Background: Little is known about the prevalence of partner violence among adolescents, nor of the factors with which it is associated. The objectives of this study were to document prevalence rates for partner violence among high school students in Cape Town, and to explore factors that are associated with such violence. Method: The sample…

This article discusses the findings of a sociological survey carried out by the Institute for Comprehensive Social Research and the Academy of Modern Humanities in November and December 2004. The survey was designed to determine people's goals on enrolling in an institution of higher learning, to discern the basic motives that guide a secondary…

This article looks at the importance of student-generated analogies, metaphors, and similes as an entry point into their understandings of HIV/AIDS. In addition, it argues that analogies, metaphors, and similes are good tools for eliciting students' prior understandings of HIV/AIDS, especially matters relating to sexuality that are often…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…

The District conducts a "cross-sectional" analysis of student dropouts annually; it examines dropout rates among students enrolled in various grades at one point in time. A "longitudinal" analysis, also conducted annually, tracks a group of students in the same grade or cohort over a period of several years. Each method…

This occasional paper is intended to serve as a supplement to the larger annual volume, "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2007: Volume I: Secondary School Students." This supplement contains the graphic presentation of the trends in drug use for various demographic subgroups, namely those defined by gender, college…

In this paper, I use a nationally representative sample of American high school seniors in 1992 to examine change and stability in the employment patterns of youth as they make the transition from high school to college. Students with weak attachments to the labor force in high school tend to remain unemployed during the first year of college.…

Background: Nearly 10% of students enrolled in US public schools are absent daily. Although previous research has shown associations of school absenteeism with participation in risk behaviors, it is unclear if these associations vary by whether the absence was excused. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of health risk…

A pilot writing program was tested on 15 Florida eleventh graders, who had been placed in basic level classes and who believed themselves to be poor writers. After interviews with teachers and students, three practicum objectives were developed: (1) after 12 weeks, 80% of the target group will score a minimum of 3 on short composition assignments;…

The New Jersey High School Proficiency Test for grade 11 (HSPT11) replaced a similar requirement for grade 9 and became a graduation requirement in October 1993. As in the past, the writing test consists of a writing sample, which assesses student abilities to write sustained discourse, and a multiple-choice portion that assesses how well students…

Developing students' ability to use multicultural perspectives and knowledge to think about literature, history, and society is emerging as an important part of a pluralistic approach to education. Am ethnographic study examined three innovative eleventh-grade literature-history classes as they were negotiated over 2 school years by a pair of…

A six-activity inquiry lesson (constructed to follow the "social inquiry" teaching model) provided students in two 11th-grade English classes with practice in theory building through data gathering and writing activities. Social inquiry has six instructional stages: students (1) are presented with a puzzling situation; (2) in small…

A study investigated whether there is a significant difference between the reading comprehension levels of eleventh grade students at a Catholic school in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, who incorporate free writing exercises into their literature class, and those who do not. Pre- and posttest mean reading comprehension scores were derived through the…

Working on the hypothesis that if readers had several alternative correct meanings of a given text set before them they would select the one in accordance with their abstract abilities and intellectual maturity, a study investigated the measurement of levels of meaning as illustrated in taxonomies and focused on the applicability of the taxonomies…

A description is given of the development and implementation of the BLOCK Schedule Program, which provides an alternative format to the traditional high school schedule and has a time frame similar to that of a summer school schedule. The target population was high risk students at the sophomore and junior levels. Students attend BLOCK classes for…