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Parents play a vital role in supporting children with learning disabilities, but little is known about their understanding of this diagnosis. The experiences of parents with the diagnostic process and the services their children receive post-diagnosis vary widely. Parents who participated in this study reported that they understand learning disabilities broadly but not their underlying neurobiology. Those who noted understanding the neurobiology indicated that it helped them better support their child, and those who did not understand it wanted to learn more. Parents generally noted that their children received less support during COVID-19 and that they had to seek more private services in order to support their child's academic progress, which caused additional strain on families. Finally, parents reported that having a child with a learning disability negatively affected their mental health, especially when parents feel like they have had to advocate strongly for their child to receive services.

Curiosity and creativity are crucial for children's learning and engagement within their worlds. However, research on creative teaching that also addresses children's curiosity is quite limited. In this case study, we adopted visual methods in combination with video-stimulated recall dialogue (VSRD) to explore children's experiences in a Forest School (FS) program in Southern Ontario. As researchers, we were particularly interested in the nexus of children's curiosity and creativity in the process of learning. Participating children, aged 6-12 years, wore GoPro cameras to document their lived experiences in the FS. Informed by constructivism, we examined data vignettes, querying the role of curiosity and creativity within children's entanglements in the natural environment. The results indicate that open-ended materials within nature invited and sustained curiosity and creativity. Children tended to gravitate to the complexity and ambiguity offered within the natural environment. The research findings have implications for educators, namely the importance of the choice of materials and approaches to support and prioritize children's curiosity and creativity in learning processes. Implications for inviting educators to capitalize upon inquiry moments and the unknown were also evident.

Adults are skilled at using language to construct/negotiate identity and to signal affiliation with others, but little is known about how these abilities develop in children. Clearly, children mirror statistical patterns in their local environment (e.g., Canadian children using "zed" instead of "zee"), but do they flexibly adapt their linguistic choices on the fly in response to the choices of different peers? To address this question, we examined the effect of group membership on 7- to 9-year-olds' labeling of objects in a trivia game, exploring whether they were more likely to use a particular label (e.g., "sofa" vs. "couch") if members of their "team" also used that label. In a preregistered study, children (N = 72) were assigned to a team (red or green) and were asked during experimental trials to answer questions--which had multiple possible answers (e.g., "blackboard" or "chalkboard")--after hearing two teammates and two opponents respond to the same question. Results showed that children were significantly more likely to produce labels less commonly used by the community (i.e., dispreferred labels) when their teammates had produced those labels. Crucially, this effect was tied to group membership, and could not be explained by children simply repeating the most recently used label. These findings demonstrate how social processes (i.e., group membership) can guide linguistic variation in children.

The authors investigate the personality traits of parents and children and their significant influence on the behavior of the other. Using the HEXACO model of personality, the authors examine the behavior of one hundred parent-child dyads on a playground to understand broader parent-child relationships. Their analyses reveal two opposed types of parental behavior (engaged parents versus unengaged parents) and child behavior (introverted cautious play versus autonomous energetic play) on the playground. The authors assert their study demonstrates that the personality traits of both parents and children as measured by the HEXACO model play a significant role in parental and child behaviors during play and in broader interactions.

In this article, I provide a critical reading of the now-removed statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. I bring together my own experience visiting the statue with understandings from Indigenous scholarship and public pedagogy theorizing to think about commemorations as public pedagogies that are foremost relational. I consider how the Macdonald statue works narratively, discursively, and as a site of embodied encounter to create a harmful relationality. Thinking relationally, and pedagogically, about colonial statues suggests possibilities not only for understanding how these commemorative practices produce bad relations but also for envisioning and enacting good relations.

Over the past 50 years, a consensus emerged from the scientific literature regarding the positive effects of school, family and community partnerships on school achievement. However, researchers noted that the implementation of these partnerships still gives rise to tensions on the ground. This research tackled with how parents and teachers get involved in the school-family-community cooperation process to support pupils at the elementary school (age 6 to 12). The goal of this paper is to compare on the one hand, the parents' views in their narratives on parents and teachers practices, and on the other hand, the teachers' views in their narratives on parents and teachers practices as well, to gain insight on the tensions characterizing these partnerships and on the possible solutions set forth by these actors. To this end, the empirical analyses are based on a approach with qualitative interviews among 14 teachers and 45 parents of pupils at six elementary schools in the Greater Quebec City area. To this end, interviews were conducted with 14 teachers and 45 parents of pupils at six elementary schools in the Greater Quebec City area. The results suggest that practices such as school-family communication or homework are privileged among parents and teachers. The analyses also suggest that parents and teachers diverge over the tools teachers use to support parents involvement.

