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In a sample of 296 8th-grade middle school students, the authors examined the role of personal achievement goals and feelings of school belonging in mediating the relation between perceptions of the school psychological environment and school-related beliefs, affect, and achievement. Sequential regression analyses indicated that perceiving a task goal structure in middle school was positively related to academic self-efficacy and that this relation was mediated through personal task goals. Perceiving an ability goal structure was related to academic self-consciousness and this relation was mediated through personal relative ability goals. Perceiving positive teacher-student relationships predicted positive school-related affect and this relation was mediated through feelings of school belonging. Feelings of academic efficacy and school belonging in turn were positively related to final-semester academic grades. Results are discussed in relation to current middle school reform efforts.

Considerable strides have been made in the past decade in recognizing the centrality of the cultural context of schooling to adolescent development. In this review, adopting a developmental systems conceptualization of schooling, we focus on selected new research findings from the past decade regarding how (a) teachers, curricular tasks, and classroom environments; (b) aspects of the school as an organization; and (c) district policies and practices can play an instrumental role in adolescents' intellectual and social -emotional development.

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The effects of randomization to mindfulness training (MT) or to a waitlist-control condition on psychological and physiological indicators of teachers' occupational stress and bumout were examined in 2 field trials. The sample included 113 elementary and secondary school teachers (89% female) from Canada and the United States. Measures were collected at basehne, post-program, and 3-month followup: teachers were randomly assigned to condition after baseline assessment. Results showed that 87% of teachers completed the program and found it beneficial. Teachers randomized to MT showed greater mindfulness, focused attention and working memory capacity, and occupational self-compassion, as well as lower levels of occupational stress and bumout at post-program and follow-up, than did those in the control condition. No statistically significant differences due to MT were found for physiological measures of stress. Mediational analyses showed that group differences in mindfulness and selfcompassion at post-program mediated reductions in stress and bumout as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression at follow-up. Implications for teaching and leaming are discussed.

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In this chapter we review the research on the development of children's motivation and engagement. We organize our review into four major sections: the development of children's achievement motivation; gender, cultural, and ethnic differences in children's motivation; socialization of motivation in the family; and socialization of motivation in school. We take a social‐cognitive expectancy‐value theoretical perspective to organize our discussion of this work. We first discuss the development of children's motivation and engagement and take another look at the often‐observed decline in motivation, focusing on new work showing different patterns in these declines among different groups of children. We also discuss how children's motivation relates to their performance and choice, two kinds of outcomes of major importance to children's healthy development. The second major section discusses gender, ethnic, and cultural differences in children's motivation and the important advances researchers have made in understanding these over the past 10 years. In the family and school socialization sections we focus on processes by which parents, teachers, and schools can impact children's motivation both positively and negatively. We note the similarities of these processes across socializers: Providing appropriate challenges and emotional warmth and support, and having high expectations for children. We discuss the need for more integrative studies of how parents and also teachers impact children's motivation. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of important future directions: A continuing focus on culture and motivation, further examination of motivation in specific domains and contexts, a stronger focus on biological influences on the development of motivation, and a consideration of unconscious processes and their impact on the development of motivation.

Adopting a motivational perspective on adolescent development, these two companion studies examined the longitudinal relations between early adolescents' school motivation (competence beliefs and values), achievement, emotional functioning (depressive symptoms and anger), and middle school perceptions using both variable- and person-centered analytic techniques. Data were collected from 1041 adolescents and their parents at the beginning of seventh and the end of eighth grade in middle school. Controlling for demographic factors, regression analyses in Study 1 showed reciprocal relations between school motivation and positive emotional functioning over time. Furthermore, adolescents' perceptions of the middle school learning environment (support for competence and autonomy, quality of relationships with teachers) predicted their eighth grade motivation, achievement, and emotional functioning after accounting for demographic and prior adjustment measures. Cluster analyses in Study 2 revealed several different patterns of school functioning and emotional functioning during seventh grade that were stable over 2 years and that were predictably related to adolescents' reports of their middle school environment. Discussion focuses on the developmental significance of schooling for multiple adjustment outcomes during adolescence.