The present study investigates school context effects on psychosocial characteristics (academic self-concept, peer relations, school satisfaction, and school anxiety) of high-achieving and gifted students. Students who did or did not make an early transition from elementary to secondary schools for high-achieving and gifted students in 5th grade in Berlin, Germany, are compared in their psychosocial development. The sample comprises 155 early-entry students who moved to an academically selective secondary school (Gymnasium) and 3,169 regular students who remained in elementary school until the end of 6th grade. Overall, a complex pattern of psychosocial development emerged for all students, with both positive and negative outcomes being observed. Specifically, the transition into academically selective learning environments seemed to come at some cost for psychosocial development. Propensity score matching analysis isolating the effects of selective school intake and the school context effect itself revealed negative contextual effects of early transition to Gymnasium on academic self-concept and school anxiety; additionally, the positive trend in peer relations observed among regular students was not discernible among early-entry students.

This longitudinal study of N = 1,566 adolescents investigated the protective role of optimism in adjustment to parental separation, focusing on two salient challenges faced by adolescents, namely academic achievement and self-esteem. Based on latent change models, the results indicated associations between parental separation and short-term declines in academic achievement as well as short-term and longer term declines in self-esteem. Although optimism in general showed positive associations with academic achievement and self-esteem, its role as a protective factor proved to be particularly important for academic achievement in adjustment following parental separation.

This longitudinal study investigated patterns of developmental problems across depression, aggression, and academic achievement during adolescence, using two measurement points two years apart (N = 1665; age T1: M = 13.14; female = 49.6%). Latent Profile Analyses and Latent Transition Analyses yielded four main findings: A three-type solution provided the best fit to the data: an asymptomatic type (i.e., low problem scores in all three domains), a depressed type (i.e., high scores in depression), an aggressive type (i.e., high scores in aggression). Profile types were invariant over the two data waves but differed between girls and boys, revealing gender specific patterns of comorbidity. Stabilities over time were high for the asymptomatic type and for types that represented problems in one domain, but moderate for comorbid types. Differences in demographic variables (i.e., age, socio-economic status) and individual characteristics (i.e., self-esteem, dysfunctional cognitions, cognitive capabilities) predicted profile type memberships and longitudinal transitions between types.