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This study examined the effectiveness of a literacy-infused science (LIS) intervention on science learning of ELs from rural schools in the U.S.-Mexico border area. The intervention consists of teacher-level virtual professional development (VPD) and virtual mentoring and coaching (VMC), as well as a student-level LIS curriculum. Results from repeated measures ANOVA revealed that participating ELs improved their science learning outcomes after one year of learning, and ELs who received the LIS intervention significantly outperformed their peers who received regular science instructions without too much emphasis on literacy. Implications for science instructions for ELs and supporting rural school districts are discussed.

This study investigates consistent and inconsistent respondents to mixed-worded questionnaire scales in large-scale assessments. Mixed-worded scales contain both positively and negatively worded items and are universally applied in different survey and content areas. Due to the changing wording, these scales require a more careful reading and answering process than scales with only one type of wording (Marsh, 1986; Schmitt & Stults, 1985). Especially poor readers might not notice the changing item wording (Marsh, 1986). Therefore, using mixed-worded scales can have unintended consequences, because not all respondents answer positively and negatively worded items in a consistent way. This study assumes and aims to identify two distinct groups of respondents to mixed-worded scales, consistent and inconsistent respondents. We argue that this population heterogeneity underlies the common phenomenon of wording-related effects in mixed-worded scales (Gnambs & Schroeders, 2017; Marsh, 1986). We investigated five datasets from three large-scale assessments. At first we included n = 4,799 15-year-old students from the USA who were surveyed in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2015, second n = 5,943 fourth-graders from Australia who participated in both TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) 2011, and third n = 4,989 fifth- and n = 4,791 ninth-graders from Germany who participated in NEPS (National Educational Panel Study) in 2010/2011 and 2014/2015. The mixed-worded scales measured the reading self-concept in PISA and PIRLS, the mathematics self-concept in TIMSS, and the global self-esteem in NEPS. In order to identify two unobserved groups of respondents to the different mixed-worded scales, we formulated a constrained factor mixture model (e.g., Masyn et al., 2010) that operationalized these two assumed classes of respondents. We modeled the consistent class to show a response pattern that implies changing the side of the response scale (i.e. agree with positively worded items and disagree with negatively worded items or vice versa) and the inconsistent class to show the same response pattern to both item types (i.e. agreeing or disagreeing to all items). The findings of this study have different implications for the use of mixed-worded questionnaire scales in large-scale assessments as well as for future research in the field of interactions between survey instruments and respondents. The study further connects two strands of previously unrelated research, research on the detection of inconsistent/careless respondents and research on the reasons for unexpected item intercorrelation patterns in mixed-worded scales. In all five datasets, the estimated parameter patterns were in line with theoretical expectations and the mixture models consistently outperformed more traditional two-dimensional confirmatory factor analysis models. Between 7% and 20% of respondents were found to belong to the inconsistent classes. To further substantiate and validate the interpretation of the proposed model, class membership was related to a theoretically relevant characteristic of the respondents, the reading achievement. Conform with expectations, the reading achievement scores were lower in the classes of inconsistent respondents than in the classes of consistent respondents in all five datasets.

Framed by poststructuralist theory of identity, this phenomenological study explores Bhutanese refugee youth's lived experiences before- and after-resettlement and the ways that these experiences influence their identity navigation. Data from this study come from a two-year phenomenological study with a recently resettled Bhutanese refugee community in a Northeastern U.S. city. By focusing on four Bhutanese refugee youth and two current Bhutanese refugee youth club collaborators who used to be teachers in the camp in Nepal, the findings indicate the essential nature of refugee youth's lived experience is a way of being, becoming, and imagining. This study highlights refugee identity as a multi-layered and multi-faceted construct, which is related to others, contested, imagined, power-driven, and constituted by social practice.

The school principal impacts student achievement at a level second only to that of the classroom teacher. The United States and Germany are experiencing challenges in recruiting and retaining individuals for the principalship and the shortage is expected to intensify. Previous research has shown that increasing paperwork and responsibilities serve as inhibitors to entering the profession and that school principals are increasingly stressed by a wide range of responsibilities and a shrinking pool of resources. This stress causes physiological and professional difficulties that have a detrimental impact on school function and culture. The present study seeks to identify the major causes of stress, strategies for mitigating stress, and limitations of stress management among principals in the United States and Germany.

This paper looks at continuity and discontinuity of teachers' perception and enactment of civic values such as equality, democracy, freedom, cohesion and globalization in China and the U.S. Applying qualitative methodologies, this paper finds that, beyond the myth of citizenship education toward China and United States, there are common ideals and imperfections around democracy, treatment of diversities, and global consciousness. Particularly there has been common gap between perception and enactment in both countries. The interpretation and implementation of these ideas are different based on the social discourse. Also, this paper argues that cross-cultural lessons for the field of Education can be gained by examining citizenship education in comparison.

