In this article, we compared teacher attitudes and beliefs about culturally appropriate language teaching resulting from an examination of two groups of preservice teachers. One group of preservice teachers enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL) study abroad program in Mexico; the other enrolled in a traditional on-campus ESL program.…

This article works to dispel the myth that Latino urban high-school students are not capable of performing at high academic levels. Whereas much educational research emphasizes the academic underachievement of urban Latino students, this article counteracts this research by describing the four success factors that three working-class Puerto Rican…

In the January 2009 issue of this journal, Males argues that adolescent brain science perpetuates the "myth of adolescent risk taking." He contends that those who study adolescent neuromaturation are biological determinists who ignore the profound social and environmental forces that influence adolescent behavior to further their own agendas.…

This brief is a companion to the policy brief entitled, "Discipline Policies, Successful Schools and Racial Justice," which reviewed the research on disciplinary exclusion from school and made several recommendations, including the following three for seeking policy change through legislation: (1) Federal and state policy should require…

This meta-synthesis of empirical and nonempirical literature analyzed 24 journal articles and book chapters that addressed the intersection of disability, [homo]sexuality, and gender identity/expression in P-12 schools, colleges and universities, supported living programs, and other educational and social contexts in Australia, Belgium, Canada,…

In this paper I reflect on perspectives presented by John Settlage as he examines the truth of the proposition that "many teacher educators harbour deficit perspectives about their pre-service teachers, presuming that their lack of exposure to economically, ethnically and linguistically diverse settings renders them deficient as future educators."…

The disappearance of traditional sex education during rites of passage in African societies has left many youth uncertain of where to look for information. Against this backcloth, the objectives of this study were to identify knowledge gaps amongst adolescents in Kenya regarding sexuality, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. A thematic analysis was…

Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is not an easy subject to learn. There are many challenges confronting students when studying OOAD. Students have particular difficulty abstracting real-world problems within the context of OOAD. They are unable to effectively build object-oriented (OO) models from the problem domain because they…

What are Turkish pre, elementary, middle, and high school students' force ideas? And, how do Turkish students' non-normative force ideas differ or be similar to the well-known force misconceptions reported in the literature? Students have false and persistent beliefs about the physical world and they struggle with challenging misconceptions based…

This is one in a series of policy briefs on key education issues prepared by the RAND Corporation for the Obama administration. Despite controversy, charter schools are increasing in numbers as alternatives to traditional public schools. Research finds that charter schools do not produce the predicted negative effects and that they have some…

Purpose: This report summarizes the Literacy for Deaf Immigrant Adults: A Symposium for Collaboration and Learning was a unique event, the first of its kind in Western Canada. Methods: An archival narrative approach was used to summarize and synthesize key outcomes from the symposium. Results: Participants identified key challenges as: (1) myths…

Background: Trigonometry is an area of mathematics that students believe to be particularly difficult and abstract compared with the other subjects of mathematics. Trigonometry is often introduced early in year 8 with most textbooks traditionally starting with naming sides of right-angled triangles. Students need to see and understand why their…

Secondary school chemistry teachers' understanding of chemical equilibrium was investigated through interviews using the think-aloud technique. The interviews were conducted with twelve volunteer chemistry teachers in Hong Kong. Their teaching experience ranged from 3 to 18 years. They were asked to predict what would happen to the equilibrium…

This study explored the differences between eight-year elementary school pupils (before the curriculum reform) and nine-year elementary school pupils (soon after the curriculum reform) in Slovenia, as regards specific chemistry knowledge and motivation to learn chemistry. Altogether, 191 elementary school pupils participated in the study. The…

This paper discusses what chemistry students might see while working with animations found on the Internet and how these electronic illustrations can potentially interact to reinforce rather than resolve misconceptions about chemical principles that a student may possess. The Daniell voltaic cell serves as an example to illustrate the ways in…