Schools are accountable for providing all students a safe and caring learning environment. When a child feels unsafe at school, personal relationships, mental health, and academics are negatively affected. The entire school community -- staff, parents, and students -- must work together to develop an effective safe school program. A carefully planned safe school program that is followed consistently by all members will ensure the greatest success for all students.

Many adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) experience challenges in social competence. Evidence suggests that specialized summer camps with social skills training may have positive outcomes on social competence development in adolescents with ADHD. This article reports on a pilot study of a therapeutic summer camp program for children and adolescents with ADHD. The study examines the degree to which program objectives were achieved through a pre-camp, post-camp design using a series of standardized instruments, camp evaluations, and surveys with parents. The results indicated that the campers initially reported significantly lower social competence when compared to a normative sample of adolescents before the camp but improved their social competence by the end of camp. This research has implications for researchers, caregivers, and outdoor education advocates to take an assertive lead in promoting evidence-based psychosocial programs for youth with and without ADHD into more generalizable community settings.

This bibliometric study analyzed characteristics of publications related to art therapy for children from 1990 to 2020, based on the datasets taken from Web of Science (WoS) core collections. The results indicate that the USA, Israel, Germany, UK, Australia, and Canada were six leading countries in this field of research interest. The Top 5 most influential journals were identified by the number of publications, TLCS, TGCS and by their impact factor. Five leading journals in the art therapy studies include "Arts in Psychotherapy," "American Journal of Art Therapy," "Child & Family Social Work," "Frontiers in Psychology," and "Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde." Core themes from the 87 articles focus on surrounding socialization and attachment relationship, art therapy for the well-being of children with learning disabilities, alternative intervention for art therapy, and parent-child art therapy. This bibliometric study portrayed the development of art therapy for children by means of visualization techniques. The potential issues emerging from the data will contribute to future studies in this field. Multiple methods of art therapy are applied for all children's well-being; as such, children's art therapy in schools can be seen as the potential trend for researchers and teachers.

The researchers in the study explored the lived experiences of Syrian refugee students in the Canadian classroom. The participant sample included four students who entered their first year in a South-western Ontario public school as of the 2015-2016 calendar year. Data were collected through one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Analysis of results indicated the District's growing need for understanding refugee students using a holistic approach, utilizing and building peer relationships for language acquisition, and recognizing the effects of the structure of the learning environment on student experiences.

The use of the Internet among children and adolescents is now a norm in many parts of the world. As the Internet offers a wide range of benefits to these ones, so does it expose them to possible various risks and harm. Researchers in different countries across the world have engaged in the production of relevant research-based knowledge in order to make the virtual world a safe place for the younger ones. However, while studies have been carried out on the subject of Internet risk among children and adolescents, there is a dearth of information on the assessment of research activities across different parts of the world. The present study employed Bibliometric techniques to determine research productivity patterns across the different regions and countries of the world. All relevant publications indexed in Google Scholar were collected between November and December, 2018. The findings of the study reveal that while countries in the American and European regions of the world have been very productive in researching on the subject, the same is not the case with their African counterparts.

A rich home literacy environment (HLE) fosters students' academic achievement. However, the link between HLE and children's reading comprehension is unclear. This study examined the effects of HLE factors on children's reading comprehension through a meta-analysis of 59 studies conducted between 1998 and 2018. Results of the meta-analysis indicated three main findings. First, the overall positive correlation between HLE and children's reading comprehension was moderate ([zeta] = 0.32). Second, sampling area, type of home literacy resource and parental involvement styles did not show a significant interaction effect between each HLE factor and children's reading comprehension. Third, parents' involvement and literacy expectations of children had a significantly higher correlation with children's reading comprehension than home literacy resources did. Findings of this study suggest that parental literacy activities involvement and parental literacy expectations contribute more to children's literacy knowledge enhancement. [Note: The month shown on the PDF (January) is incorrect. The correct month is April.]

School social workers possess a unique perspective and skill set for school leadership. However, common conceptualizations of the role have unnecessarily limited this capacity, and as a result, school social workers have struggled to carve out an identity in education. By reframing the role of school social workers as school leaders, schools will have an opportunity to leverage their best qualities. Social workers who are willing to work closely with school administrators, build strong partnerships with schools, and advocate for themselves as school leaders stand to gain a great deal from added legitimacy to their role.

