Girls with High-Achieving Friends Have Better Chance of Academic Success

Attention, girls! Want better grades? Then get smarter friends.

Researchers with the University of Texas at Austin have determined that female students who associate with high-achieving same-sex peers are more likely to perform better in subjects such as math, science, and English than do girls who don't surround themselves with fellow superior students.

An article on the UT-Austin website reported on the research in 2005 that led to this conclusion:

Using transcripts of 2,500 male and female high school students, their research tracked participants' grades and courses in math, science and English and examined how their friendship groups affected their academic outcomes. The research was funded by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Science Foundation and included 13,000 students nationwide.

"Having friends that are high performers is associated with advanced course-taking in all three subjects," [Dr. Catherine] Riegle-Crumb said. "Yet, what is unique to math and science is the positive association that comes from a friendship group that is predominantly female. Thus, the estimated effects of friends do vary based on the gender composition of the group, but only in math and science, areas where women have been historically under-represented.

"This suggests that the dominant presence of friends who are doing well is a visible reminder that females can do well in subjects stereotyped as male."

The peer-performance connection does not appear to exist for boys, a fact that at least one of the researchers attributed to the differing value that boys and girls appear to place on the concept of academic collaboration.

"The girls seem to know they can work together and support one another," Riegle-Crumb said in the article on the UT-Austin site. "They can compete and push each other to succeed in the classroom and there can be multiple winners, where the boys tend to take a winner-takes-all approach. They see a zero-sum game where there can be only one winner."

For Some Teens, 'Sexting' May Lead to Child Pornography Charges

Many news accounts of teen "sexting" - posting risqué photos of oneself online or sending the images to friends via cell phones or instant-messaging services - have detailed a variety of problems that may result from the behavior. These ramifications include personal humiliation (when the photos end up on many more screens than was intended), potential professional harm (never underestimate the power of the Google search), and possible sexual exploitation.

But a recent sexting-related incident in Pennsylvania may add a serious new consequence: criminal child pornography charges.

According to a Jan. 13, 2009, article by Tribune-Review writer Bob Stiles, six students at Greensburg Salem High School are facing charges after the school district's director of student services discovered an inappropriate photo on a confiscated cell phone. An investigation revealed that three girls (aged 14 or 15) were involved in taking and sending two nude photos to three boys (ages 16 or 17):

Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck said minors can be charged with sending or possessing child pornography, despite their age. ...

The girls -- two of whom were photographed nude -- took their own pictures, said Greensburg police Sgt. Rob Jones, a member of the state police Area III Computer Crimes Task Force. ...

Jones said many students don't realize that by sending the photos to others, even classmates, they eventually can end up on the Internet and in the hands of pedophiles.

[Student Services Director Lisa] Rullo said district officials regularly review the policy on the use of cell phones and other electronic devices with students.

"We inform the students that it still is child pornography (if they give or possess it) and ... this is something they don't want to have at all," she said.

The Pennsylvania case is not the first incident in which minors have been charged with child pornography.

In a Jan. 14 online article, Ed Pilkington, a New York-based correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, reported that a 17-year-old Wisconsin boy has been charged with child pornography for posting naked pictures of his 16-year-old girlfriend online, and that a 16-year-old New York boy faces similar charges for a similar offense.

Experts Advise: To Keep Girls in School, Let Them Know They Are Valued

Mastery of the "three Rs" may be essential to academic success, but encouraging students - especially female students - to stay in school long enough to earn their diplomas may require an "ABC" approach: Always Be Caring.

According to a Jan. 13 article by Colorado Springs Gazette writer Sue McMillan, letting female students know that they are valued - that at least one person in a position of authority cares about them - may be the key to reducing dropout rates.

McMillan, who noted that 8,000 female students in grades seven through 12 dropped out of Colorado's public school system during the 2006-2007 school year, reported that educators are exploring the role that compassion can play in retaining students who are at risk of abandoning their academic careers:

What might have kept [the 8,000 dropouts] in the classroom? Having a teacher, family member or mentor tell them they can overcome obstacles and succeed - and are expected to, according to speakers at [the Jan. 13] Education Advocacy Circle of the Women's Resource Agency.

"Kids do not care how much you know until they know how much you care," said Mary Thurman, deputy superintendent for Colorado Springs School District 11. All children, from those in special education to those in gifted programs, are at risk of failure if they're not challenged and given expectations, she said.

