1. Research & Initiatives
  2. Research Centers & Labs
  3. Youth-Nex
  4. Youth-Nex Projects
  5. Educational Systems: Middle School

Educational Systems: Middle School

To create new knowledge and provide direction about the best practices and appropriate policies for positive youth development, the center focuses on multi-investigator, cross-disciplinary systematic research efforts. These research projects represent the current and on-going work at Youth-Nex in the area of educational systems: middle school.

“As we increasingly understand the critical role this season of development is for young people, we can no longer be satisfied with the current state of middle school.”
– Nancy Deutsch, Professor

Research Projects

  • CASTL
  • Research Project

African American Adolescent Development in Context: The Role of Congruence Across Socialization Agents and Settings

The overarching goal of this study is to advance understanding of home-school dissonance among African American students.

  • Research Project

Compass Model Early-Stage Evaluation

The Compass Camp Early-Stage Evaluation is a research-practice partnership between Valor Collegiate Academies, R&D partner Transcend Education, and researchers at the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Education and Human Development. Together, these three organizations have engaged in a continuous cycle of problem identification, solution design, and rigorous testing to examine the implementation and impact of the Compass model. 

  • Research Project

Virginia Partnership for School Mental Health (VPSMH)

The primary aims of the partnership are to work alongside school districts to expand support for school mental health services. The partnership accomplishes these goals by providing professional development, tele-mentoring, and research support to school districts in Virginia. In doing so, the partnership hopes to increase the number of school mental health professionals who provide evidence-based services in Virginia.

  • RMS
  • Research Lab

Remaking Middle School

Remaking Middle School is a multi-phase initiative, elevating the innovation that is present in middle schools across the country and soliciting national input on how we ensure all students thrive in, and grow from, their experience in the middle grades.