The aim of this thesis was to examine honor conflicts that arose between girls with Swedish-foreign origin and their parents, but also to explore an honor conflict that resulted in an extreme form of violent crime, namely the murder of a young girl. The participants were different family members with foreign origins. Data were collected from qualitative interviews with 16 female and 7 male participants and were analysed according to Grounded Theory. The families were described in terms of disharmonic relations and dysfunctional growing up conditions. Fear was found to be a core variable in all the participants’ experience of the situation and also an important underlying cause of the conflict with its final outcome. The results showed that the girls’ fear during the conflict process included both mental and physical experiences. Fear was also described as an underlying cause of turning points of the conflict and the girls’ decision making in whether to stay or abandon their families. The mothers’ fear was accentuated by their daughters´ bodily and behavioral changes during puberty and was reported to be due to their concern that the girl might acquire bad teenage habits. However, the main reason for fear reported by the mothers was that they feared that the girls would disgrace the family name by violating chastity norms. The fathers described their fear of having their reputation disgraced, which in turn would lead to social exclusion. Another finding in the study was time distance, which moderated the fear. The concept of fear was a major variable also in the retrospective case that included the murder of a young girl. The male family members of this specific family were afraid of losing their power and honor, combined with unresolved internal conflicts and external intervention, which all contributed to the murder. The results are discussed in terms of attachment theory, development theories, conflict theory, as well as acculturation theory.

The general aim of this thesis was to extend knowledge of the interplay between self-regulation (SR) skills during childhood in relation to academic achievement and later adult educational and occupational attainment.

Previous research has shown that cool SR (i.e., cognitive) is more closely linked to academic achievement than hot SR (i.e., motivational/emotional). However, studies investigating both cool and hot SR in relation to academic achievement have been restricted to young children. Therefore, Study I assessed cool and hot SR in relation to academic achievement over a longer time period. The results showed that cool SR at age 3 was related to achievement already at age 6. Hot SR at age 3 did not predict achievement until later on in elementary school.

Study II investigated the contribution of interference control and attention skills at age 6 to concurrent and later academic achievement at age 10. As the learning material becomes increasingly more complex throughout elementary school and teachers may give less support, interference control was expected to have a delayed effect on academic achievement relative to attention skills. Results showed that attention skills were related to academic achievement at age 6, whereas interference control only predicted academic achievement at age 10.

Study III investigated task persistence in young adolescence in relation to academic achievement later in school and educational and occupational attainment in midlife. Results showed that task persistence contributed to change in grades between ages 13 and 16. Further, task persistence predicted later educational and occupational attainment (men only). Importantly, individual differences in intelligence, motivation, social background, and later educational attainment did not account for these effects. The findings point to a fundamental role of self-regulation in childhood for successful academic achievement and later attainment in adulthood.