For students who aren't getting the personal support they need at home, a number of programs have been established in Colorado to provide this care, McMillan reported. One such effort, she wrote, is the Women's Resource Agency's InterCept program, which sends selected eighth-grade girls to "leadership boot camp," then provides ongoing support until the girls graduate.

The dropout rate for both boys and girls has been cause for considerable concern throughout the nation. An April 1, 2008 article by

New York Times writer Sam Dillon reported that more than one million American students drop out of school every year.

'Sexting' Puts Teens at Risk for Exploitation, Other Life-Altering Consequences

Two recent studies related to the online behavior of teens have caused significant concern among parents, teachers, and others who fear that young people may be sharing (and in some cases, showing) way too much.

The studies, both of which were published in the January 2009 issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, addressed the prevalence of young computer users to post information about their experiences with drugs and sex on their MySpace profiles.

Cheree Cleghorn, editor of The Patient Report website, is one of those who fear that the trend (which some have dubbed "sexting") may result in life-altering consequences for some kids. In a Jan. 5, 2009 commentary on the site, Cleghorn called on parents to increase their levels of awareness and vigilance regarding their children's online lives:

Parents should know what the whole world is being told by or about their teenagers for their own protection.

Parents need to talk to their kids about the kinds of sexual predators who use all kinds of Internet sites to spot potential targets. This is not scare talk. If a parent wouldn't consider an action safe in the "real" world, then it isn't safe in the MySpace world, either, but, for some reason, these kids just don't get that.

Kids this age don't have enough life experience to understand how this information can be used by predators in their private lives.

A Jan. 1, 2009 article by McClatchy-Tribune News Service writer Emilie Le Beau reported that some teens have already experienced the perils of sexting.

"I have heard case after case of teenagers who have sent a photograph to someone and fully expect it to stop there," Michelle Collins, executive director for the exploited child division at the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children, told Le Beau. One parent, Le Beau reported, approached Collins at a conference and told him that his teenage daughter had taken a nude photo of herself that ended being forwarded throughout her high school.

"[Sexting] is something that is going to become more of a problem," Collins told Le Beau.

After Years of Decline, Teen Birth Rates on the Rise in United States

After more than a decade-long decline, the teen birth rate in the United States increased in 2006, with more than 26 states experiencing a higher prevalence of teens giving birth.

According to information released by the National Center for Health Statistics (a part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control), the birth rate for teen girls in the United States increased by 3 percent between 2005 and 2006.

Though a one-year increase might not necessarily raise eyebrows among experts, the fact that so many states also saw rate increases may be cause for concern. "The fact that we have 26 states with an increase in one year is noteworthy because it takes a lot for state-specific rates to change in one year," the CDC's Stephanie Ventura said in a Jan. 7, 2009 article on the MedPage Today website. "Those changes are not usually statistically significant."

Mississippi led the nation with a rate of 68.4 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 19, a 13 percent increase over the state's 2005 numbers.

Mississippi leapt past New Mexico and Texas, which had shared the "title" of highest teen pregnancy rate in 2005. For 2006, New Mexico placed second with a rate of 64.1 per 1,000, and Texas was third (63.1 per 1,000).

North Dakota, Rhode Island, and New York were the only states to experience a reduction in teen birth rates between 2005 and 2006, the CDC reported.

The medical website WebMD noted that additional findings from the CDC report include the following:

• The lowest teen birth rates were found in New Hampshire (18.7 per 1,000), Vermont (20.8), and Massachusetts (21.3).
• The average age of mothers having a baby for the first time decreased to 25 years of age in 2006 from 25.2 the prior year. It was the first recorded decline in age since the measure became available. Average age at first birth had increased 3.8 years between 1970 and 2003.
• For unmarried women, the birth rate increased 7 percent between 2005 and 2006, hitting 50.6 per 1,000 unmarried women between 15 and 44 years old.

For Girls, Extra 'Screen Time' Leads to Lower Fitness Levels

Young girls who spend more than two hours a day watching television or surfing the Internet are less likely to be physically fit - but boys who amass similar levels of "screen time" don't seem to have the same health challenges.

A research team from the University of Sydney (Australia) reached these conclusions after analyzing data from a representative sample of 2,750 Australian students in grades six, eight, and 10.

