Preschoolers (N= 322 in preschool, 100 in kindergarten) were assessed longitudinally to examine the self-regulatory roots of emotion knowledge (labeling and situation) and the contributions of emotion knowledge to early school adjustment (i.e., including social, motivational, and behavioral indices), as well as moderation by age, gender, and risk. Age, gender, and risk differences in emotion knowledge were also examined. Emotion knowledge skills were found to be more advanced in older children and those not at economic risk, and in those with higher levels of self-regulation. Overall, the results support the role of emotion knowledge in early school adjustment and academic success even with gender, age, and risk covaried, especially for boys, older preschoolers, and those at economic risk.

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Sexualization of girlhood is a current issue in the US and around the world. Concerns that girls are asked to self-sexualize at younger and younger ages have led to an examination of the influence of media on girls. The current study attempts to explore public views on the ‘self-sexualization’ of a Disney pop star, Miley Cyrus, in what was called a ‘pole dance’ by the media. This performance at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards stirred considerable debate in the news and on public websites. The current analysis examines website responses of 13 websites through a qualitative, thematic analysis of over 500 individual responses. Analysis of internet comments revealed themes of agency and innocence in adolescent female sexuality as well as the function of these themes in US culture. The dominant themes are discussed in light of the largely absent gendered analysis of the performance and its significance.

It has long been noted that sexuality education curricula contain gender stereotypes and heterosexism that may be harmful to people of all genders. Many of the stereotypes and sources of heterosexism that have been discussed in the literature have to do with oldfashioned and restrictive roles for men and women and focus on heterosexual sex and marriage. In this article, we analyzed four currently used Abstinence Only Until Marriage (AOUM) curricula in order to examine to what extent these curricula reproduce these stereotypes. We found only a few instances of older stereotypes of boys as pursuers and girls as passive recipients. There were instead more modern ideals of choice and equality that were represented; however, we found that the language of choice and equality was often used to support new stereotypes of female sexuality. For example, in treating boys and girls as equal in terms of pressuring each other to have sex or objectifying each other, they introduce some problematic new images and stereotypes of female sexuality. We use Blum's theory of "false symmetry" and Glick and Fiske's theory of benevolent sexism to explain the problems with these new images.