Mexican-American migrant students' academic success: sociological and psychological acculturation.

This study attempted to describe and compare academically successful and academically unsuccessful high-risk Mexican-American migrant high school students. The two groups were compared on sociological and psychological indicators of acculturation, urbanization, and socioeconomic status (SES). It was hypothesized that the successful group would have higher SES, be more acculturated, urbanized, and psychologically adjusted to modern value systems, and have higher occupational aspirations and expectations than the unsuccessful group. In addition, their world views were compared by exploring early recollection data. The results showed that the unsuccessful group came from families that were larger, poorer, more rural, and more "foreign" (i.e., more parents and children born in Mexico) than the successful students' families. Regarding the psychological indicators of acculturation, the successful group was found to score higher on modernism, to be more stably acculturated, to have a clearer sense of themselves, to have higher occupational aspirations and expectations, and tended to desire jobs with greater responsibility and stability than did the unsuccessful group.

The relationship with grandparents: contact, importance, role conception.

While studies have considered the importance of the grandparent and grandchild relationship from the perspective of the former, the present study explores the perspective of young adult grandchildren concerning this relationship. Four relationship variables are examined: 1) the amount of contact; b) the assessed adequacy of contact; 3) the importance of the relationship; and 4) the role conception. The results of this study support the position that grandparents remain a significant factor in the lives of young adults.

The ideal self and cognitive development in adolescence.

This study investigated the relationship between cognitive development level and the ideal self in adolescence, sampling 223 male and female 12- and 13-, and 15- and 16-year-old working and middle class English comprehensive school students, hypothesizing that maturity of the ideal self would be related to cognitive development. Correlations between cognitive developmental total score and ideal self score were significant for the whole sample and for both age groups. Regression analysis showed cognitive development score to be the major significant predictor of ideal self score at both age levels, with sex contributing additionally at the older age level.

Youths' outlook on the future: A past-present comparison.

Gillespie and Allport's descriptive data (1955) on attitudes and values of youth 20 years ago afforded a comparison with a presentday sample of 320 undergraduates at The Univeristy of Texas at Austin. Items for the original questionnaire (Youth's Outlook on the Future) were combined with other measures (Locus of Control, Dogmatism, and Conservatism scales) for the purpose of replicating the original study and expanding the scope of the comparison. A breakdown of the present group into activists and nonactivists yielded significant differences within the present sample as well as between samples. In general, the trend appeared to be toward less conservatism and traditionalism in moving from past to present nonactivist to present activist. Within the present sample, activists were also more oriented toward the present while nonactivists were more oriented toward success and prestige in the future.