The construct validity of the Family Involvement Questionnaire--Short Form (FIQ-SF) was examined in an independent sample of ethnically and linguistically diverse low-income families (N = 498) enrolled in an urban Head Start program in the Southeast. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses replicated the three-factor structure…

In this article, we discuss principals' perspectives on the priority given to the place in the curriculum of and the supporting practices related to health and sustainability education in schools in Denmark (for pupils aged 6-16). The study is situated within the discourses about critical health and sustainability education and treats the two…

For several decades, researchers have examined sector effects on student outcomes. Several argue the presence of a Catholic school advantage (CSA), an effect that shows improvement of educational outcomes upon attendance at a Catholic school. The magnitude of this effect, however, is often debated, particularly in the era of educational reform. In…

This dissertation investigates how low-resource high schools support (or not) high achieving, low-income students depending on how they enact college readiness agendas. My study was motivated by the lack of empirical research in two areas--how college readiness policies are being actualized for high achieving, low-income students and how these…

The purpose of this study was to examine the efforts of school districts in developing and sustaining their capacity to improve student achievement in response to increased accountability. The study sought to confirm what the research says regarding the role of the school district in influencing school improvement. While there is a significant…

The Paralympic games began as a way for World War II veterans to take part in elite-level competition. Thanks to various disability-sport organizations, men and women who have served in the military are still using sport as a form of rehabilitation and a way to transition into their new life.

In this study the authors aimed to examine the differentiability of 5 factors that preschool teachers may perceive as essential for successful implementation of inclusive education in regular classrooms. The 5 hypothetically influential factors were teamwork, curriculum, school support, government support, and stakeholders' attitudes. Teachers…

The essay briefly outlines the history of community engagement at DePaul University in order to explore how and why universities and colleges are increasingly adopting data collections systems for tracking community engagement. I explore the question of why there is a growing interest in tracking engagement within the academy and suggest that…

The OECD report "Equity, Excellence and Inclusiveness in Education" (Schleicher, 2014) highlights the disparities in attainment and opportunity between children in many countries across the world putting them at risk of marginalisation. This article draws from both sociological and psychological theory to forward a new theoretical…

In this naturalistic inquiry, I explore a professional development program which provided Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) graduate coursework from a university in Northeast Kansas to in-service teachers in Southwest Kansas through distance learning. Data sources included interviews, participant observation, and document and…

This article offers a first-person account of the author's experience teaching an undergraduate course on local queer culture, using her own campus as the site for primary research. The course asks how students might understand the role of Midwestern public universities in the production of queer culture. And how might such knowledge revise…

This article addresses school and community-level issues associated with the expanding crisis of student homelessness in the United States. We note that while an increased geographic dispersion of homeless and highly mobile (HHM) families is largely attributed to the widespread effects of the economic recession, it is also furthered by shifting…

The content and boundaries of moral education the state may require schools to offer is a matter of contention. This article investigates whether the state may obligate schools to promote the pursuit of moral ideals. Moral ideals refer to (a cluster of) characteristics of a person as well as to situations or states that are believed to be morally…

This study seeks to understand whether and how decentralised school governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) enhances the schools' role of promoting social cohesion. This includes increasing "horizontal" trust among different ethnic groups and "vertical" trust between civilians and public institutes. The study examined…

Despite the ever-growing body of knowledge about human impact on the environment and the need to work towards a sustainable future, participation in environmental action initiatives among the general population remains low. There is an increasingly urgent need to develop a culture of participation among young people who in turn may become future…