The nature and evaluation of a primary prevention project for students during the transition to high school are presented. In order to facilitate students' coping efforts during this transition, the project sought to increase the level of social support available as well as to reduce the degree of flux and complexity in the school setting. Midyear and end of ninth-grade assessments were done of Project and matched Control students' self-concepts. Their perceptions of the school environment, and their eighth- and ninth-grade attendance and grade averages examined. By the end of ninth grade, Project participants showed significantly better attendance records and grade point averages as well as more stable self-concepts than controls. Further, by the final evaluation point, Project students also reported perceiving the school environment as having greater clarity of expectations and organizational structure and higher levels of teacher support and involvement than did nonproject Controls.

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This study examined the effects of two potentially crisis-producing experiences, parental divorce or death, on the school adjustment of young children. Children with such "crisis" histories were found to show greater overall school maladaptation than children without such histories. Children of divorce had significantly more acting-out problems than noncrisis controls or death children and those with histories of parental death more serious shy-anxious problems than the other groups. These effects were stable across (a) independent year samples, (b) referred and "normal" nonreferred groups, and (c) urban and rural samples. Differential judgments about the competencies of children who have experienced parental divorce, death, or neither were also found. Divorce children were seen as having fewer competencies than death children or noncrisis controls. The association between specific crisis history and specific school adjustment patterns is seen to have implications for the study of coping with stressful life events and for preventive efforts.

This study examines whether children of separationldivorce experience more associated family disorganization and stress than those from homes broken by parental death or from intact families. Ratings ofchildrens' levels and types of parental attention, family problems, and economic hardship were obtained on three independent samples.The findings indicate that divorce per se, and not the more general case of family dissolution, is significantly related to increased levels of family stressors Ibr the child. Children with histories of parental separationldivorce were seen to be experiencing significantly lower levels of educational stimulation from parents, as well as greater parental rejection, economic stress, and general family problems than those from homes broken by parental death or from intact Families. This relationship was consistent across independent year samples, referred and normal populations, and urbanlsuburban and rural samples.The implications of these findings Sor previously demonstrated differences in the school adjustment patterns of children with parental separationldivorce or death histories are elaborated, and the importance of considering stressors for the child which are associated with divorcc in the planning of preventive interventions is discussed.

The 1-year impact of attending a public alternative high school on two cohorts of adolescents who gained entrance to the school through a lottery was studied. Adolescents who had applied to the school but were not selected in the lottery served as a control group. The nature of the alternative high school environment is described, and the outcome of this natural experiment defined in terms of reactions to school, attitude change, and student achievement. In general, the alternative school positively affected student satisfaction with a variety of aspects of school life and induced some positive change in interracial attitudes while not harming student achievement. Race effects were found in the areas of achievement and interracial attitudes. Implications for the study of natural experiments in general and the specific data in particular are drawn.