In October to December 2008, the Laboratory for Political Research at the Higher School of Economics State University, as part of a broad project devoted to determining the degree of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of the political consciousness of today's Russian society, carried out a sociological survey on the topic "The Political…

Attending school and securing lawful status in the United States are two keys to safety and security for undocumented unaccompanied homeless youth. This brief is designed to provide young people, immigration attorneys and advocates, McKinney-Vento liaisons and educators with basic information to help them access these keys. After describing some…

Ten years ago when the first group of children aged out of the Applewood Learning Center's (Londonderry, New Hampshire) school-age child care program, parents asked the program to find a way to serve their young teenage children so that they would not be left home alone for the summer. The teens had friendships based on many years together in the…

When the authors taught in traditional classroom settings, collaboration and communication were understood to be important. Part of every class session was spent in discussion because they knew the importance of students teaching students, and they believed that the teacher as a facilitator, rather than the supreme encyclopedia of knowledge, was a…

This article seeks to explore and understand the life situations of sibling caretakers in poor areas in Leon, Nicaragua. The every day lives for caretakers were studied through observations and interviews with children, informants and parents. The children themselves were satisfied and proud to be trusted as caretakers and felt useful in…

For most full-time employed parents, the gap between the end of the school day and the time they arrive home from work adds up to about 20 to 25 hours per week. Thus, many parents look to afterschool programs to satisfy their desire for safe, enriching experiences for their children while they are working. "Afterschool" is the general term used to…

The U.S. has set as a national goal the narrowing of the achievement gap between lower income and middle-class students, and that between racial and ethnic groups. This is a key purpose of the No Child Left Behind act, which relies primarily on assessment to promote changes within schools to accomplish that goal. However, out-of-school factors…

Self care is one of the options for parents in need of after school care for their children. In certain studies self care is seen as detrimental to development and academic performance, but in other studies children do fairly well notwithstanding their latchkey situation--self care could teach young people a sense of personal responsibility and…

When the bell rings at the end of a school day, millions of children are left to their own devices while they wait for their families to return home at the end of the work day. Findings from a study conducted by the Afterschool Alliance, "America After 3PM," show that 15.1 million children are unsupervised when the school day ends. The…

Policymakers nationwide must decide how to best invest in education and related opportunities, such as out-of-school-time programs targeting youth and early-childhood education programs. In this paper, we review the costs, benefits, and costs and benefits relative to one another for one alternative type of investment: youth programs that are…

To reduce confusion and controversy about the nature of self-care and its consequences for children, this commentary defines the self-care child as one between the ages of approximately six and 13 years who spends time at home alone or with a younger sibling on a periodic basis. (RH)

Advances arguments against defining self-care children exclusively in terms of elementary school students who are home alone or with a younger sibling after school. (RH)

With most parents now in the workforce, the demand for high-quality out-of-school time (OST) opportunities for children and youth continues to grow across the country. An estimated 14.3 million children and youth return each day to an empty home unsupervised, and with no opportunities to constructively occupy their time. By building strong,…

Left-behind children refer to those left behind by parents working away from home and taken care of by only one of the parents or relatives because one or both of the parents go out to work in the city. By using questionnaires, this study involves 8,627 rural pupils chosen from 10 provinces to examine academic psychological characteristics,…

The research described in this paper concerns the acquaintance of student teachers with the educational and wider pastoral experiences of children and young people who are or have been "looked after" and who they may well teach at some point, together with the familiarisation of student teachers with the "looked after" system…