According to a Jan. 7, 2009, article by HealthDay reporter Carolyn Colwell, the disparity between the effect of screen time on boys and its impact on girls may have more to do with what the young people do when they're not viewing, surfing, or texting:

Boys, particularly older teenage boys, may be less affected by the time they spend watching TV, playing computer games, and other small-screen activities because their growth spurts have led to sufficient muscle mass to maintain fitness and still engage in a large amount of sedentary behavior, the study suggested.

Boys are also more likely to play sports as well as computer games, said Dr. Goutham Rao, clinical director of the Weight Management and Wellness Center at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. An adolescent boy who's on the swim team, for instance, may also spend a lot of time playing a video game like "World of Warcraft," he said.

"There is a culture of physical fitness among boys, and there also is a culture of sedentary activity," he added.

Louise Hardy, a postdoctoral fellow with the New South Centre for Overweight and Obesity, served as lead author of the study, which will be published in the February issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Mother of Murdered Daughter Works to Free Teens from Abusive Relationships

Nearly two years after Debbie Norris suffered the worst loss that most parents can imagine, she remains committed to raising awareness about an epidemic of violence that robbed her of her daughter, Heather. Norris's efforts are directed at helping girls and young women escape from abusive relationships.

"[Heather Norris] was 17 when she met her boyfriend, and 20 when she died at his hands," Elizabeth Olson wrote in a Jan. 3, 2009 article in the New York Times. "In between, [she] tried several times to leave the relationship, which was fraught with control and abuse, before she was killed - stabbed, dismembered and discarded in trash bags."

As horrible as Heather's death was, Olsen reported, her story is far from unique:

Although there are no definitive national studies on the prevalence of abuse in adolescent relationships, public health research indicates that the rate of such abusive relationships has hovered around 10 percent. Experts say the abuse appears to be increasing as more harassment, name-calling and ridicule takes place among teenagers on the Internet and by cellphone.

"We are identifying teen dating abuse and violence more than ever," said Dr. Elizabeth Miller, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, who began doing research on abuse in teenage dating relationships nearly a decade ago.

Stephanie Berry, the manager of community health at Clarian Health in Indiana, told Olson that too many teen girls mistake abusive behavior for evidence that they are valued by their boyfriends. "[The girls] see the jealousy and protectiveness as 'Oh, he loves me so much,'" Berry said. "Girls make excuses for it and don't realize it's not about love, but it's about controlling you as a possession."

According to Heather's Voice, the website that Debbie Norris set up to raise awareness about the scourge of teen dating violence, relationship abuse remains a growing threat in today's society:

• Women between the ages of 16 and 24 are the most likely to become victims of domestic violence.
• At least 40 percent of domestic violence cases involve people who aren't married to each other.
• About 20 percent of teenage girls report being physically or sexually abused by a dating partner.

Study: 'Chastity Vows' Don't Stop Teens from Having Sex

Teens who attend "Purity Balls" and make other public declarations of their desire to abstain from sex until marriage may be easing their parents' minds a bit, but it doesn't look like they're any less likely than their non-pledging peers are to actually stay sex-free. And, when they do have sex, they are more likely to engage in dangerous behaviors such as neglecting to use condoms.

According to Janet Rosenbaum, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health who analyzed data collected on about 1,000 teenagers, those who took a "virginity pledge" had sex at the same rate as other youth, but were less likely to use birth control.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," Rosenbaum said in a Dec. 29, 2008 article by Washington Post writer Rob Stein. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."

Rosenbaum's research, Stein noted, went beyond the scope of previous investigations into the effectiveness of chastity vows by focusing on young people whose moral and religious values were similar, regardless of whether or not they had taken a pledge:

"Previous studies would compare a mixture of apples and oranges," Rosenbaum said. "I tried to pull out the apples and compare only the apples to other apples."

The findings are reigniting the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual education just as Congress and the new Obama administration are about to reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for such programs.

"This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "What have we gained if we only encourage young people to delay sex until they are older, but then when they do become sexually active -- and most do well before marriage -- they don't protect themselves or their partners?"

The data that Rosenbaum analyzed was collected during the U.S. government's National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The NLSAH gathered information on more than 10,000 students in grades seven through 12 between 1995 and 2001.