Cross-sectional study of American (African American and Caucasian youth), Dutch, Hungarian, and Swiss Middle and Late Adolescents. Funding source (1997-1998 and 2000-2002): Auburn University Competitive Research Grants. Ongoing project. To date, data have been collected in Hungary, Japan, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the Netherlands, the United States (suburban and rural high schools), and Turkey.

Collaborators include: for Hungary, Bettina F. Piko, Department of Psychiatry, Division of Behavioral Sciences Group, University of Szeged, Szeged (Hungary); for Japan, Janice Clifford, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Auburn University and Timothy D. Van Loh, M.A., Adjunct Faculty, Shimane Medical School, Izumo, Japan; for the Netherlands: Marianne Junger, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; and Dick Hessing, Ph.D. (deceased), Professor of Law, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; for Slovenia, Sergej Flere, Department of Sociology, University of Maribor, Maribor (Slovenia); for Spain, Ginesa Torrente Hernandez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Social Psycholgy, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia (Spain); for Taiwan, Chuen-Jim Sheu, Ph.D., Professor, Graduate School of Criminology, Taipei National University (Taiwan); and for Turkey, Esra Burcu, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Hacettepe University, Ankara (Turkey).

Longitudinal study of over 4,000 inner-city African American Early, Middle, and Late Adolescents. Funding source (2003-2008): National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Collaborator: John M. Bolland, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Social Science Research, The University of Alabama.

Longitudinal study of Hispanic, Native American, and Caucasian Children and Early Adolescents. Funding source (1993-1999): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Collaborator: Daniel J. Flannery, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Institute for the Prevention of Violence, Kent State University.

Cross-sectional study of Hispanic and Caucasian Early Adolescents.

Collaborator: Daniel J. Flannery, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Institute for the Prevention of Violence, Kent State University.

Longitudinal study of Rural, African American Early, Middle, and Late Adolescents. Funding source (2000-2003): National Research Initiative, Competitive Grant Program, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Collaborator: Jennifer Kerpelman, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Extension Specialist, Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies, Auburn University.

Cross-sectional comparative project examines similarities and differences across five cultural contexts (Bosnia/Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia, Japan, and the United States).

Collaborator: Sergej Flere, Ph.D., Professor and Head of Sociology, the University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia. The study is funded in part by support from the Slovenian Ministry of Education.

Based on samples of about 500 college students in each country, the study seeks to examine a series of specific hypotheses related to the importance of religion across five religious denominations, namely Roman Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Shinto and Muslim.

Cross-sectional study focused on recruiting Roma early and middle adolescents residing in the Czech Republic, with an interest in and focus on comparing youth to ethnic Czech nationals.

Collaborator: Professor Marek Blatný, Director of the Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Support for project provided by the John I. and Patricia J. Buster Endowment.

Accelerated, two-year, longitudinal study of two Czech secondary student cohorts, with a focus on adjustment measures, including academic outcomes.

Collaborator: Professor Marek Blatný, Director of the Institute of Psychology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Support for project provided by the John I. and Patricia J. Buster Endowment.

Cross-sectional study of middle and high school students located in two school districts in a rural Kentucky county, with a focus on online behaviors and how these contribute to adjustment and well-being.

Portions of this survey were also part of a larger comparative effort with parallel data collections in Germany (Professor Karsten Wolf, Sebastian Wachs), the Netherlands (Professor Marianne Junger), Thailand (Dr. Ruth Sittichai). Support for project provided by the John I. and Patricia J. Buster Endowment.

Cross-sectional self-report study of about 2,000 American adults (18-80 years of age, stratified by five age groups: 18-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55, 55+), focused on testing different measures of self-control (including grit) and their correlates.

Support for project provided by the John I. and Patricia J. Buster Endowment.

A nationally representative study that explores the causes of health-related behaviors of adolescents in grades 7 through 12 and their outcomes in young adulthood. Add Health seeks to examine how social contexts (families, friends, peers, schools, neighborhoods and communities) influence adolescents' health and risk behaviors. Initiated in 1994 under a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) with co-funding from 17 other federal agencies, Add Health is the largest, most comprehensive survey of adolescents ever undertaken.

Data at the individual, family, school, and community levels were collected in two waves between 1994 and 1996. In 2001 and 2002, Add Health respondents, 18 to 26 years old, were re-interviewed in a third wave to investigate the influence that adolescence has on young adulthood.

The NICHD Study of Early Child Care (SECC) is a comprehensive longitudinal study initiated by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in 1989 to answer the many questions about the relationship between child care experiences and characteristics and children's developmental outcomes.

It is the most comprehensive child care study conducted to date to determine how variations in child care are related to children's development.

Two national samples of approximately 8,000 youth based on a two-stage cluster sample stratified by age, region, type of school, and language (4 in Georgia and 4 in Switzerland).

Collaborators: Pierre-Andre Michaud, M.D., Groupe de recherche sur la santé des adolescents, Institut universitaire de médecine sociale et préventive, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland and Karaman Pagava, M.D., Research Group on Children & Adolescent Health & Development, Institute of Medical Biotechnology, Academy of Sciences of Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia. 

Started in 1990 with the sample of 4,811 Czech pregnant mothers, it follows the development of their children for 20 years (10 waves) with specific focus on predictors of health status.

Ratings include children, mothers, teachers, and pediatricians. 

A large international collaborative study of delinquency and victimization of 12- to 15-year-old students in seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade classrooms. The study was a school-based study that drew on random samples from either city level or national level. In general, the cross-national description of the prevalence and incidence of delinquent behavior allowed for the assessment of national crime rates by comparison with the crime rates of other countries. The study was conducted in 31 mostly European countries, the United States, Caribbean and South American countries with a sample size of 71,400. 

Principal Investigator(s): Enzmann, Dirk, University of Hamburg (Germany); H. Marshall, Ineke, Northeastern University (United States); Killias, Martin,University of Zurich (Switzerland); Junger-Tas, Josine, University of Utrecht (Netherlands); Steketee, Majone, Verwey-Jonker Institute (Netherlands);Gruszczynska, Beata, Warsaw University (Poland)