This Family and Practitioner Brief discusses how despite extensive research on school belonging for students with disabilities, research has not focused on Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students. Their mainstreaming experiences are often characterized by feelings of isolation and loneliness, but it remains unclear whether the factors influencing…

This article proposes a distinct role for solitude in education, specifically as a means of promoting self-realisation. Solitude is understood as a willed disengagement, as described by Koch, and its relationship to loneliness and to silence is explained. Notwithstanding a degree of disengagement, solitude can be and often is experienced as…

When students feel alienated, they develop various avoidance strategies, such as becoming spectators, blending into the background, faking participation, pretending to be sick or have an injury, or simply not attending class. Consequently, students lose out on opportunities to improve their skills and interact with others, which alienates them…

To meet emerging needs of the mentoring field and inform funders and policymakers about how to strengthen the mentoring movement, MENTOR has developed a Research Agenda outlining four key areas for future mentoring research. Many researchers, practitioners, and thought-leaders collaborated on this agenda, providing expertise and insight into ways…

The unprecedented switch to distance learning due to COVID-19 highlighted some social, economic, and learning inequities and presented opportunities for educators to reframe our approaches to learning environments. Through our lenses as a high school teacher, middle level teacher, and high school social worker, we document successful structures…

This article describes the socio-psychological effects of school closure on school-going urban girls in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It illustrates the life of urban students in Bangladesh during the school-closing time and relates it to their previous normal life. It asserts that the strengths of traditional schools have…

One of the simple truths about mentoring young people is that it is a complex activity, one that brings a wide variety of individuals together, often during moments of hardship or transition, to create something new, unique, and personally meaningful. Like all human relationships, mentoring relationships require not just initial connection, but…

In writing this article it became clear to the author that, more than ever before, the reasons for hope need to be consciously collected, reflected, and re-enacted by teachers and educators who are really prepared and able to make a difference in the long run. In this article the idea of hope in education is developed in three steps: a…

Sport participation can be a stressful experience for some high school athletes. Sustaining a sport injury can further increase athletes' stress levels. Coaches may feel uncomfortable interacting with injured athletes and can unconsciously or purposefully marginalize them. However, coaches have a responsibility toward all of their athletes,…

If spirituality is, among other things, a matter of "connectedness", then how do we nurture spirituality in adolescents with developmental disabilities who seem largely disconnected? This article advocates the practice of friendship as one important Christian model of spiritual connectedness that finds its origins in the initiative of God and…

A threatening and dangerous neighborhood may produce distressing emotions of anxiety, anger, and depression among the individuals who live there because residents find these neighborhoods subjectively alienating. The author introduces the idea that neighborhood disorder indicates collective threat, which is alienating--shaping perceptions of…

Based on a secondary analysis of studies on Flemish primary schools, the article argues that the metaphor of the gatekeeper, on the threshold between the outside-school and the inside-school world, is a powerful frame to capture some of the particular complexities of principals' emotional experience of themselves and their working conditions. More…

The isolation experienced by LGBTQ youth, who are closeted in all or parts of their lives, leads to a higher rate of alcohol and drug use, smoking, mental health issues, and suicide. National studies in the United States and Canada show that LGBTQ youth are three to six times more likely to commit suicide than their straight counterparts and that…

Bullying is not the kind of abuse that leaves broken bones; rather, it is a dehumanizing experience that manifests itself in the form of rumor spreading, name calling, psychological manipulation, character assassination, and social exclusion. Female teachers who are former victims of girl bullies or who themselves have been complicit with…

Evidence linking alcohol and other drug abuse with child maltreatment, particularly neglect, is strong. But does substance abuse cause maltreatment? According to Mark Testa and Brenda Smith, such co-occurring risk factors as parental depression, social isolation, homelessness, or domestic violence may be more directly responsible than substance…