Objective: To explore Central American men's perceptions of healthy body weight, factors that influence weight gain and increase awareness of being overweight/obese, consequences of excess weight gain and gender similarities and differences in body weight. Design: In-depth, qualitative interviews were conducted with low-income, overweight or obese…

This paper applies Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as well as data analysis to gain a better understanding of the existing perception on the education system. 45,278 tweets were downloaded and processed. Using a lexicon-based approach, examining the most frequently used words, and estimating similarities between terms, we detected…

Much of modern education has focused on developing individuals' skills to be productive parts of society. The developed skills can become enablers of financial stability, independence and economic security. Yet, on a relative basis, considerably less effort is expended on building the financial skills for individuals to preserve their wealth and…

This paper contains a new analysis of gender differences in early grade reading and mathematics outcomes in 19 USAID-funded studies over the past decade from 14 locations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The paper addresses gaps in the literature related to learning patterns for girls and boys in lower- and middle-income…

The "Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1.5-5" (CBCL/1½-5) has been widely used by researchers and clinicians in the field of special education and psychology. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the CBCL/1½-5 with a sample of preschool children from low-income families using the Rasch model.…

Research on bullying and victimization has largely focused on univariate analyses on older children. Little is known regarding the bullying and victimization experience of young children with a person-centered approach, especially in Chinese affordable kindergarten settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence and…

Literature suggests that motor skills are associated with other areas of development or domains, such as language and math, especially at early ages. These results are mainly based on studies developed in medium-to-high sociocultural contexts. Thus, this study was conducted in a medium-to-low-income area. The aim was to know the 4-5 years old…

Despite widespread availability of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines and recommendations for routine use, awareness and uptake of HPV vaccination are not universal. We assessed self-reported history of HPV vaccination in a sample of low-income men and women recruited from the community using respondent-driven sampling as part of the National HIV…

Family- and neighborhood-level poverty are associated with youth violence. Economic policies may address this risk factor by reducing parental stress and increasing opportunities. The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the largest cash transfer program in the US providing support to low-income working families. Many states have additional…

In light of widening participation initiatives internationally, including those in Australia, much has been written about equity policies in education. There is a growing body of research related to the outcomes of such policies and the experiences of non-traditional students, including those from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds and…

Youth participation in community-based, structured out-of-school time programs (OST) has been found to promote positive developmental outcomes by providing youth with resources to build interpersonal relationships and essential life skills. The increasing prevalence and multiplicity of youth participation in these activities leads us to expand the…

The authors conducted their latest National Literacy Trust Annual Literacy Survey between January and mid-March 2020. This Annual Literacy Survey was their most popular to date, with 58,346 children and young people aged 9 to 18 from 315 UK schools participating. This year they also asked a few questions to explore the extent to which children and…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused worldwide closures of schools resulting in a sudden shift to online instruction for a large population of students. For many students, this shift caused a decrease in academic performance. This four-paper dissertation explores the impact of this shift on newly struggling high school students. These students earned a D…

This paper aims to explore and quantify the reading achievement of primary school students from three different regions in rural China. Using survey data on 23,143 students from Shaanxi, Guizhou, and Jiangxi provinces, we find although gaps in student reading achievement exist among the three sample provinces, all sample students exhibit low…

In contrast to the well-observed associations between obesity, diabetes, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the roles of maternal dyslipidemia and sex disparity in ASD have not been well-studied. We examined the joint associations of maternal plasma cholesterols, branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) and child sex on child ASD risk. We analyzed data…