Research Findings: The home-based Early Head Start program in this local study aimed to promote children's early attachment and cognitive development by establishing supportive relationships with parents and guiding responsive parenting and positive parent-child play interactions. To test the effectiveness of this approach, we studied the…

This research was conducted during an after-school partnership between a University and school district in an economically depressed, urban area. The school population consists of 99% African American and Latino students. During the informal after-school math program, a group of 24 6th-grade students from a low socioeconomic community worked…

We investigate whether the intervention designed by Kuhn and Udell (2003) to develop argument skills could be implemented productively among adolescent males in a residential juvenile detention facility--boys who were educationally disengaged and severely disadvantaged academically as well as socially. Compared to a control group from the same…

This article reports on a study that aimed to explore general classroom music teaching and learning via video-conferencing between pre-service music teachers in the USA, and students at an elementary school for underprivileged children in Mexico. This study examines the challenges, progress and lessons learned as interactions within this…

This article examines the achievement effects of a prosocial classroom and instructional management program--Consistency Management & Cooperative Discipline (CMCD)--implemented at 14 elementary schools in a single geographic feeder pattern of a large, urban school district. State reading and mathematics achievement data were collected over 2…

Cash-strapped school districts could see an unprecedented $100 billion infusion of federal aid under a massive economic-stimulus package unveiled by House Democrats this week. The overall measure, put forth January 15 by the House Appropriations Committee, is aimed at providing a $825 billion jolt to the stumbling U.S. economy, and to help avert…

Educators know that an achievement gap exists between students of low-income and middle-income families, a gap that is especially evident in fourth grade and beyond. This essay explores issues related to this gap, including primary-level children being immersed in narrative text and, therefore, unprepared for the challenges of informational text…

This doctoral research work explores the quality of educational experiences and access to opportunities for girls with disabilities in selected rural primary schools in Malawi. The context for this study lies within four of the six goals contained within the World Declaration on Education for All doctrine, a document which lays out a framework for…

Older children outperform younger children in a school-entry cohort well into their school careers. The existing literature has provided little insight into the causes of this phenomenon, leaving open the possibility that school-entry age is zero-sum game, where relatively young students lose what relatively old students gain. In this paper, we…

Assessment within the fields of early childhood education and early childhood intervention is guided by the "deductive-psychometric model", which is a framework for legitimizing constructs that arise from theories. An alternative approach, termed the "inductive-experimental model", places significantly more restrictions on what constitutes a…

The public policy debate now raging over the education of pre-schoolers is a vivid illustration of good intentions poised to go awry. This year legislators in more than a dozen state capitals will decide how to spend hundreds of millions of new education dollars slated for preschool. The funding mechanisms they create will either support existing…

The current longitudinal study examined the development of general cognitive abilities of 4-6-year-old children of low-income, ethnic-minority families in preschool over two and a half years by determining the changes in general, and in verbal and fluid cognitive abilities, relative to age norms, using an intelligence test. The results revealed…

The research reported investigated the efficacy of intervention, developed by a speech-language therapist and implemented by a teacher, for the language and phonological awareness (PA) abilities of pre-school, socially disadvantaged children. One study established that children from low socio-economic (SES) backgrounds had poorer skills on both…

For millions of children worldwide the only type of schooling to which they will gain access will be in small schools. Economically and socially disadvantaged areas support disproportionate numbers of these schools. Although small schools have many advantages, they also face myriad problems. This policy brief explores the existing international…

This report, the first in a series relating to disconnected young adults commissioned by JobsFirst NYC, examines what is known about New York City's disconnected youth--16 to 24 year-olds who are not working and not in school. The report explores the roots of disconnection and identifies five priority populations of young people who are at high…