An awareness of the history of science is important for tomorrow's science teachers. It provides a human dimension to a field such as chemistry that is often regarded by students as remote and impersonal. Elizabeth Fulhame was an accomplished research chemist of the late eighteenth century who was well known to the prominent chemists of her era…

Despite the wealth of research into adolescent role models, few studies have concentrated solely on the musical figures identified by adolescents and the reasons why. Using mixed methods, 381 adolescents (aged 13-14) completed a questionnaire about the musicians they admired and the reasons why. Focus groups were also conducted where adolescents…

One-Session Treatment (OST) is a form of massed exposure therapy for the treatment of specific phobias. OST combines exposure, participant modeling, cognitive challenges, and reinforcement in a single session, maximized to three hours. Clients are gradually exposed to steps of their fear hierarchy using therapist-directed behavioral experiments.…

Fifty-two years after "Brown v. Board of Education" and 42 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there remains a declining presence of Black teachers and administrators in the United States. As powerful role models for all students, especially Black students, Black educators are crucial to the increasing minority student population…

This article draws primarily on qualitative data obtained in interviews with a socially activist urban pastor as part of fieldwork undertaken for a larger project on the relationship between religious involvement and educational outcomes among urban African American students. It demonstrates processes such as developing a critical consciousness…

Background: Professional commitment from teachers requires more than contractual compliance as personal and professional values are integral to teaching practice. Secondary school teachers are expected to act as role models and demonstrate positive attributes and attitudes in an evolving educational context. Little is known about how they…

A shortage of male teachers at all levels of public education is not a new phenomenon. Gender disparities in teaching have been around for more than a century in the United States. While roughly 39 percent of all elementary and secondary public school teachers were men as early as 1869, only 29 percent of teachers were men by the turn of the…

The author reports on Ohio's bevy of education initiatives that take aim at helping African-American male students succeed. The Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center for the African American Male at The Ohio State University is one of several initiatives that help African-American men succeed in Ohio. All the programs focus on individual…

This study obtained qualitative data to assess how parental role modeling and parental social support influence physical activity in underserved (minority, low-income) adolescents. Fifty-two adolescents (22 males, 30 females; ages 10-14 years, 85% African-American) participated in a focus group (6-10 per group, same gender). Focus groups were…

Dr. Wangari Maathai--"environmentalist, human rights advocate, global peace worker, and community builder"--passed away in 2011. The first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Maathai left a legacy even greater than the 47 million trees that her organization, the Greenbelt Movement, has planted across Kenya since 1977. As…

This project examined the unique needs of boys in education. Biologically and physically, male students' developmental needs differ from their female counterparts. As a result, their educational needs are typically underserved and misunderstood in the standard co-educational classroom. This misunderstanding has led to a gap in educational…

There is a century of rich literature on social learning from the fields of education, psychology, and sociology characterizing a wide variety of practical applications such as instructional techniques, consumer behavior conditioning and determining criminal motives. In social learning theory, according to Bandura, there are four fundamental…

For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) students, school is rarely a safe space, much less an environment conducive to learning. Seventy-five percent of gay students report being verbally abused at school, and more than a third say they are physically harassed. And research shows that LGBTQ students are five times more…

This article describes Heart to Heart Art, an after-school program developed for homeless children and youth at the YWCA in Spokane, Washington. Pre-service teacher candidates from a local university create meaningful activities that engage homeless students in visual art, music, drama, cooking, and community service. Heart to Heart Art was…

We investigated whether role models (individuals adolescents look up to) contributed to the resilience of adolescents who were exposed to negative nonparental adult influences. Our sample included 659 African American, ninth-grade adolescents. We found that adolescents' exposure to negative adult behavior was associated with increased…