While school choice offers inner-city parents a means of educating their children well, it represents further deterioration of society's commitment to educating all students. This paper describes: the push for private school choice; parent choice in context (historical context and failures of desegregation); and segregationist strategies and…

In response to their children being turned away from the bilingual school, a group of Latino parents organized to pressure the Lompoc (California) Unified School District to guarantee educational equity. A systemic analysis of components leading to parental activism focuses on leadership, knowledge as power, cultural conflicts, anti-immigrant…

Youth policy in the United States reflects the public assumption that adolescence is a time of storm and stress and that youth are therefore in need of protection and control from their communities. These and other beliefs about youth distance adults from youth in their communities and, equally important, distract attention and debate from the…

This study examined how various components of school engagement contribute to the academic performance of African American adolescents. The sample consisted of 499 African American adolescents in Grades 9 to 11. We investigated how adolescents' gender, grade, cognitive functioning, and parental education affect their school engagement and whether…

Creating partnership between special educators and parents who are Mexican American often poses unique challenges for all involved. Historically, the fact that these parents may not share mainstream values, traditions, and customs has often been perceived by special education teachers as part of the problem and not as valuable new sources of…

It has been proposed that situated cognition theory, in which learning is conceptualized as induction into a community of practice through the activity of legitimate peripheral participation, offers an appropriate theoretical perspective for examining issues of gender in science education. This study critically engages with this proposal by means…

Evaluation can provide the assessment information for considering program change as well as be integral to the program design and pilot test of any new institutional intervention. (Contains 4 tables.)

This study uses data (N = 3,088) from the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to explore the effects of the transition to fatherhood and the addition of subsequent children on men's psychological and physical health, contacts with extended family, social interactions, and work behaviors. The results suggest that new…

Supportive and caring relations within families promote academic achievement and protect against involvement in health-risk behaviors by adolescents. Similarly, supportive and caring relationships within schools (henceforth, school connectedness) promote academic motivation among adolescents. Much less is known, however, about the influence of…

Many biomedical research universities have established outreach programs for precollege students and teachers and partnerships with local school districts to help meet the challenges of science education reform. Science outreach programs held in university research facilities can make science more exciting and innovative for high school students…

This article sets the scene for the other papers in this Special Issue on children's and young people's participation, by outlining the nature of the ESRC Seminar Series from which all are derived and by developing the main themes discussed at the seminars. The focus of this Issue is participation by children and young people as this relates to…

As more and more higher education programs are offered using Web-based learning environments, instructors need to better understand the implications of using BlackBoard or similar tools to maximize student participation and facilitate learning through rich, thoughtful discussions. This study explores student participation in electronic discourse…

The impact of standards-based reform on students with disabilities has been a topic of considerable concern in recent special education literature although scant information has been reported from the school system level on this issue. Recognizing that a key element in ensuring that students with disabilities are successfully involved in a…

Objective: This study examines peer and parenting characteristics of 149 boys and girls with and without subclinical attention problems. Method: Multivariate analyses showed that children with attention problems had higher levels of negative peer nominations and conflict and betrayal in friendships, and their parents tended to use higher levels of…

This article reports the findings of a collective case study of 2 low-performing, predominantly minority urban schools. The research shows that principals were able to improve the quality of parent-teacher relationships using multidimensional strategies that addressed the needs of teachers and parents. The findings suggest that strategies to…