To what needs and purposes should the primary curriculum be chiefly directed in the coming decades? In a first step towards revising the primary curriculum, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) invited responses to an open online call to "have your say" on priorities for primary education. Respondents were asked to…

Recent policy dialogue suggests that chronic absenteeism is not only underdocumented, but is also detrimental to the success of students as early as kindergarten. That said, almost no empirical research has examined the effects of chronic absenteeism on student outcomes. This study addresses this underresearched issue in more depth. Using a…

Montessori Partners Serving All Children is endorsed in terms of economic development as a statistically proven return for the money, leadership, parent education, institutional partners, and a sense of community in preparing teachers to serve families with a hub of resources through Montessori Center of Minnesota. Assessment is also integral to…

This catalog provides short descriptions of major Division of Child and Family Development (DCFD) projects from Fiscal Year 2014. Multiple projects are described in the areas of child care, Head Start/Early Head Start, child welfare promotion, and the recognition of cultural diversity. An additional section features projects that fall into more…

This study examines whether summer programming that relies on the delivery of a hands-on, experiential service learning curriculum to deliver content is able to reduce or eliminate summer learning loss in middle school students. Using Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson's (2001) faucet theory as a theoretical framework and a qualitative case study…

This study examined associations between parent-child interactions and the development of social skills in 42 children (21 typically developing and 21 with autism spectrum disorders) between the ages of 3 years, 0 months and 6 years, 11 months. We expected that positive parent-child interaction qualities would be related to children's social…

"Eccomi Pronto" (EP), an elementary school socio-emotional learning curriculum that was originally developed and evaluated in Italy was translated in Korean and implemented and evaluated in 4th grade classrooms of a primary school in South Korea. Qualitative data from teachers indicated that EP improved the self-reflection and…

The article explores the use of the Social and Emotional Health Survey-Secondary version (SEHS-S) with a sample of 975 Japanese students in Grades 7-9 attending schools located northwest of Tokyo. A confirmatory factor analysis using half the sample confirmed the four-factor structure of the SEHS-S, and further analyses verified its second-order…

With a shift in education from the transition of knowledge to the facilitation of the fullest development of each student, social and emotional guidance of students has moved from the margin to the mainstream of education. With limited resources and many competing demands, however, implementing this social and emotional guidance is not always that…

This qualitative study highlights the experiences of seven parents of preschoolers who engaged in persistent challenging behaviors. The study included an in-depth interview with each parent, member checking, and a follow-up discussion with each participant to clarify any ambiguous participant comments. Results revealed four major themes regarding…

What is active learning and what does it look like in the classroom? If students are participating in active learning, they are playing a more engaged role in the learning process and are not overly reliant on the teacher (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2003; Petress, 2008). The purpose of this article is to propose a framework to describe and…

Polli Soholt points to normalization in the first plane as leading to the successful realization of the human personality, which is the basis of social development. Children who have cultivated concentration and purposeful work at an early age develop the virtues to become world citizens. Normalization can be assisted by certain practices: 1)…

Dewey's concept of enabling children to explore based on their own interests has evolved into investigations and projects using methods of exploration, experimentation, and discovery--three tenets of service-learning. Using mixed methodology, the authors examined the implementation of service-learning in a teacher education program. A total of 155…

In this article we illustrate the roles of school psychologists, administrators, social workers, teachers, and parents in school reform by describing the adoption, initial implementation, and formative evaluation of an evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) program within several rural Midwestern school districts in a geographically…

Schools are recognized as ideal environments to promote and enhance the health of children. Previous research has shown a positive association exists between increased prevalence of family-style meals and children's health. Use of family-style service provides opportunities to improve children's overall health and well-being through increased…