Failure is often taken as a given in higher education, as an inevitable part of learning new things. Yet, it remains a part of learning that students tend to fear, and faculty tend to neglect. As faculty, we do not always strategize with or leverage our students' struggles and failures for improved learning. Instead, we hope that students learn…

The present paper explores approaches to the classification of ethnic identity. In the framework of research on comparative classifications, we analyse the contextual factors that influence classification in Hungarian education. We compared the number of students who self-reported as Roma with the respective number reported by the school heads (as…

In this study, the authors investigated the attitudes of Japanese junior high school students towards studying English from the perspective of the Self-worth Theory. A total of 383 students aged 12 to 15 years participated in the qualitative study. Students were required to write three essays about how they would react under hypothetical…

This article presents research from a school in a multicultural suburb on the outskirts of a large Swedish conurbation that used a particular pedagogy with strong classification and framing to address an identified problem of academic failure amongst its pupils. The analysis shows that the pedagogy was chosen based on an assumption that pupils…

Students exhibiting failure syndrome approach assignments with low expectations of success and tend to give up at early signs of difficulty. This Digest delineates the nature of failure syndrome, suggests strategies for coping with failure syndrome students, and discusses how teachers can help. Some students, especially in the early grades, show…

Students should encounter failure in order to survive in the world, but they need not be classified as failures. Suggestions for helping students deal with failure in positive ways are offered. (DF)

In an impression explanation of counterdefensive attributions, the tendency of subjects is to accept primary responsibility for negative outcomes and to deny credit for positive outcomes. Counterdefensive attributions represent attempts at maximizing the esteem in which observers hold the actor. To test this hypothesis, a 2 x 5 simulation was…

While acknowledging that studies reveal no single personality structure characteristic of disabled readers, the author presents basic techniques for secondary teachers which improve reading while taking account of the emotional needs and predispositions of nonreaders. (SJL)

Studies of learning disabled students' self concept and attributions suggest that the passive learning style may reflect their beliefs that they are not in control of their destinies. The paper reviews strategies to help LD children acquire more adaptive notions about the causes of their successes and failures. (Author/CL)

Recommends reality counseling to help students who identify with failure to take responsibility and achieve success. Defines reality counseling and discusses its principles: get involved, focus on present behavior, help the student evaluate his/her behavior, make a plan for future behavior, encourage student commitment, accept no excuses, and…

Some individuals more readily develop learned helplessness in the classroom, so it is necessary for the educational system to acknowledge it and develop teaching methods to prevent it. Creating awareness among educators of this condition could greatly decrease its occurrence. Children who have a high risk of developing learned helplessness,…

This article explores how pre-existing structures within the educational system impede the academic achievement of many African-American learners and contribute to low self-concept, mislabeling, and placement in lower academic tracks. Methodologies and strategies needed to change these practices and/or to limit their ill effects are suggested.…

Self talk (thoughts about one's self and own performance while learning or working) can affect cognitive and learning strategies that in turn affect specific learning techniques. Negative self talk can interfere with learning since it reinforces feelings of failure, thereby increasing the probability of continued failure, and maintains an…

The skills-based method of remedial reading instruction is based on a medical model, in that it focuses instructional efforts solely on "curing" what is "wrong" with a reader. Such attention to students' shortcomings and the labeling of their lack of instant success as a problem causes healthy learners to begin to doubt their own abilities, often…