Many challenges exist to conducting participatory research and consultation with young people, especially with those considered vulnerable or at risk. Beyond respecting the safety and wellbeing of young research participants, researchers must be aware of barriers to youth engagement and be attuned to the many forms of youth resistance. As young people are seeking more control over their lives, traditional knowledge hierarchies between adults and youth are shifting. In July 2018, an event entitled Circles Within Circles brought together Indigenous and non-Indigenous girls and young women from South Africa, Canada, Russia, Sweden, and Kenya to learn from each other's participatory art-making and create a network for challenging gender-based violence (GBV). This article provides insight into the often-invisible experience of the "supporting cast" in events like Circles Within Circles. The co-authors are doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who contributed to organization and acted as facilitators, notetakers, and participants. The co-authors conduct participatory analyses of journal entries they wrote throughout the event, and jointly reflect on the activities and their feelings about their roles. Reflecting, for example, on gut feelings about young participants' use of voice and silence during adult-led activities, the co-authors discuss their reading of girls' demonstrations of resistance. This embodied knowledge, further cultivated by attuning to shared experience, is explored in this collaborative auto-ethnography. Examining the complexities of this cross-cultural and intergenerational event, the co-authors contend that when supporting girls and young people subverting dominant narratives of GBV, researchers' embodied reflexivity is crucial for positively contributing to girl-led change.

Purpose: To explore whether parental perceptions of risk and attitudes toward risk-taking during play are associated with preschoolers' physical activity (PA) and physical literacy (PL). Methods: Nova Scotia preschoolers (35 boys, 17 girls; mean age = 3.8 years, range = 3-5 years) and parents (n=52 pairs) provided data. Linear regressions assessed associations of risk perceptions and attitudes with children's PA and PL, controlling for children's age (cross-sectional analysis; p<0.05). Results: Perceptions of risk were significantly associated with preschoolers' PA (r=0.24, p=0.05), and predicted 11.6% of the variance in PA. Findings revealed a significant positive relationship between attitudes toward risky play and PL (r=0.21, p=0.05), explaining 14.7% of the variance in PL. Conclusion: This evidence supports growing literature on the value of risky play to children's development and parents' influence in risk-taking behaviour.

To create a truly regenerative future, simply reforming teacher education to prioritize Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) will not create the wide-ranging changes in the education system needed to meet the environmental challenges facing humanity. A holistic strategy involving community collaboration with teacher education stands a better chance of achieving this. This article provides an overview of a community-wide project to foster environmental stewardship in children from birth to Grade 12. This collective impact model approach will create a climate that supports teacher candidates in their efforts to improve their practice in ESE. We argue that teacher candidates who learn to collaborate with their community as a source of expertise and encouragement are more likely to create positive and lasting change in ESE.

Given the rise and diversification of the immigrant student population within Canadian school systems, the establishment of policies that support immigrant pupils' transition and integration has become of pressing concern for policymakers. Following our multi-dimensional support model, this study examined the extent to which Ontario's provincial education policies, guidelines, and strategies respond to the needs of immigrant students within the K-12 public education system. For the most part, the current analysis indicated that the ministry has established the necessary educational support measures to integrate immigrant students. However, our findings also suggest that this group of students warrants a stand-alone policy document to comprehensively address all of their unique needs. Moreover, this study underscores the importance of greater policy coherence and direction within Ontario, as well as the ongoing role that evidenced-based research should serve in the development and refinement of existing policies.

OPAL -- Outdoor Play and Learning, in collaboration with Earth Day Canada, is a national program that encourages outdoor play in public schools across Canada. This paper focuses on the implementation of OPAL in an elementary school in Toronto. The initial implementation strategies of the program are discussed, which include efforts to create a play policy framework that centres childhood relations with the outdoors or 'environment'. Employing posthuman and/or more-than-human frameworks, I examine the potential of OPAL to become a practice of learning with environments as opposed to learning about the environment. This is a significant shift in childhood thought and practice that requires serious consideration and pedagogical attention to how environmental education can move toward transdisciplinary practices in more-than-human worlds.

This article provides an account of a recent research study that investigated an international service learning internship for in-service teachers. Relying upon what we know to be the advantages and benefits of somewhat similar experiences (i.e., international internships for preservice teachers, internships for in-service teachers, and service learning opportunities for university students) to frame our investigation, we explored the impact upon in-service teachers, particularly as they relate to both professional and personal growth. Analysis of questionnaire responses revealed a number of prominent themes. Stories and accounts of professional growth were related to: (a) creating an engaging and safe learning environment, (b) (over)planning for the unexpected, and (c) teaching with (and in front of) others. Stories and accounts of personal growth were related to: (a) letting go of control, (b) facing fears and confronting anxieties while outside of one's comfort zone, and (c) recognizing privilege and the excess of possessions. Results from this study might appeal to those who similarly share an interest in international service learning internships, service learning generally, international internships, in-service teacher education, and/or international or global education.

