if they are in social environments that do not fit their
psychological needs. If the social environments in the
typical junior and senior high schools do not fit very
well with the psychological needs of adolescents, then
person-environment fit theory predicts a decline in
the motivation, interest, performance, and behavior
of adolescents as they move into this environment.
Evidence from a variety of sources supports this
hypothesis. Both of these school transitions usually
involve the following types of contextual changes: (1)
a shift from a smaller school to a larger school; (2) a
shift to a more bureaucratic social system; (3) a shift
to a more controlling social system; (4) a shift to a
more heterogeneous social system; (5) a shift to a so-
cial context with less personal contact with adults and
less opportunity to be engaged in school activities and
responsible school roles; (6) a shift to a more rigid, so-
cially comparative grading system; and (7) a shift to
a more lock-step curriculum tracking system. Along
with these changes, evidence from more micro-
classroom-based studies suggests that the teachers in
junior and senior high school feel less able to teach
all of their students the more challenging academic
material and are more likely to use exclusionary and
harsh discipline strategies that can effectively drive
low achieving and problematic students away from
school. Work in a variety of areas has documented the
impact on motivation of such changes in classroom
and school environments.
See also: DEVELOPMENTAL NORMS; MILESTONES OF
DEVELOPMENT
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Jacquelynne S. EcclesADOPTION
Each year, tens of thousands of children are adopted
in the United States. The majority of them are placed
in their families through licensed adoption agencies.
The remaining children are adopted privately, usual-
ly with the assistance of attorneys who serve as inter-
mediaries between birth parents and adoptive
parents.The Changing Nature of Adoption
Although historically adoption typically involved
the placement of a healthy, newborn, white infantADOPTION 11