Maintaining productive partnerships between families and schools is more complex when youth enter middle school. A systematic and inclusive understanding of the strategies parents use, youth want and need, and teachers' desire is needed to broaden our conceptualization and deepen our understanding of parental involvement in education. The authors…

For decades, researchers have asserted that K-12 teachers should embed reading comprehension instruction within each academic discipline, including "technical subjects" such as engineering. Recently, this assertion has become a source of controversy among researchers and practitioners who believe that time spent on teaching reading…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop descriptions of how teenage students remain engaged in learning while using mobile technology. Developments in technology have expanded learning contexts and provided learners with improved capacities to connect with others to exchange, gain, and construct knowledge. Developments in…

In this paper we discuss how the products of student work during long-term, interdisciplinary curricular units at King Middle School, a grades 6-8 public school in Portland, Maine, through their aesthetic qualities, transformed people's understanding of what children were capable of. We argue that, to effectively understand student work of this…

Almost half of all gifted students do not achieve according to their exceptional potential. Though significant research has investigated identifying characteristics of underachieving gifted students, current research is yet to fully employ the established theoretical knowledge to determine practical strategies for the reversal and remediation of…

Scholars have become more attentive to lesbian/gay/bisexual/transsexual/queer/questioning (LGBTQ) topics as queer perspectives become increasingly prevalent in middle and high school environments. This study examines how educators navigate social and academic environments in order to incorporate inclusive pedagogical practices and cultivate safe…

Individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 96 parents of students with disabilities in 18 schools to explore parents' views of schools' efforts to engage them in their child's education. A mixed-methods approach was used to identify and evaluate the relative importance of eight themes related to schools' efforts…

In this study, the author suggests that the current ELL parental involvement model often overlooks the structural aspects and power asymmetry of parent-teacher relationships that can hinder productive collaboration. In doing so, the author uses postcolonial theory as a conceptual lens to investigate the dynamics of ELL parent-teacher interactions…

Few studies have documented the literacy activities in an after-school setting of affluent early adolescents assigned to remedial reading. This may be because these students are not considered to be at risk of academic failure. The out-of-school literacy activities of 3 sixth-grade students were examined in this qualitative research. Multiple data…

One-to-one laptop programs, where each student has their own laptop to use in classroom, are becoming popular in schools especially in Australia and the United States. The purpose of the study was to contribute to the limited knowledge base explaining the implementation of laptop programs specifically with English language learners. Four ESL…

Establishing effective transition programs for students entering high school is an ongoing process. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore best practices transition programs employ to aid student's success. The participants in this study were six administrators chosen from a population of administrators at 60 central Indiana high…

Adolescent aspirations associated with perceptions of "living well" were qualitatively evaluated based on 187 middle school student responses. Using grounded theory methodology, 976 words and phrases were coded and grouped; 41.9% were extrinsic, 36.3% were intrinsic, and 21.8% of the passages were merely descriptive. Extrinsic coded…