Pupil talk and discussion are seen as having important social and cognitive outcomes. In science classes, pupils' collaborative talk supports the construction of meaning and helps examine the status of evidence, theory and knowledge. However, pupil interactive talk in groups is rare in science lessons. The research reported is part of a project to…

In this article, the author discusses how art, politics, and life intersect in a South African community visual arts studio program that seeks to educate artists as change agents. Artist Proof Studio (APS) was founded in 1991 and responded to the challenge of building democracy in a postapartheid South Africa. It is a community art center in…

This paper draws on case study data from a study of independent schools in Scotland, to examine school space as a site of mediation of educational dis/advantage and in/exclusion. A threefold and scalar conceptualisation of space is used together with social capital theory to analyse staff and student identifications with relations within and…

Vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor of literacy and broader academic outcomes, and children's literature is a rich source of sophisticated vocabulary. This study investigated the effect of providing instruction in word meanings as an adjunct to story-book read-aloud sessions in Grade One classrooms. The main intervention programme ran…

In education, professional development (PD) is the continuing education of teachers and administrators. Many studies have described PD as a conventional, top-down type of training that teachers experience in schools. Commonly known as the "institutional model," this type of PD is isolated from classroom practice and occurs as mandatory…

At one Title I K-4 elementary campus located on the Gulf Coast of Southeast Texas, there seemed to be a prevalent problem of minority students, particularly male students, receiving office referrals at a higher rate than their non-minority counterparts in past years. Research from a 2010 Children's Defense Fund report indicates that…

Current school reform efforts aim to improve teaching and learning with emphasis on accountability for student achievement. The success of school reform depends on the motivation and capacities of school leaders. It is important to know what effective leadership practices look like to understand the direct impact to student achievement,…

This case study describes how Alexander Community College (ACC), a two-year State University of New York (SUNY) institution is addressing challenges associated with its developmental education effort--primarily high costs for repeated developmental (assumed by the institution and students) and low persistence and graduation rates for developmental…

Few would quarrel with the goal of increasing parents' and families' engagement in education in the name of school improvement. But there is far less consensus on what that engagement should look like--and on how educators and policymakers should be promoting it. Those questions are evident in the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which…

This research study compared the effects of the intrusive form of developmental academic advising (IDAA) and the influence of additional academic support services on the mean cumulative Grade Point Averages (GPAs) of 4 randomly assembled groups of academically at-risk college students during 2 separate semesters. Academically at-risk students are…

The central question in this study is whether the language and math delays of the different socio-economic and ethnic minority groups targeted by Dutch educational disadvantage policy have diminished or not. Data are from the years 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2008. Information from a total of 90,000 pupils in Grades 2 and 8 was selected to represent the…

Tertiary institutions in Zimbabwe face the daunting challenge of increased need for university education by students. In response to the challenge, universities in Zimbabwe embark on strategies that increase accessibility to university education by disadvantaged students. One way through which the Zimbabwean universities are addressing the…

In this paper we examine how business cycles affect labor market outcomes in the United States. We conduct a detailed analysis of how cycles affect outcomes differentially across persons of differing age, education, race, and gender, and we compare the cyclical sensitivity during the Great Recession to that in the early 1980s recession. We present…

What role might education play in the reinvigoration of a robust American democracy? We argue that common understandings of democracy, citizenship, and democratic education are too anemic to right the political inequalities and stagnancies that have deadened American democracy. Instead, we look to notions of "paideia" and an educated, enlightened…

From 2006 to 2008, while taking courses at Georgia Perimeter College (GPC), Joel Toussaint worked two jobs, one was at night. Now, he has graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology majoring in mechanical engineering, and he has been admitted to graduate school in mechanical engineer there. His plan for the future is to get his Ph. D. in…