Low high school graduation rates and sharply declining employment rates among disadvantaged youth have led to increasing numbers of youth who are disconnected from both school and work. What programs and policies might prevent these disconnections and improve educational and employment outcomes, particularly among young men? We review the evidence…

Decades of research show that quality pre-kindergarten programs can make a critical difference in children's school readiness and their future educational success. Investments in early learning are proven to yield important short- and long-term benefits for students and school districts. Driven by this strong evidence, the movement to expand…

The purpose of this qualitative participatory action research study was multi-fold: first, to identify the ecological factors which impede and promote health and well-being among orphaned and abandoned children in Sierra Leone; second, to facilitate Photovoice, a participatory action research method, among NGO workers to identify barriers to…

Research Findings: The purpose of this article is to describe current education policies as they relate to the promotion of social, emotional, and academic (SEA) development and competence for young children. Academic and social-emotional competencies are described and conceptualized as developmentally linked, reciprocal processes that should be…

The Philippine Thematic Apperception Test was administered to 22 intellectually superior Filipino children aged 4 to 9 years from private and public school settings as a means to explore their socio-emotional concerns. A grounded analysis of their narratives revealed the following themes: (a) importance of family relationships, (b) perceptions on…

This article reviews the relationship between poverty and reading achievement in America's schools. It then discusses how to advance the reading proficiencies of students from economically impoverished homes. It gives particular emphasis to school-home partnerships and sociocultural literacy practices.

Internships are an effective way of connecting high school students in a meaningful manner to the sciences. Disadvantaged minorities have fewer opportunities to participate in internships, and are underrepresented in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors and careers. We have developed a Summer Academic Research Experience…

The federal Early Head Start (EHS) program began in 1995, and a randomized trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of 17 EHS programs. In all, 3,001 low-income families (35% African American, 24% Hispanic, and 37% White) with a pregnant women or an infant under the age of 12 months were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group (with…

In this paper we will briefly review recent trends in employment outcomes for disadvantaged youth, focusing specifically on those who have become "disconnected" from school and the labor market, and why these trends have occurred. We then review a range of policy prescriptions that might improve those outcomes. These policies include: 1)…

Improving the long-term life outcomes of disadvantaged youth remains a top policy priority in the United States, although identifying successful interventions for adolescents--particularly males--has proven challenging. This paper reports results from a large randomized controlled trial of an intervention for disadvantaged male youth grades 7-10…

Relatively little research has explored whether schools differ in their effectiveness for different group of pupils (e.g. by ethnicity, poverty or gender), for different curriculum subjects (e.g. English, mathematics or science) or over time (different cohorts). This paper uses multilevel modelling to analyse the national test results at age 7 and…

It is widely recognized that the 12 percent of all youth in American public schools who have disabilities comprise a set of students with distinct capacities and needs. Federal legislation, including the most recent updates to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, identifies different disability groups and mandates that…

The National Longitudinal Transition Study 2012 (NLTS 2012) is the third in the series of NLTS studies sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to examine youth with disabilities receiving services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a long-standing federal law last updated in 2004. Under IDEA, youth with…

It is widely recognized that the 12 percent of all youth in American public schools who have disabilities comprise a set of students with distinct capacities and needs. Federal legislation, including the most recent updates to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, identifies different disability groups and mandates that…

To add to the emerging early intervention research on universal supports for children, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an intervention designed to increase teachers' use of two universal behavioral supports on target children's behavior. The children targeted for this study were at elevated risk for problem…