Although three articles in this special issue address three very different social groupings--gender, ethnicity, and academic needs--they all highlight why inclusion is important for students' healthy development. The authors make specific suggestions for how schools might promote a more inclusive and welcoming climate for their students.…

Mary Lou Cobb gives a framework from a very practical point of view, leaning on the aspects of grace and courtesy that are fundamental and arise out of a Montessori administrative point of view. Her examples are pragmatic, such as the grace and courtesy of a greeting, of movement, as a whole-school culture, and the right use of language. She calls…

Don't be fooled by Elise Huneke-Stone's disarming beginning where she implies that grace and courtesy is not normally associated with the elementary. She goes on to elaborate that grace and courtesy is indeed everywhere: in project-based learning, understanding of moral precepts, social and intellectual independence, in the utilization of empathy,…

Attempts to raise student performance have focused primarily on either relationships between adults in the system or formal curriculum. Relatively ignored has been a focus on what sociologists believe is the primary relationship of consequence for student outcomes--authority relationships between students and educators. Successful school reform is…

Concern for school-based homophobia is increasing, yet there is a tendency to focus on individual incidents of homophobic bullying rather than the cultural and institutional factors supporting them. We analyse ways in which institutional heteronormativity operates in primary schools and report results from our research in UK schools that…

Preparing teachers to be reflective practitioners is the goal embraced by most teacher education programs. Reflective practitioners infuse personal beliefs and values into a professional identity, resulting in the development of a deliberate code of conduct. They challenge assumptions and expectations that may limit their potential for tolerance…

At points of instability in a system--whether a school, community, or any other social system--there is the opportunity for breakdown or breakthrough. In that moment of opportunity arises the possibility for significant change through the emergence of new norms or standards of behavior that reflect the evolving values of the larger group. What…

Ever since eighth grade the author was deeply interested in his own education at a self-conscious level, wondering how he could find out educationally what human life was all about and how he should live his life. In this article, the author provides a self-portrait of his intellectual life. He contends that philosophy of education, as educational…

There is little question that popular television shows influence the shaping of social norms, identities, and the ways we navigate daily life. High profile shows are also a common magnet for critical attention. No primetime television show has provoked as wide a range of reactions as Fox's "The Simpsons." From shock radio to public broadcasting…

Background: School violence can impact the social, psychological, and physical well-being of both students and teachers and disrupt the learning process. This review focuses on a new area of research, the mechanisms by which the school environment determines the likelihood of school violence. Methods: A search for peer-reviewed articles was made…

While not representative of all students, those who demonstrate a sense of entitlement demand a great deal of instructors' time and energy. Our article places student entitlement in its social context, with specific attention to the prevalence of the consumer mentality, grade inflation, and the self-esteem of the student generation. We then…

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the socionormative approach of internality in the field of education, and more specifically regarding scholastic judgment. It describes the theoretical development and the main procedures used by researchers to show that internal causal explanations have more value than external ones because they…

In this article, the author, who is a school principal, discusses her strategies of implementing schoolwide discipline process. Seeking a solution, she attended a two-day workshop on schoolwide discipline. In the two-day workshop, she and her staff learned to institute a more effective approach throughout the entire school, an approach that is…

This article describes 12 major components--grouped into philosophical, organizational, and operational categories--that should be included in planning and initiating an effective school discipline system. (Author/JW)

When students increasingly exhibited disruptive behavior at a particular school, a comprehensive multilevel discipline program was developed to respond to the students' behavior. The conceptual model and key intervention approaches used in this multilevel discipline program are described in this paper. Previous experience convinced school…