The purpose of this study is to present a cross-cultural description of responses to the Adolescent Intermediate Concepts Measure (hereafter the AD-ICM). Since the introduction of the AD-ICM, the measure has been used multiple times in the US, in The Republic of Macedonia, Taiwan, and the UK. Focusing on these data, the proposed paper session seeks to address what has been learned from the measure about adolescent applications of the virtues across cultures and settings. Specifically, we attend to what is common and what is unique to each setting. The proposed paper presentation will describe and interpret these findings and conclude with a discussion about the development of character over the adolescent years.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the design, development, implementation, and future sustainability of a collaborative higher education between two universities, one in the Midwestern United States and the other in Vietnam. This paper will outline the steps that were taken to ensure a beneficial arrangement for both institutions, how the transfer of culture and knowledge impacted learning both domestically and abroad, and methods used to sustain the partnership for future collaboration.

The JOBSTEM project, whose full title is "STEM career aspirations during primary schooling: A cohort-sequential longitudinal study of relations between achievement, self-competence beliefs, and career interests", is research project which brings together researchers from Croatia, France, Hungary and United States. The aim of this paper is to present the organization of projects cooperation and to discuss the way on which project tasks are divided among the research team members. An additional objective of the paper is to discuss major challenges researchers face in conducting such transnational research projects. As a STEM problem as a relatively new research area in Croatia and in many other European countries, JOBSTEM project also raises some new questions which will be discussed in the paper.

The objective of this research is to create a cross-national comparison of early childhood education beliefs and ideals in Switzerland and the United States. The goal is to interview teachers in Switzerland to gain insight into their perspective on various topics in early childhood education. Those responses will then be compared against commonly held beliefs and initiatives in the United States. Research questions include: Research Question 1: What do the two countries value in terms of young children's education and experiences? Research Question 2: How do teachers in both countries perceive their roles in ECE? Research Question 3: Do teachers in both countries share the same beliefs about how young children learn best? Research Question 4: How do both countries assess quality in ECE? Research Question 5: What academic or developmental milestones do each country consider most important? Participants in the study will include the early childhood teachers employed at KiddieLand in Zurich, Switzerland. There will be a total of 8-12 teachers at the time of data collection. Teachers employed at at least two other centers will also be solicited to gain a variety of perspectives from at least three different programs in the country. Further, three child care centers in the United States will also be identified to interview teachers. The result will be teacher perspectives gathered from Switzerland and the United States. Permission to conduct the study will be obtained by Harper College's Institutional Review Board (IRB) before any data is collected. This study has not been completed. The data collection is scheduled for and has been confirmed by the centers for August, 2015. Upon receiving approval, participants will be solicited with an introductory letter via email and an offer to discuss the details more fully and answer questions the participants may have before committing. Following commitment, participants will discuss an interview schedule that is mutually agreed upon by the teachers and the researcher. This study will use interviews as the primary data collection method. Teachers that choose to participate in the study will be able to choose the time of day and location that best suits their needs. This will allow for maximum comfort and confidence in the process. Data collection will occur during the week that I am in the country in August, 2015. Interviews in the United States will occur in September, 2015. Interviews will be conducted for approximately forty-five minutes. Questions will pertain to participant feelings about early childhood education, values placed on early childhood education in each country, and quality in early childhood education in each country. This study may benefit participants by providing them an opportunity to be heard, to share their stories, and to shed light on the early childhood field as a profession in their country. The participants may not have ever had an opportunity such as this where someone provides them a platform to share their experiences and be heard. Participation in the study poses only minimal risks. Risks include time taken to participate in the interview process. Further, participants may hesitate to disclose specific aspects of their roles or feelings toward the profession if they do not feel secure in the confidentiality of the process. With quality assurance such a key focus on early childhood education across the United States, it became of interest to engage other countries in this dialog. How we understand each other and the way we feel about early experiences for young children can help all teachers provide high quality experiences for all young children, despite the location. The results will support teaching and learning in the Early Childhood Education field by enhancing multicultural awareness in the field. Further, cultural sensitivity, teaching pedagogy, and quality assurance issues will be explored to help further the field of early childhood education. [At the time this paper was presented the research had not been completed. Paper was scheduled to be completed in August and September of 2015. It was intended to be made into a formal paper at the conclusion of the data collection.]

