This year's "America's Children in Brief" continues a tradition of collaboration by agencies across the Federal Government to advance the understanding of what our Nation's children and families may need to help ensure bright, healthy futures. This year's report highlights selected special feature indicators related to COVID-19 to…

Aim: This study gathered views of 10 to 12-years-old pupils about their play experiences before and after transition to secondary school, comparing access to their right to play. Method: A multiple-case study design was used to gather views of six Year 6 primary pupils and six Year 7 secondary pupils living in the same community in the United…

In a scientific effort to understand the reasons for low physical-activity levels among children, there is a need to consider how children perceive and interact with their complex environments holistically. This study outlines an image of the perceived landscape within which children in two lower-socioeconomic contexts engage in daily physical…

Young children's outdoor play serves important and diverse purposes, including physical exercise and opportunities for growth in all developmental areas. Unfortunately, the amount of time that children spend engaged in unstructured, child-directed outdoor play has diminished significantly in the past generation. In this article, the authors…

This article describes aspects of the physical education context that set it apart from other instructional contexts. While physical educators share numerous attributes with other teachers--for example, a love of children and a commitment to their content area--many distinctions exist, as well. The nature of physical education is such that…

Background: People with profound intellectual disability experience a high prevalence of visual disability, making them more dependent on sound. However, research addressing the influence of the auditory environment is scarce. Method: Observations of the auditory environments (soundscapes) and moods of people with profound intellectual and visual…

The starting point of this paper is the Scottish School Grounds Survey of 2005, which provided nationwide insight into the extent to which school grounds were being used as learning environments for children in nursery, primary, secondary and special schools in Scotland. Reflecting specifically on provision for play and the way in which play…

The concept of "connectedness with nature" is increasingly used in environmental and sustainability discourse. However, this construct has also been critiqued and proponents charged with harboring an ambivalence that paradoxically reinforces a sense of separation from "nature". We respond to one critique by demonstrating that…

Purpose: This research aimed to determine school happiness level of the teachers based on their opinions. For this purpose, 'School Happiness Scale' was developed by the researchers. The validity and reliability of the School Happiness Scale were tested. And then, the scale was applied to 484 teachers to determine their school happiness level.…

This article develops the concept of the "parental milieu" as a theoretical tool for biosocial research in environmental education and the emerging field of critical life studies. Using the concept of milieu as a catalyst for theoretical inquiry, we map several movements and variations of the term through the 20th century works of von…

Guided by the constructivist framework, the focus of the investigation was on second-grade students and their perceptions of their classrooms' physical learning environment. A qualitative multiple case study approach was employed, and data were collected through interviews, participant-generated photographs, and observations. Participants in the…

The quality of education suffers when pedagogies are not aligned with physical learning spaces. For example, the architecture of the triple-decker Victorian schools across England fits the information transmission model that was dominant in the industrial age, but makes it more difficult to implement student-centred pedagogies that better fit a…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of adaptive methods for junior researchers undertaking research in volatile and dangerous environments. Design/methodology/approach: Through the presentation of two case studies of the authors' own experiences in the field, the authors demonstrate the way the use of adaptive methods…

To better support pedagogies of engagement, such as peer learning, team learning, and inquiry-based learning, Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) are equipped with a range of physical and technological affordances, including movable furniture, ample whiteboard access, and immediate work-sharing capabilities using mobile technologies and displays.…

In the spring of 2017, the National Charter School Resource Center (NSRC), the Colorado League of Charter Schools (the League), the New Hampshire Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NHAPCS) and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (the Alliance) collaborated to collect data and information about charter school facilities and…