Developmental Contexts in Middle Childhood

Aletha C. Huston is Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor of Child Development at the University of Texas, Austin. She is a developmental psychologist who specializes in understanding the effects of poverty on children and the impact of child care and income support policies on children's development. She is a Principal Investigator in the New Hope Project, a study of the effects on children and families of parents' participation in a work-based program to reduce poverty, and collaborator in the Next Generation Project. She was a member of the MacArthur Network on Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood and an Investigator for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. She is President of the Society for Research in Child Development and Past President of the Division of Developmental Psychology of the American Psychological Association. Marika N. Ripke is the Director of Hawaii Kids Count and an affiliate faculty member of the Center on the Family at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Her research specializes on the effects of poverty on children and the impact of out-of-school activities on child and youth development. As director of Hawaii Kids Count, she assesses (and advocates for) the well-being of Hawaii's children and families by monitoring various health, economic and educational indicators over time. She directs the data collection and analysis of a study examining the quality and availability of education and health supports for Native Hawaiian families and their young children. She holds a governmental position as a voting member of the State of Hawaii's Commission on Fatherhood. Her publications have appeared in the Handbook of Child Psychology and in such scholarly journals as Developmental Psychology, the Review of Research in Education and New Directions in Youth Development.

During middle childhood, between ages 5 and 12, the foundations for later education, interpersonal relationships, and work patterns are formed. Formative experiences in early childhood and the hazards of sex, drugs, violence, and rock-n-roll in adolescence have been well-documented, but middle childhood has been neglected. This book fills the gap by presenting integrated findings from 15 longitudinal studies of the experiences in middle childhood that forecast children's development in adolescence and adulthood. Families, peers, out-of-school activities, and the broader social and economic environment all make a difference for children's futures.

Foreword Robert C. Granger; Acknowledgments; 1. Middle childhood: contexts of development Aletha C. Huston and Marika N. Ripke; 2. The significance of middle childhood peer competence for work and relationships in early adulthood W. Andrew Collins and Manfred van Dulmen; 3. Aggression and insecurity in late adolescent romantic relationships: antecedents and developmental pathways Gregory S. Pettit, John E. Bates, Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, Amy D. Marshall, Lori D. Harach, David J. Cleary and Kenneth A. Dodge; 4. Middle childhood family-contextual and personal factors as predictors of adult outcomes L. Rowell Huesmann, Eric F. Dubow, Leonard D. Eron and Paul Boxer; 5. Genetic and environmental influences on continuity and change in reading achievement in the Colorado Adoption Project Sally J. Wadsworth, Robin Corley, Robert Plomin, John K. Hewitt and John C. DeFries; 6. Reciprocal effects of mothers' depression and children's problem behaviors from middle childhood to early adolescence Sara R. Jaffee and Richie Poulton; 7. Middle childhood life course trajectories: links between family dysfunction and children's behavioral development Linda S. Pagani, Christa Japel, Alain Girard, Abdeljelil Farhat, Sylvana Côté and Richard E. Tremblay; 8. The contribution of middle childhood contexts to adolescent achievement and behavior Katherine Magnuson, Greg J. Duncan and Ariel Kalil; 9. Educational tracking within and between schools: from first grade through middle school and beyond Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander and Linda Steffel Olson; 10. School environments and the diverging pathways of students living in poverty Penny Hauser-Cram, Marji Erickson Warfield, Jennifer Stadler and Selcuk R. Sirin; 11. The relations of classroom contexts in the early elementary years to children's classroom and social behavior NICHD Early Child Care Research Network; 12. Out-of-school time use during middle childhood in a low-income sample: do combinations of activities affect achievement and behavior? Pamela Morris and Ariel Kalil; 13. Low-income children's activity participation as a predictor of psychosocial and academic outcomes in middle childhood and adolescence Marika N. Ripke, Aletha C. Huston and David M. Casey; 14. Healthy mind, healthy habits: the influence of activity involvement in middle childhood Sandra D. Simpkins, Jennifer A. Fredricks, Pamela E. Davis-Kean and Jacquelynne S. Eccles; 15. Media effects in middle childhood L. Rowell Huesmann and Laramie D. Taylor; 16. Continuity and discontinuity in middle childhood: implications for adult outcomes in the UK 1970 birth cohort Leon Feinstein and John Bynner; 17. Mandatory welfare-to-work programs and preschool-age children: do impacts persist into middle childhood? Sharon M. McGroder, Martha J. Zaslow, Kristin A. Moore and Jennifer L. Brooks; 18. Effects of welfare and employment policies on middle-childhood school performance: do they vary by race/ethnicity, and if so, why? Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Pamela Morris, Lisa Gennetian, Amanda L. Roy, Anna Gassman-Pines and Erin B. Godfrey; 19. Effects of a family poverty intervention program lasting from middle childhood to adolescence Aletha C. Huston, Sylvia R. Epps, Mi Suk Shim, Greg J. Duncan, Danielle A. Crosby and Marika N. Ripke; 20. Experiences in middle childhood and children's development: a summary and integration of research Aletha C. Huston and Marika N. Ripke.