No abstract

Positive school climates and student drug testing have been separately proposed as strategies to reduce student substance use in high schools. However, the effects of drug testing programs may depend on the favorability of school climates. This study examined the association between school drug testing programs and student substance use in schools with different climates. The analysis was based on a nationally representative sample of 943 high school students (48% female) ranging from 14 to 19 years of age (62% identifying as white, 18% Hispanic, 13% African American, and 7% in other categories). Results showed that both male and female students in schools with positive climates reported lower levels of personal substance use. Drug testing was associated with lower levels of personal substance use in positive school climates, but only for female students. There was no relationship between drug testing and male students' substance use. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of considering school climates before implementing drug-testing programs in high schools.

Research on street children has typically described the phenomenon and examined the risks of street life to healthy development. Thus far, research has not contextualized street children's psychosocial lives by comparing them with non-street children or street children undergoing rehabilitation. The purpose of this study was to assess how the life priorities of Tanzanian street children, former street children and schoolgoing children (n = 183) differ according to their living environment. The "Importance scale" was designed and validated for this study. It includes 29 four-level Likert items about relationships, activities and family, encompassing two subscales: current well-being (Cronbach's a = 0.65) and preparing for the future (Cronbach's a = 0.72). Data were analyzed using analysis of variance and contingency tables to determine group-level differences. Post-hoc Bonferroni tests determined pairwise differences. The analyses demonstrate significant differences in 14 of 29 priorities according to living context. With only three differences, former street children were more similar to school-going children than they were to street children. Street children and school-going children differed on 12 items, while street children and former street children differed on nine items. Street children considered that obtaining good advice from adults, having a dependable place to sleep and having time for enjoyable activities are most important, while former street children and school-going children pointed to education-related ambitions as most important. Findings show that after just 1 year of rehabilitative care, former street children's priorities are more similar to school-going children's, and thus rehabilitative care may be instrumental in enabling children to prioritize preparing for the future. Street children's emphasis on a safe place to sleep and adult support may reflect unmet basic needs. Former street children's high priorities on education and protecting themselves may represent healthy adaptation and a hopeful orientation to the future. High-quality rehabilitation for homeless youth can fulfill essential needs that may promote positive shifts in street children's priorities.

This study compares hope in street youth, former street youth, and school youth (aged 12-18) in Tanzania. Responding to Snyder’s hope theory, the author argues that not only personal agency but also the stability of living context (street, shelter, home) shapes hopefulness. Employing qualitative and quantitative analyses, the author presents a framework that shows considerable differences by youth group in hope conceptualizations. Youth in unstable environments avoid hope to circumvent failure and instead attribute success to luck and other external factors, whereas youth in steadier environments rely on internal resources, seeing themselves as critical agents in engendering hopefulness. Taking youths’ differing living contexts into account, the author proposes a contextual model of hope that consists of “hope instruments,” “hope outcomes,” and “pathways to hopefulness.”

Cultures of achievement among street children (n = 60), former street children (n = 63), and school-going children (n = 60), all of whom share the Kilimanjaro culture of Tanzania, are compared. The Thematic Apperception Test, a projective test known to evoke achievement concerns and originally designed for clinical psycho-diagnoses, was used to generate narratives for thematic analyses. The approach is child centered, allowing children to be imaginative under low-stress conditions. Analysis showed that each subculture had a unique achievement orientation and strategy. Among street children, emerging themes of heroic achievement orientation were tempered with paralytic strategies through which goals could not be realized. Former street children's emergent themes emphasized the presence of beneficial friendships and thus supportive achievement orientation, while strategy themes included exercising choices. School-going children showed deserved achievement orientation in which hard work leads to rewards and control strategy leads to both successful and detrimental outcomes. Themes demonstrate the relative ways in which children adapt to the "difficult life" that has become a common characterization of life in Kilimanjaro.