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Adolescents growing up in low-income communities experience decreases in school engagement during their transition to middle school due to multiple stressors. Holding goals for their futures increases their resilience, yet research on the types of goals that are most beneficial and on parents' influence on the formation of future goals is limited. This study investigated relations between parental academic socialization, adolescent goals, and adolescent achievement. An ethnically diverse sample of 319 students reported on their intrinsic and extrinsic future goals, current mastery goals, and parents' academic socialization messages. Results showed that adolescents' intrinsic future goals and current mastery goals mediated relations between parents' messages about the importance of working hard to succeed in school and adolescents' grades. Parents influence adolescents' motivation and achievement by conveying messages about the value of learning, and adolescents with higher intrinsic future goals may view mastery and hard work as means of achieving those goals.

The current study examined the effect of children's positive relationships and interactions with their teachers and the development of executive function (EF) skills in first grade. A primary objective was to examine externalizing behaviour problems (EBPs) as a potential moderator of the link between teacher-child relationships and interactions and EF skills. Participants for the study included 1,364 first-grade children (48.3% female, M age = 7.02 years, 80.4% White) drawn from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. There was limited evidence suggesting the EBP moderates the relation between teacher--child relationship quality and EF skill development in first grade. Specifically, simple slope trends indicated that teacher-child closeness was positively related to gains in sustained attention for typically developing children but negatively related to sustained attention for children exhibiting borderline to clinical levels of EBPs. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Anti-transgender policies and state legislative initiatives that focus on school bathroom use and hormone use have emerged in recent years. These policies are generally written by and voted on by cisgender people, and as such, it is crucial to understand influences on nonaffirming attitudes toward policies that can impact trans youth. The present study aimed to extend research on transphobic attitudes in general to attitudes toward policies that impact youth undergoing transition. Latent variable covariances and structural equation modeling were used to test the relations between transphobia, genderism, homophobia, need for closure, sexual orientation, social dominance orientation, attitudes toward sexual minorities, beliefs about gender roles, aggression, religious fundamentalism, and contact with sexual and gender minority individuals, as they are related to attitudes toward hormone use and bathroom use for trans youth. Analyses of data from a sample of 248 cisgender adults indicated that genderism and transphobia was associated with attitudes toward gender-affirming hormone use and bathroom use for trans youth; need for closure was associated with gender-affirming attitudes toward bathroom use, but was not associated with hormone use. Sexual orientation was linked to attitudes toward gender-affirming policies, such that nonheterosexual participants had more affirming attitudes toward trans youths' bathroom use, but not hormone use. Implications for future research, advocacy efforts to promote rights for trans youth, and clinical work with trans youth and/or parents/guardians of trans youth are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]