The article briefly discusses the question of how we should establish special educational practices that could help students mature. In identifying such practices, the author looks to a number of empirical studies that allow us to understand what significance the concept of "maturation" has for children and teenagers. In conclusion, the…

The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teachers' beliefs about retention. In spite of evidence that grade retention has negative effects on students' academic and socio-emotional outcomes, retention continues to be a common practice. Sixty-one elementary and secondary education majors at a small community college responded to an…

The article presents a conceptual model of effective school leadership which is based on the experience and knowledge gained from research work done with high-performing principals in the Jamaican school system. The basic and underlying premise is that to understand how leadership works, it is essential to explore the dimensions, components, and…

This article revisits the 1986 Feldhusen, Proctor, and Black recommendations on grade skipping. These recommendations originally appeared as 12 guidelines. In this article, the guidelines are grouped into three general categories: how to screen accelerant candidates, how to engage with the adults in the acceleration process (e.g., teachers,…

How do teachers teach gifted students whose emotional age trails their chronological age? How can they integrate those students into their classes so that these students mature while not detracting from the learning of the other students? In this article, the author offers pieces of advice on teaching gifted students whose emotional ages trail…

Despite the widely reported link between early pubertal timing and internalizing symptoms among girls, less is known about the peer reputation of earlier maturing girls. The current study assesses whether early maturation is associated with perceived popularity and/or rumors, and whether these reputational factors help account for earlier maturing…

This is a psychometric analysis of an instrument to assess the socio-emotional development of school students, How I Feel (HIF), developed as a situational judgment test, with scoring based on expert judgments. The HIF test was administered in grades 4-9, 1999-2005. Internal consistency, retest reliability, and year-to-year stability were…

In this study, the socio-cultural variation in reading comprehension development was examined in 331 fifth graders from schools in Lima, Peru. Reading comprehension was measured using an adaptation of the PIRLS Reading Literacy test. The fifth graders' reading comprehension results, measured over the course of fifth grade, were related to the…

When addressing issues related to sport specialization, it is important to consider how skills are developed and learned. Changes in physical development and maturation throughout the growing years affect the motor performance abilities of individuals who are not yet mature. Such variability in skill development is important to understand when…

Slowly but surely, Generation Xers have been taking over from Baby Boomers as the majority of parents in elementary and secondary education. In the early 1990s, Gen Xers began joining parent-teacher associations in the nation's elementary schools. Around 2005, they became the majority of middle school parents. By the fall of 2008, they took over…

Economists have identified a substantial adult wage premium attached to high school leadership activity. Unresolved is the extent to which it constitutes human capital acquisition or proxies for an "innate" unobserved skill. We document a determinant of high school leadership activity that is associated purely with school structure, rather than…

Research has found that teachers' objections to accelerating gifted students are mainly based on a fear that acceleration will lead to social or emotional damage. Ironically, it is the academic and emotional maturity which characterizes intellectually gifted students, coupled with their high levels of academic achievement, which makes them such…

Research indicates that while grade retention does not typically increase student performance, it is widely practiced in schools throughout the country. Arguments for retaining a child include immaturity, the belief that an extra year of schooling will produce successful academic outcomes, and failure to meet criteria for promotion. Those who…