This case study aimed to understand adolescent Black girls’ response when becoming angry as related to verbal and physical aggression. The study focused on the triggers for anger of 7 Black girls, current strategies in place at the school to help manage their anger and aggression, and it sought to determine if the girls were able to recognize when they became angry. This information is of importance because the school suspension rate has increased for Black girls (Morris, 2013), and there are limited studies to help them manage their anger in order to feel accepted in schools, develop relationships in schools with teachers and administrators, and to perform better academically. This study used qualitative methods to acquire knowledge of why elementary age Black girls became angry and aggressive in a rural educational setting. The researcher studied anger triggers through usage of anger logs, focus groups, structured interview questions, teacher surveys, and observations. In utilizing these methods, the researcher was able to determine that the girls’ triggers to anger aligned with current research and that there were minimal strategies to help manage anger and aggression in the school setting. The data also help to shed light on how the girls felt at school. The research reveals the need for Black girls to feel safe and accepted in schools, therefore implicating the need for interventions that address the needs of Black girls with anger and aggression concerns. This research also suggested ways to improve school climate in order to foster stronger staff student relationships among Black girls and school staff. Finally, this research shed light on programs that could benefit Black girls in schools to help them feel a sense of belonging.

Previous research has found that maternal depression is predictive of adolescents’ aggression. The present study examined three mechanisms believed to account for this relation: parenting practices, family functioning, and informant discrepancy. The data for this study are from the Multisite Violence Prevention Project which collected data from a high-risk sample of sixth grade students, parents, and core teachers. A within-subjects analysis of variance examined the association between maternal depression and informant discrepancy. Structural equation modeling compared the relation between maternal depression and adolescents’ aggression as a function of parenting practices and family functioning. Results indicated that maternal depression was related to adolescents’ aggression and moderated the degree of the discrepancy between reports of aggression. Results indicated that the relation between maternal depression and mother-report of adolescents’ aggression was mediated by parenting practices and family functioning, with parenting practices mediating the relation over and beyond family functioning.

Objectives The development of aggression from childhood to adulthood is well-researched, and extant work has identified a large number of developmental risk factors within the individual, family, and social domains. Among them, poor parenting, including harsh practices like corporal punishment, have repeatedly been found to predict adolescent behavioural problems, that may then negatively affect adult behaviours such as violence and offending. An area of research that is becoming increasingly important is one that seeks to identify the reasons why some people do not become aggressive, even when they have been exposed to well established risk factors. What is it that has protected them from becoming aggressive later in life? The current study examined whether self-control and having a positive teacher-child relationship acted as protective factors between corporal punishment and adolescent aggression. Methods An autoregressive cross-lagged panel model was used to examine self-control and teacher-child relationships as both direct and interactive protective factors between corporal punishment and adolescent aggression. Teacher and self-reported data was used from three waves (waves 4-6) of the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children and Youths (Z-proso), a prospective longitudinal study of adolescents in Switzerland. Results The results show that both self-control and having a positive teacher-child relationship were direct protective factors against concurrent aggression. However, the interactive protective effect of these factors differed depending on the stage of adolescence and level of exposure to risk. Furthermore, differences were found when considering males and females separately.