In this study, we test the robustness of previous social network research and extend this work to determine if support quality is one mechanism by which network types predict mental health. Participants included 1,669 adults aged 60 or older from the Americans' Changing Lives study. Using cluster analysis, we found diverse, family, and friends network types, which is consistent with the work by Litwin from 2001. However, we found two types of restricted networks, rather than just one: a nonfamily network and a nonfriends network. Depressive symptomatology was highest for individuals in the nonfriends network and lowest for individuals in the diverse network. Positive support quality partially mediated the association between network type and depressive symptomatology. Results suggest that the absence of family in the context of friends is less detrimental than the absence of friends in the context of family, and that support quality is one mechanism through which network types affect mental health.

We observed the positive emotion socialization practice of parental emotion coaching (EC) and the negative socialization practice of emotion dismissing (ED) during a family interaction task and examined their effects on children's emotion regulation and behavior problems in middle childhood. Participants were 87 sociodemographically diverse families (children aged 8-11 years; 46 girls). Outcome measures included mother, father and teacher reports of emotion regulation and behavior problems. ED was a risk factor, contributing to poorer emotion regulation and more behavioral problems. EC did not offer direct benefits for children's emotional and behavioral outcomes, but interacted with ED such that it protected children from the detrimental effects of ED. This protective effect was found for parents' coaching of negative but not positive emotions. Findings suggested that in family emotion conversation, EC and ED interact in complex ways as risk and protective dimensions of family process.Parental emotion socialization plays a vital role in the quality of children's early

Different types of parental involvement in homework were associated with different outcomes with parent autonomy support to be the most beneficial one.

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In the year 2000, women in the United States were one third as likely as their male counterparts to earn a bachelor's degree in math or computer science (National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources and Statistics, 2004). In Germany, the imbalance in the gender ratio is even more pronounced (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2001). Educators, scientists, and politicians alike have long argued that this underrepresentation of women in the "hard" sciences is detrimental in numerous respects, among them the fact that it contributes critically to gender inequalities in income (Sells, 1980).It is likely that many women entering college do not choose to study a hard science despite being qualified to do so. Gendered choices are also apparent prior to college entrance, however. Influenced by cultural norms surrounding gender, specific patterns of self-concept and intrinsic value are developed early in students' school careers, contributing to gendered high school course selection. The choice of high school courses, in turn, often determines students' fields of study at college and, consequently, their future occupations (e.g., Schnabel & Gruehn, 2000). Sells (1980) argued that the underrepresentation of females in advanced high school science courses is a "critical filter" that keeps them out of science-and math-related career paths (see also chap. 2, this volume). Following this reasoning, students' high school course choices can be 115

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