This article describes the construction of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory (CMNI), and 5 studies that examined its psychometric properties. Factor analysis indicated 11 distinct factors: Winning, Emotional Control, Risk-Taking, Violence, Dominance, Playboy, Self-Reliance, Primacy of Work, Power Over Women, Disdain for Homosexuals, and Pursuit of Status. Results from Studies 2-5 indicated that the CMNI had strong internal consistency estimates and good differential validity comparing men with women and groups of men on healthrelated questions; all of the CMNI subscales were significantly and positively related to other masculinity-related measures, with several subscales being related significantly and positively to psychological distress, social dominance, aggression, and the desire to be more muscular, and significantly and negatively to attitudes toward psychological help seeking and social desirability; and CMNI scores had high test-retest estimates for a 2-3 week period.

The literature on school absences has focused predominantly on the reasons for student truancy, or it has assessed only aggregate student absences in their effect on achievement. However, this study brings forth a new issue: the relationship between types of absences—excused versus unexcused—and school performance. With a quantitative model of educational achievement on a longitudinal multilevel data set of all second-through fourth-grade students in the Philadelphia School District from 1994 to 2000, this study disaggregated absence information to provide new insight on the attendance–achievement relationship. Specifically, a model using fixed effects with classroom-level clustering was employed to determine how the distinction among varying proportions of excused versus unexcused absences related to students’ standardized test performance in reading and math. This article demonstrates that distinguishing between students with high rates of excused or unexcused absences is significant. Having a higher proportion of excused absences to total absences exhibits a positive relationship between reading and math test scores. Conversely, students with a higher proportion of unexcused absences places them at academic risk, particularly in math achievement and as early as in elementary school. Implications for policy are discussed.

Researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and parents have assumed a positive relationship between school attendance and academic success. And yet, among the vast body of empirical research examining how input factors relate to academic outcomes, few investigations have honed in on the precision of the relationship between individual attendance and student achievement. The purpose of this article is to provide insight into this relationship. Specifically, this study has evaluated the hypothesis that the number of days a student was present in school positively affected learning outcomes. To assess this, a unique empirical approach was taken in order to evaluate a comprehensive dataset of elementary and middle school students in the Philadelphia School District. Employing a fixed effects framework and instrumental variables strategy, this study provides evidence from a quasiexperimental design geared at estimating the causal impact of attendance on multiple measures of achievement, including GPA and standardized reading and math test performance. The results consistently indicate positive and statistically significant relationships between student attendance and academic achievement for both elementary and middle school students.

Recent policy dialogue suggests that chronic absenteeism is not only underdocumented, but is also detrimental to the success of students as early as kindergarten. That said, almost no empirical research has examined the effects of chronic absenteeism on student outcomes. This study addresses this underresearched issue in more depth. Using a nationally representative dataset of kindergarten students from the 2010-2011 school year, this study evaluates the effect of chronic absenteeism on both achievement and socioemotional outcomes. The findings suggest that chronic absenteeism reduces math and reading achievement outcomes, reduces educational engagement, and decreases social engagement. Hence, this study offers new evidence on how an undermeasured aspect of missing school impedes students' attainment. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.In K-12 education policy and practice rhetoric, it is commonplace to discuss the negative consequences of school absences. Stakeholders across the board would agree that missing school days is highly correlated with educational decline, reduced outcomes for one's classmates, dropping out of high school, weakened socioemotional development, greater feelings of isolation and disengagement, increased health risk behaviors, and greater chances of unemployment in

Recent years have seen rapid progress in the field of surface-confined coordination chemistry. Adsorbed metal complexes of tetrapyrroles (porphyrins, phthalocyanines, corroles) are especially interesting in this context, since they combine a planar structure-determining element with an active site. While earlier studies of adsorbed metallo-tetrapyrroles mainly addressed aspects of molecular self-assembly, the focus of interest has shifted gradually to electronic structure and chemical reactivity. This article gives an overview of recent advances in the field of surface chemistry with tetrapyrroles. In particular, the following aspects will be discussed: intramolecular conformation and supramolecular ordering, electronic interaction with the substrate, surface-confined synthesis, and ligand-related effects such as the surface trans effect.