Profile  

The focus of Dr. Wentzel’s work is on adolescents' motivational and emotional functioning, how it is influenced by social relationships with parents and peers, and how it relates to social and academic adjustment at school.  Her work on social influences has identified specific dimensions of family system functioning, parent-child interactions, and peer relationships that predict adolescents' emotional well-being, motivational orientations toward school, and their social and academic adjustment over time.  Recent work has highlighted the particularly powerful role of emotionally and socially supportive adult relationships in countering the potentially negative effects of peer rejection on the social and emotional adjustment of young adolescents. Underlying this work on socialization is an interest in adolescent goal pursuit and ways in which motivation to achieve social competencies can influence motivation to achieve in non-social domains.  This work has implications for understanding ways in which social developmental trajectories predict academic and intellectual accomplishments.

Selected Recent Publications    

            Juvonen, J., & Wentzel, K. R. (1996).  Social motivation: Understanding children's school adjustment.  New York:  Cambridge University Press.

            Wentzel, K. R. (1997).  Student motivation in middle school:  The role of perceived pedagogical caring.  Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 411-419.

            Wentzel, K. R., & Caldwell, K. (1997).  Friendships, peer acceptance, and group membership:  Relations to academic achievement in middle school.  Child Development, 68, 1198-1209.

            Wentzel, K. R. (1998).  Social support and adjustment in middle school:  The role of parents, teachers, and peers.  Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 202-209.