Parental involvement in schools is an important potential contributor to improving American education and making the U.S. more globally competitive. This qualitative and quantitative mixed-methodology action research study probed the viability of engaging parents around issues of educational improvement by inviting them to participate in training…

The American experiment with charter schools advanced on dual impulses of increasing opportunities for disadvantaged students and unleashing market competition. While critics see these independently managed schools as a form of privatisation, proponents contend that they are public schools because of funding and accountability arrangements and…

Background/Context: "Ambitious teaching" is teaching that aims to teach all kinds of students to not only to know academic subjects, but also to be able to use what they know in working on authentic problems in academic domains. Studies of individual teachers have identified the challenges of this work. Resources are often provided at the school…

This study questions whether the perspectives of security and intelligence serve educators well enough in the early stages of radicalisation. Assigned to signal deviant behaviour, educators are unwittingly drawn into a villain-victim imagery of their students. This imagery seems to impede a genuine educational outlook on radicalisation. Key…

Employing school catchment areas (SCAs) to represent communities in Alabama, this study hypothesized that student substance use would be most prevalent where structural disadvantages were most numerous and school- and community-bestowed encouragement of or rewards for students' prosocial behaviors were scant. We employed data from the 2000 census…

Secondary data analysis using the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 data set was conducted to examine the degree to which autonomy, psychological empowerment, and self-realization (3 of 4 essential characteristics of self-determination) play a mediating role in the relationship between school-based factors and postschool outcomes. The…

The Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) and the Ministry of Education (MEd), in consultation with regional representatives and public and independent school representatives, created these cross-ministry guidelines to improve information sharing, strengthen practice and joint planning, and promote effective communication among…

What can teachers and schools do to support achievement for all students? Surely this is a basic and critical question for teacher educators as well as families, communities, policy makers--everyone concerned about our children and our future. The question is not new and the answers proposed are legion. What could I add to the conversation? The…

Gender and gender identity are policed by the social environment in myriad ways. For those who challenge normative binaries, they can be positioned to experience different forms of violence. Though mindsets, social movements, and changes in policies have spurred material, social, and economic gains for those who challenge expectations of gender…

In the United States, our children face a number of factors that influence their behavior. Children's peers, parents and even the media, especially television, heavily influence students. Because of these influences, it can be difficult to motivate students in the classroom to strive for and achieve success. The purpose of this article is to…

If, as many allege, we are the stories that we tell, then these stories might well be seen as constituting a fundamental piece of the self. But stories need to be heard, just as the self requires witnesses. In the lives of most people, counselors and teachers, along with parents, represent the most significant witnesses in our lives and hence to…

Egypt witnessed an unexpected uprising on 25 January 2011. People took to the streets demanding their rights to freedom, equity and a better economy, and in only 18 days managed to oust President Mubarak, who had held power for 30 years. The transition period is still ongoing with an unfolding of events creating turbulence in the political, social…

This narrative synthesis based on a literature review undertaken for the project "Creating Citizenship Communities" (funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) includes discussion, principally, about what research evidence tells us about young people's definitions of community, of types of engagement by different groups of young…

Foster care is a government-based, temporary system of support for children and adolescents whose biologic parents are either unwilling or unable to parent them. Variability exists with regard to the type of foster care continuity of services offered as well as to the placement homes themselves, and--of the nearly half-million youth currently…

The main contribution that Catholic schools can make towards the elimination of world hunger is to help their students understand the problem and then motivate them to assist as best they can once they are out of school. The basic cause of the problem is poverty. The ultimate solution is production of food in the food-deficit nations, or where…