Utilizing mixed methodology, this paper investigates the relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement for young adolescents within two Western cultural contexts: the United States and England. Quantitative and qualitative data from 86 North American and 86 British adolescents were utilized to examine the links between self-esteem and academic achievement from the beginning to the end of their academic year during their 11th–12th year of age. For both samples, quantitative results demonstrated that fall self-esteem was related to multiple indicators of later year academic achievement. While country differences emerge by the end of the year, math appears to have a consistent relationship with self-esteem in both country contexts. Qualitative analyses found some support for British students’ self-perceptions as more accurately reflecting their academic experience than the students from the United States.

Using a school-based sample of 675 adolescents, this short-term longitudinal investigation examined the relationships among individual, family, and school influences on adolescent adjustment problems. Adolescents' perceptions of school climate and their sense of connectedness to school were negatively associated with conduct problems. A significant interaction between parental academic support and adolescents' academic aspirations was detected for the total sample, boys, and White youth, indicating that parental support serves a protective function against conduct problems for students with low academic expectations. Adolescents' hopefulness, parental academic aspirations, and school connectedness were negatively associated with depression. Adolescents' hopefulness and their academic aspirations moderated associations between both family and school influences on adolescent adjustment with youth gender and race qualifying these interaction effects.

This mixed-methods longitudinal project investigates the association between student perceptions of their schools and themselves. Findings from the first two waves of data analysis with 894 middle and high school students in a midsized Great Lakes city reveal similarities and differences between the grade levels (7th–10th) and their perceptions of their schools. Although 7th-grade students enter middle school with the most positive feelings about their schools, they lose this feeling of euphoria by the end of their academic year. In contrast, the 10th-grade females are the most positive of all students, recognizing school characteristics which assist with their self-efficacy. Results from quantitative analyses indicate that student attitudes toward school and a sense of school connectedness are linked to both self-esteem and academic self-efficacy.

The Swazi concept of "intelligence " is analyzed in this article from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. It investigates the meanings of hlakaniphile (the closest translation for "intelligence") and how and why perceptions of this term have changed throughout the 20th century and continue to vary today. Utilizing historical and anthropological sources with contemporary local parental ethnotheories regarding intelligent behaviors, the article analyzes the impact of Western culture on meanings of the Swazi concept. Throughout history, as Swazi and Western societies have influenced each other, hlakaniphile continues to include a local perception of social skills. However, the definition has begun to incorporate more Western notions of intellectual competence, as reflected in academic achievement

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