This article examines how Belgian "concentration" schools, schools with heavy concentrations of non-European Union, typically Muslim, immigrants, challenge educators and policy makers. To situate this challenge properly, the article considers the broader Belgian social and political context, including regional governmental responses to…

This paper presents a model of educational production that tries to make sense of recent evidence on effects of institutional arrangements on student performance. In a simple principal-agent framework, students choose their learning effort to maximize their net benefits, while the government chooses educational spending to maximize its net…

The present study examined spontaneous symbolic play, declarative joint attention, social referencing and imitation of symbolic play in 3- to 6-year-old children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n= 20) during interaction with their mothers. Compared to a control group (n= 20) matched on age and IQ, the children with ASD initiated less joint…

In this article, the author responds to a teacher's request for advice on how to handle one 5-year-old child in her class who has a habit of aggressively taking other children's things without asking. The author provides some suggestions on how to work with a child who does not respect other children's space and belongings. She emphasizes posing…

Collaborative decision making in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) involves negotiation among the parents and medical professionals involved with a premature baby. The authors introduce economist Herbert Simon's concept of "satisficing" as a model for collaborative decision making in the NICU. Satisficing (a hybrid of "satisfy" and…

A two-year (1998-2000) School-Family Partnership for Coexistence (SFPC) programme was implemented in Acre, a mixed Jewish-Arab city in Israel, to promote parents' role as facilitators of their children literacy development and to empower parents to advance coexistence and inter-group relations. The SFPC program was part of a five-year (1995-2000)…

The purpose of this article is to synthesize recent work on aggression and victimization in educational settings from an ecological perspective. Four questions directed towards school psychologists and bullying researchers guide this review: (a) How do bullies fit into their peer ecologies? (b) How do victims fit into their peer ecologies? (c) How…

Improving parental involvement with public schools can improve schools. Parental involvement is highly important for pushing the public school systems to higher standards. Also, research reports that engaging parents in an active role in the school curriculum can open alternative opportunities for children to succeed in academics. This report will…

Dr. Deanna Pledge is a licensed psychologist and professional counselor. She has worked in public and private settings for over a decade. She has been working with teens, children, and adults around abuse issues for the past ten years, and has written "When Something Feels Wrong: A Survival Guide About Abuse." In this interview she answers a…

The urge to surpass their current skills is not unusual for healthy young children. In fact, without it, they wouldn't have bothered to crawl, then stand, then walk, and later "climb many Mt. Everests." In this article, the author assesses the case of a child who carries it a bit further than most children, which frequently put this child's safety…

Twenty women who are mothers and primary school headteachers were interviewed regarding their understanding of the self and how this interacts with the role of parent and professional. The data are read as an illustration of dialogic identities where the self is in constant negotiation regarding how to position as mother and as headteacher, and…

This article presents an up-to-date synthesis and review of recent research in the field of school absenteeism and truancy. Topics covered include: definitional issues; the Ofsted position; the LEA perspective; the causes of non-attendance and truancy; the role of parents; the link between truancy and crime; out-of-school provision; current…

Due to conceptualizations of autonomy as detachment and independence, research on the parenting-autonomy relationship in adolescence has yielded inconsistent results. In the present study, self-determination is proposed as an alternative way of tapping into the construct of autonomy. An integrated model of the relationships between perceived…

Students are under pressure from teachers, parents, and college admissions counselors to maintain high grade point averages, score well on high-stakes tests, participate in a variety of extracurricular activities, and gain admission to top colleges. In fact, surveys have found that most students identify academic pressure as the main reason for…

Parents are their child's first and most important teacher. This booklet introduces parents to techniques for helping their toddlers learn to read. Included is a story about how one mother encourages her son to read, a sample reading activity, and a checklist for parents of toddlers. This brochure is based on "A Child Becomes a Reader--Birth to…