In some primary schools, the average performance of pupils over several years is significantly below the level that could be expected of these pupils. There are several theories for this phenomenon, known as underperformance. Theory on opportunity to learn predicts that pupils in underperforming schools are not given sufficient opportunity to…

Unlike school-aged youth attending well-resourced suburban schools, working-class poor students attending inner-city public schools are oftentimes denied the opportunity to develop a sense of agency within their schools and communities. In this article, the author addresses one way that educators and researchers can encourage young people to…

A response-to-intervention model (RTI) has been identified as a promising way to identify and intervene early with children who are experiencing learning difficulties. The general RTI approach also holds promise of preventing learning difficulties with preschoolers. This article examines the potential benefits of implementing a RTI model in…

Background: Socioeconomic status is often assumed to be of importance for the development of antisocial behavior, yet it explains only a fraction of the variance. One explanation for this paradox could be that socioeconomic status moderates the influence of genetic and environmental effects on antisocial behavior. Method: TCHAD is a Swedish…

Virtually every Government programme for children and every Government Department in the UK is expected to involve children and young people in its policy development and service delivery (Children and Young People's Unit, 2001). It is the new orthodoxy. Yet, hard questions are often avoided when reciting the mantra of participation. Why bother?…

The issue of inclusion is high on the educational reform agenda in many countries. Set within the context of the United Nations organisation's push for "Education for All", the aim is to find ways of increasing the participation and learning of pupils who are vulnerable to marginalisation within existing educational arrangements (World…

Those who are most marginalized, both culturally and economically, in society are concentrated in the nation's largest urban centers and have the least opportunities to be successful in school science or to pursue higher education and career trajectories in science, mathematics, or engineering. This article shares the results of a study in which…

This article chronicles the evolution of legislation for Texas open-enrollment charter schools to their implementation by demonstrating how these schools have (or have not) used their freedom from state-mandated requirements to develop innovative learning environments as well as to bring innovative curricula into the classroom. The investigative…

The ability to access a foreign language can be an issue for academics trying to publish in international journals. The barriers that non-(limited)English-speaking academics in poor countries have in accessing the academic literature pose an issue of disadvantage in a world where the current trend is to publish research work mostly in English.…

Conflicting perspectives on the parent's role in the infant/toddler classroom can play a significant role in early educational settings. A recent ethnographic study of an Early Head Start program in New York City focused on conflict of this nature and raised the following set of questions: What sort of power and privilege should parents be given…

The author's students were an unhappy, skeptical group of middle school students. Many of them had emotional issues. Many had drug addiction and prostitution in their broken and poverty-ridden families. Her school, which is a small charter school in a remote Arizona town, was a place of last resort for these students, who probably would not…

This article explores the student resistances that shape orientations to schooling. Drawing on a study of Latina/o youth, I examine how race and gender influence whether they perceive education as oppressive or useful in resisting oppression. The key lever that may alter their perceptions is how school and society treat Latinos differently from…

Todd County, South Dakota, is synonymous with the Lakota Rosebud Reservation. It stretches across the state's south-central edge, bordered on one side by the better known Pine Ridge Reservation, where the American Indian Movement got its start, and on another side by Nebraska. Until the 1970s, generations of Indian children were forced from their…

A few years ago the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF) revised its mission statement to include language about working to "foster educational and social equity." The revision makes sense to the author as a graduate student in urban education and a former Philadelphia middle school teacher, as well as in her role as a facilitator of Critical…

Policymakers have long been concerned about the disparities in college attendance between more and less advantaged groups of students. Upward Bound is one of the largest and longest running federal programs designed to help economically disadvantaged students prepare for, enter and succeed in college. Since December 1991, Mathematica Policy…