This study demonstrates how to simulate intercultural immersion while in a domestic setting to offer opportunities for teacher candidates to enhance their abilities to teach in culturally diverse settings, to develop cultural knowledge, and to reflect on their roles as educators. The paper presents a comparative case study of intercultural immersion across two contexts with similar course content and pedagogy, and the impact of that cultural immersion on pre service teachers' cultural competence. The study compares the development of cultural competence among six teacher candidates in an American teacher preparation program, and six teacher candidates in an Israeli college of education, based on the Cultural Competence for Teacher Education (CCTE) Framework.

This paper aims to encourage a broader dialogue about how Lao immigrant parents from low socio-economic environment are able to support their children's development. It discusses how despite the challenges that immigrant Lao parents face daily (i.e., lack of English proficiency, mental health issues, and lack of familiarity with U.S. schools), they are invested in their children and support their learning. My discussion will complicate the extant literature on Southeast Asian American and parent engagement by highlighting the mechanisms through which current parent involvement strategies are not responsive to the Lao community. We need to do a better job of training both Lao parents and school members to collaborate together to support Lao American students.

Cognitive development and sociocultural theories support the role of play and peer cooperative problem solving (CPS) in children's learning and development; nevertheless, we still lack cross-cultural studies that investigate children's CPS during play in natural classroom contexts in early childhood. A nine-month field work including ethnographic informed focal-child observations and video-stimulated teacher interviews was conducted. Preliminary findings showed a) patterns of children's CPS during play between two cultural contexts, and b) teachers' beliefs and decision-making for supporting children's CPS during play. This study not only i) develops an innovative methodological tool to study young children's CPS in natural contexts, cross-culturally, but also ii) informs teacher educators' culturally sensitive teaching and curricula development for the improvement of children's learning.

Higher education in Mexico could be observed as one of the most complicated and impossible to understand. Divided into more than 30 autonomous universities, each university system has its own particular process to admit a candidate to study. This makes it particularly hard for a foreign student to study in Mexico. Moreover, the difficulties are increased when a student arrives via a deportation process or a returned dynamic from the US. For example, from 2008 to 2014, more than 500,000 young people have returned from the US. If we considered information released by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), this number could be nearer to 750,000. These young people do not receive the same opportunity to study in Mexican universities as their fellow Mexican citizen peers, because they are considered foreign students with studies in the US. The problem begins when they try to apply to Mexican universities, and continues when they must carry out other procedures with other institutions, such as local, state, and federal governmental bodies. In order to study at a Mexican university, these returned young people must apply for and receive a special authorization from the Department of Education for their elementary, middle school and high school documents to be considered legal and valid. The additional problem is that not all Mexican universities employ the same process in their admission requirements. Potential students are faced with multiple admission processes, without a clear idea about which is the correct process. In my research, I have discovered that in Mexico there are as many admission processes as there are local and autonomous universities. The lack of a transparent and national university system does not only affect returning students, it also affects the process of internationality mobility in general. Even though some universities have carried out actions to open up access to foreign students, they have not reformed internal practices that are limiting the enrollment of new students returning to Mexico. In this paper, I try to answer the question: How are Mexican universities responding to the issue of Mexican returned students inside their lecture rooms? First, I explain how the Mexican higher education system works. Then, I describe why the legal codification of the "autonomous university" could be considered a restriction instead of an advantage nowadays. Finally, I use information from the Mexican autonomous universities to show the process that a returned student faced when trying to enroll, focusing on the case of Universidad de Guadalajara, the second biggest university in the country. Finally, I describe qualitative interviews with returning students at the Universidad de Guadalajara. These students came from the US with K-12 educations, or even some years of higher education.

The paper attempts to investigate the influence of textbooks on the results of international assessments such as TIMSS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study] and PIRLS [Progress in International Reading Literacy Study]. It tries to consider the role and impact of school textbooks on PIRLS and TIMSS performance across countries. As the research finds, the predominance of analytical, opinion-expressing, inferencing and evaluative categories in the school textbooks significantly favor the scores in PIRLS across the countries observed. In the case of maths, probability, data analysis and algebra problems are most predominant items schoolbooks of high performing countries in TIMSS. Advanced level analysis, integrating and comparing data, as well as reasoning and analysis could potentially be significant contributors to TIMSS science results.

This paper reports the results of an international survey on ethics education in initial teacher education. The survey collected data in relation to four main questions: How common is a required ethics-related course? What are the objectives of dedicated ethics-related courses for teacher candidates where such courses exist? How do teacher educators perceive ethics content as an aspect of pre-service teacher education? What institutional factors impede the implementation of dedicated ethics-related courses? Five OECD countries were included in the survey: Australia, Canada, England, the Netherlands and the United States.

