conceptualizing acculturation as a multidimensional concept with respect to both culture or origin and culture of resettlement. (Contains 5 tables and 2 footnotes.)

Surveyed Soviet Jewish adolescents and parents regarding language, behavior, and identity acculturation. Acculturation occurred in a linear pattern over time for most dimensions of acculturation, with acculturation to the American culture increasing and to the Russian culture decreasing. There were acculturation gaps between parents and children with respect to language and, unexpectedly, with Russian identity, with adolescents being more identified with the Russian culture than their parents.(SM)

The Classroom Environment Scale, revised for use in special education classrooms, was administered to students in 79 special education classrooms in 16 residential and day treatment schools. Psychometric analyses showed that seven of the nine aspects of the classroom found in the original scale were reliably reported in special education classrooms. (Author/JDD)

In immigrant families, culture brokering (CB) occurs when children mediate the new culture for their family. The authors examined CB in Russian immigrant adolescent-mother dyads (N = 226) to determine the types and amounts of CB that Russian adolescents performed, why adolescents assumed the CB role, and how the role affected adolescent and familial functioning. The present results indicated that most adolescents reported CB for their families (89%). Children of families that more recently arrived in the U.S., with mothers who were less American-language acculturated, culture brokered more. Higher levels of CB related to (a) higher adolescent stress and reports of problems at home and with friends and (b) lower feelings of school membership. Parent-reported problems at home did not relate to CB. The authors discussed implications for future research on the role of the child as culture broker. Key words: adolescents, culture broker, family relations, immigrant families, parenting, THESE WORDS FROM A YOUNG IMMIGRANT GIRL (11-year-old Edda) capture a normative though infrequently studied aspect of the immigration experience, the role of children in aiding the adaptation of their [...]