Dr. Alexandra Loukas KINESIOLOGY AND HEALTH EDUCATION
I'm Alexandra Loukas, I study adolescents health
at the College of Education at the University of Texas Austin.
Adolescence is challenging and what I'm trying to understand
is why some kids act out during those years while others don't.
I'm particularly curious about the roles of families and schools
and how they protect adolescents from acting out.
My focus is on families and schools because they have
the greatest impact on adolescents development.
What I study is how kids feel about their family relationships
and also their connectedness to their school.
School connectedness includes feeling like you belong at the school,
your level of closeness to teachers and peers at the school
and also feeling safe at the school.
We all ready know family relationships, good quality family relationships
in school connectedness can protect adolescents from acting out.
What my research shows is that school connectedness can actually
compensate for poor quality family relationships.
Now this is important because it shows that schools have
important function to play that goes well beyond academics.
The feeling of being connected, of being part of a school,
inspires kids to live up to expectations of people at the school.
Read more about Alexandra Loukas on her faculty profile page.
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