The intensive English development/TESL program (TESL-GT) was created through a partnership between Ecuador and one Midwestern university. Through this program, Ecuador's Ministry of Education sought to enhance the instructional effectiveness of secondary English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. The 67 Ecuadorian teacher participants in this study engaged in a 10-week pilot program. This program was aligned to the CREDE "Standards for Effective Pedagogy and Learning," which serve as universals (transnationally researched) standards of effective teaching practices. The 67 Ecuadorian program completers were subsequently observed in their Ecuadorian classrooms using the "Inventory of Situationally and Culturally Responsive Teaching" (ISCRT) rubric. Composite ISCRT scores were calculated as well as group means on each of the five standards reflected in the 22 indicators of the tool. Findings indicated unexpectedly robust levels of enactment of effective instructional practices for English learners. The significance of these findings and implications for teacher education are elucidated.

This proposal presents findings from the large-scale study "Literacy Teacher Educators: Their Backgrounds, Visions, and Practices" which includes 28 literacy/English teacher educators (LTEs) from four countries. Five LTEs who use a constructivist approach are presented. Three aspects of their constructivism are discussed: knowledge is experience based; knowledge is constructed by learners; and a strong class community is essential. They have adopted a constructivist approach because they conceptualized the teaching/learning process as a partnership. Constructivism is a flexible and fluid framework so individual LTEs can shape their work for their context and draw on their strengths; however it is demanding because courses have to be somewhat organic in order to create space for discussion of issues as they arise.

A recursive partitioning model approach in the form of classification and regression trees (CART) was used with 2012 PISA data for five countries (Canada, Finland, Germany, Singapore-China, and the Unites States). The objective of the study was to determine demographic and educational variables that differentiated between low SES student that were overachieving or not and to explore the differences across countries. A review of the decision trees indicated contextual differences across countries, suggesting that a universal approach to facilitate overachievement for low SES students is not appropriate. Countries should look to efforts specific to their country and culture and the nature of their students when considering policies and programs for low SES students.

This research was conducted in the following four countries: Malaysia, Mexico, Canada, and the United States (US). Educators in each country were asked how US international policies were addressed in their respective curricula. The theoretical construct for critical border dialogism was developed as an outcome of these studies. Critical border dialogism provides a contemplation of the intersection of place-based and border pedagogies, as well as how pedagogies are central to understanding one's own situatedness. Critical border dialogism engages educators in the concepts of heteroglossia, meliorism, critical cosmopolitanism, nepantla, dialogic feminism, and pragmatic hope. The research findings include recommendations for additional in-depth discussions of international policies in the US social studies curriculum, including specific issues.

This study examines international students' experiences of othering on their campuses. To achieve this goal, a case of a South Korean international student's experiences was addressed from postcolonial perspectives. In particular, this study asks: "What does a Korean international student's experiences of othering look like?" and "What is the base of a Korean international student's experiences of othering?" To achieve the purpose of this study, the concept of othering is utilized to interrogate how the participant projected othering onto her peers while simultaneously was a recipient of othering in her campus experiences. As Fine (1994) explains, othering is a co-construction of self as well as other. So, through othering, the action and process of finding differences between us and them take place while similarities within our group are also constructed. Additionally, othering is usually seen as colonizers' exclusive property. However, in this study, othering includes not only colonizers excluding the colonized, but also excluding by the colonized. This qualitative study employed a semi-structured interview. Through repetitive and reflexive reading of the interview transcript, I constructed preliminary findings. First, the participant's othering was selective based on specific contexts. She had various relationships with diverse people within different contexts. Social, economic, and political contexts where she was situated contributed to her stereotypes about others. She defined some Americans as her second family with positive impressions, but other Americans were classified with neutral or negative stereotypes. Second, the participant's historical and educational background had an impact on her othering. Her learning about Cultural Studies in a US institution influenced her focus on differences between South Koreans and Americans or other Asians, rather than understanding similarities across their nationalities. Further, her knowledge about the modern history of South Korea impacted her negative stereotypes about South Korea's education system. Through these findings, I question and complicate theories of othering based on specific contexts and backgrounds, rather than simplifying that othering is conducted only by the colonizer position. In particular, this study intends to complicate theories about othering by focusing on how international students experience othering on their campuses, especially in terms of historicization (During, 2000) and the context of education and research (Minh-Ha, 1989).

