Students' curiosity in the world and sense of belonging in the elementary classroom can develop as teachers learn alongside students in the context of a critical literacy framework. In an end-of-year reflection, one of my fifth-graders, Anne (all names are pseudonyms), a student of color (at times, I used the term "student of color" to…

Background: It is widely recommended for teachers to provide positive feedback to foster the development and maintenance of children's motivation and perseverance. However, not all positive feedback has positive consequences and an important differentiation can be made between positive person-oriented feedback (i.e. 'you are very talented') and…

Background: Real-world problems are important in math instruction, but they do not necessarily trigger students' task motivation. Personalizing real-world problems by (1) matching problems to students' shared living environment (context personalization) and (2) asking students to pose their own problems (active personalization) might be two…

Using a qualitative case study method, we examined how students talked, acted, and felt in structured inquiry in attempt to understand how students' epistemic emotions interact with their engagement in practices. Participants were four 5th graders, and data included audio recordings of the students' talk in structured inquiry for learning a…

Teachers are subject to multiple stressors in their profession and often experience significant distress, which has been found to be linked with harsh and punitive behaviors. These behaviors have been found to influence students negatively, particularly those with vulnerable temperaments. Prior research has also found such negative teacher…

For children, friends play an important role in their socio-emotional development and psychological well-being. Friendships may hold additional value for students who come from minoritized backgrounds. This study aimed to examine representations and themes of friendship in diverse Greek classrooms in which Roma and non-Roma elementary-age students…

Numerous studies have explored the important role of achievement goals, as well as factors such as interest and self-efficacy, for academic performance of students of various ages. Such studies usually focus on the influence of one or two of these factors that are known to be associated with performance. At the same time, achievement goals…

Despite the ongoing debate in academic circles regarding the impact of the arts on individual and collective well-being, there is a paucity of empirical research in this area. Nevertheless, recent studies have begun to establish a significant correlation between arts engagement and a range of positive outcomes. The objective of this study is to…