Schoolwide support for higher achievement is essential. Students need a nurturing environment where they feel secure about learning, where the goal is success for every student and where students are confident they will receive mentoring and encouragement to prepare for their futures. Many schools are reinventing themselves to motivate students to…

The current study evaluated the use of a manualized social skills program, Superheroes Social Skills, to increase the use of prosocial behaviors and decrease the use of aggressive behaviors for children with externalizing behaviors. The training was implemented by a school psychologist in a pullout group with four children with high-incidence…

After reading Kathryn Valentine's article that talked about her interaction with a Chinese student accused of plagiarism, the author was reminded of the effectiveness of student judicial boards. In this article, the author describes the benefits of having a student judicial board in fighting off plagiarism among students. She relates that although…

In today's increasingly polyglot classrooms, interpersonal and inter-group conflicts often arise out of mutual misunderstandings between different collections of students, some based on language or status differences but many more generated by emotionally charged misconceptions. As such, peer mediation and peaceful solutions to student arguments…

A follow-up analysis of data collected in 2003 was conducted to determine the effect of peer helping programs on student achievement at 47 middle schools in Western New York. The mean scores and the percent of students achieving at or above the New York State passing cores on The New York State Eighth Grade Science Achievement Test and The New…

This investigation addresses the mediational role of friends' characteristics between adolescents' activity breadth (i.e., variety in activity participation) and their later adjustment. Data were drawn from 2 longitudinal studies: the Childhood and Beyond (CAB; N = 925) study and the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study (MADICS; N =…

This column of Childhood Education focuses on middle school girls. Cyberbullying has emerged as a new, insidious, and harmful way of getting back at an individual girl who may be "different" or disliked for a physical or social trait. Cyberbullying has been described as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text"…

Objective: This systematic review examined the effectiveness of school social work practices using meta-analytic techniques. Method: Hierarchical linear modeling software was used to calculate overall effect size estimates as well as test for between-study variability. Results: A total of 21 studies were included in the final analysis.…

The purpose of this synthesis is to summarize the effectiveness of peer-mediated interventions on the mathematics performance of both students with disabilities and those at risk for mathematics disabilities. Meta-analytic techniques were used to calculate mean effect sizes for 17 studies that met inclusion criteria. Results indicate that…

This paper addresses elements of the bilingual program for English language learners (ELL) in Illinois School District U-46 (U-46). Beginning with the context of bilingual education in the United States, the paper also introduces the current state of bilingual programming in U-46. ELL initiatives in light of the U-46 partnership with the Stupski…

All students can be taught how to manage conflicts constructively by integrating training into the existing school curriculum. This article describes a practical and effective approach to curriculum-integrated conflict resolution training that involves students in repeatedly using integrative negotiation and peer mediation procedures to resolve…

The Neshannock Township School District, which is located in New Castle, Pennsylvania, approximately 50 miles north of Pittsburgh, has a student population of approximately 1,300 students in grades K-12, and the junior/senior high school is housed in a single building with 50 highly competent and veteran teachers. Historically, the students in the…

Peer relations during middle childhood and adolescence are an important part of children's social and emotional development. Children and adolescents pick up essential social and communication skills from their peers as they move into late adolescence and early adulthood. Peer conflict is not necessarily a bad thing; disagreement and conflict are…

The main objective of the study reported was to explore the effect on young children's critical thinking of a peer-tutoring training embedded with the metacognitive processes required for problem-based learning and, consequently, for critical thinking. The sample consisted of 90 first- and third-grade pupils (45 pairs) randomly assigned to the…

This paper discusses a case study that serves as an example of a conflict mediation program in a small high school in Missouri. The program began with the following goals: 1) to reduce the number of conflicts in the school; 2) to empower students with the ability to solve their own conflicts; 3) to teach conflict resolution skills to students; and…