Research indicates that several factors variably influence teachers' approaches to classroom assessment. Building on previous assessment literacy research, this study empirically examines variability in teachers' approaches to classroom assessment across a set of dimensions including their conceptions of assessment purposes, processes, fairness, and measurement theory. Through a latent class analysis of survey data from 382 teachers, this study identifies four consistent profiles in teachers' approaches to classroom assessment: 44% of teachers were categorized into Profile 1: The Differentiator; 16% into Profile 2: The Communicator; 10% into Profile 3: The Measurer; and 30% into Profile 4: The Integrator. These profiles provide empirical support for differences in teachers' approaches to assessment, presenting a foundation for targeted assessment education and future research.

This study provides the results of a latent class analysis (LCA) using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study -- 2011 (TIMSS-2011) with a focus on the 8th grade mathematics section. The study presents the analysis of item data with Mplus 7.31 to determine if results obtained yielded distinct latent subgroups. The data set used in the study was from four diverse countries (Turkey, U.S., Finland, and Singapore) participating in TIMSS-2011. Analyses yielded results suggesting three classes provided the best fit to the data. Class were statistically significantly associated with nation, and nation was associated with overall test performance. Results support prior work in which identification of multiple classes leads to potential questions regarding the construct validity of TIMSS-2011 8th grade mathematics test.

Though there has been limited empirical research on the cost component from the expectancy-value model, a recent interest in the construct has spurred advances in theory and measurement. We present a longitudinal analysis of four types of cost: effort, loss of valued alternatives, emotional, and outside cost. We focus on how cost changes over time in a critical short-term setting: gatekeeper courses. These courses are introductory university courses with high drop, withdrawal, and fail rates. We present data from calculus and statistics. In both samples we found that cost was strongly, negatively related to expectancy, and moderately, negatively related to value. Cost was also a significant predictor of course performance, with emotional cost having the largest effect.

The purpose of this article is to explore successes of the Finnish approach in teacher preparation and related school practices and policies. A narrative literature review methodology is used to determine the key policy underpinnings, program designs and methods, and other essential elements related to teacher preparation in various countries. An international perspective is used, focusing primarily on Finland, but also considers the island city-state of Singapore, and the United States. The article discusses the challenges of making international comparisons, then continues with an exploration and discussion of the primary focus, Finland. Next, the Singapore model of teacher preparation is explored emphasizing the similarities with the Finnish model. Following this, the success of teacher preparation in the United States is discussed using case study research of seven exemplary university/college programs. Lastly, recommendations for teacher preparation programs are posited based upon Stoll and Fink's (1996) typology of effective schools/programs identifying "moving" and "sinking" strategies and approaches.

As the demographics of the United States continue to shift, American classrooms reflect the richness of cultural diversity and the vibrancy of immigrant populations. Education abroad programs provide opportunities for pre service teachers to develop their cultural competence, required for effectively teaching children from a range of cultural backgrounds. Given the financial demands of study abroad programs, researchers have also examined domestic cultural immersion experiences. There is a lack of research that compares education abroad with domestic cultural immersion. This study contributes to the literature by comparing preservice teachers' responses to two cultural immersion experiences that are closely aligned both in content and in pedagogy, one in Israel and the other in a domestic setting.

A benefit of the increasing participation in online professional development courses is the ability for such courses to reach a wide variety of educators, despite geographic distance. Along with this benefit comes the challenge of ensuring that such courses can engage learners from diverse backgrounds. The current study investigates educators' satisfaction with an online teacher professional development (OTPD) workshop for secondary school teachers in various countries. Specifically, the authors investigate whether satisfaction with the OTPD workshop varied by country. Secondly, within each country sample, factors contributing to level of satisfaction are examined.

The purpose of the study is to examine business education that aims to prepare students to understand poverty and design sustainable solutions for people living in subsistence in a yearlong course at a Midwestern U.S Land-grant university. I conduct a case study of the course in order to understand the curriculum and pedagogical arrangements and to examine the experiences of the course participants. Theoretically, my project is situated at the intersections of globalization and education studies, capabilities approach, and critical pedagogy. Theoretically informed and empirically grounded, my study offers a more nuanced understanding of pedagogical possibilities to prepare students to understand the conditions of poverty around the world and to contribute to global poverty reduction in the age of globalization.

The present study examined an international sample of adults from the Survey of Adult Skills administered by the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2009) to assess (1) how specific individual and country-level characteristics predict adult readiness to learn, and (2) how readiness to learn predicts adult skills in literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving in technology-rich environments. Multilevel modeling showed that education and hours worked positively predicted readiness to learn, while age negatively predicted it, and men showed high levels of readiness to learn than women. At the individual level, a positive relationship between readiness to learn and skill proficiency was observed, while at the country level a negative relationship occurred. This "readiness to learn paradox" is discussed in terms of cultural differences in learning environments.