The authors present the impact of the Métis Settlements Life Skills Journey facilitator training program. Community members, aged 16 to 32, were hired and trained to lead youth summer camps. It was hypothesized that participation in the program and employment as facilitators would have a positive impact on their individual resilience. The program and employment were designed to increase participant knowledge in key areas of resilience and skills to engage children in learning through play.

The prevalence of autism/autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been increasing across the world. Previous studies in Norway reported, that the prevalence rate for 0-10-year-old children is 1 in 166, and in the case of 11-year-old children it is 1 in 125. Moreover, another nationwide study discovered that 1 in 192 males and 1 in 695 females between the ages of 1-16 years had autism in Norway in the year 2016. This study is underpinned by the data from the National Patient Registry (NPR) for registered incidences of autism/ASD (ICD-10: F84.0 Childhood autism and F84.5 Asperger syndrome). The results show that the prevalence rates of autism/ASD in the capital city of Oslo increased from 2012 to 2016 and the number of children with autism/ASD doubled during this period. Furthermore, in 2016 the results revealed that that 1 in 349 males and 1 in 1594 females between the ages of 1-5 years old had Autism/ASD. Similarly, among the age group of 6-16 years, 1 among 157 males and 1 among 544 females had autism/ASD in the capital city of Oslo in 2016. These findings suggest a 'school-age-effect' in the increase of prevalence rates among the school-age children compared to the preschool-age children. In the following study, the results are presented and discussed along with some suggestions for the educational and healthcare authorities.

One of the biggest criticisms of international law is the lack of effective enforcement, often compounded in human rights law by the system of treaty reservations that detracts from the main object and purpose of human rights protections. Ideally, once a country has ratified a treaty, it may create domestic law that provides an enforcement mechanism that may be lacking at the international level. However, in cases such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, one can see the limits of such an indeterminate system. The two questions being posed are: "Could the implementation of human rights education enhance enforcement within countries of international human rights accords?" and "How should one go about implementing a human rights education initiative?"To answer these questions, literature regarding human rights education initiatives around the world were reviewed and focus was put on initiatives working to enforce international human rights law. From reviewing the literature, a major component of the effectiveness of a human rights education initiative is the quality of training the teachers received and the level of commitment to the initiative by school administrations.

In 1973, British Columbia (B.C.) became the first province in Canada to forbid corporal punishment in public schools (B.C. School Act), followed by the majority of the other provinces. Alberta and Manitoba however, still have no provincially enacted legal prohibition, although many school boards have updated their policies to state that corporal punishment should be prohibited. The spotlight on efforts to repeal Section 43 of the Criminal Code may have dimmed over time on the national stage, but the recent Canadian Truth and Reconciliation report has ignited this issue once again. My article explores the existing laws with a comparative approach (Reimann & Zimmermann, 2008; Orucu & Nelken, 2007), in terms of where Canada stands in relation to other nations' legislative standards and practices. It also addresses the severe behavioural and psychological implications on impacted children. As a developed nation, Canada needs to reconsider its current state of "progress" by inspecting and reviewing existing discourses and legislatives to ensure successful prevention of corporal punishment in schools. This paper intends not only to contribute to the advancement of Canadian legislative standards, but also to practices in local and international education.

Self-regulation is a process referring to the knowledge and awareness of one's own ability to learn. Recent studies focus on self-regulation in the classroom environment, because it is recognized as an important component of student academic achievement. Exploring factors such as the five-domain model, learning disabilities, mindfulness, and the classroom and its connection to self-regulation, provides a greater understanding of how best to support students with these challenges. The ultimate goal of educators is to create lifelong learners; therefore, it is the responsibility of teachers to provide strategies that will contribute to student success.

With over 1 in 5 Canadians identifying as an immigrant, Canada has been proud to call itself a nation of immigrants with a commitment to supporting refugees, from accepting thousands of Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s to Syrians fleeing civil war in 2015. In 2017, 44,000 refugees came as government-sponsored or privately sponsored refugees, having been offered permanent residency in Canada prior to arrival. Fewer arrive as asylum seekers -- 24,000 in 2016, 40% of whom arrived via the Canada-US border. Given Canada's geographic location, individuals may arrive by air, sea, or land across the longest shared land border in the world with the United States. In 2011, Canadian officials reported 4,205 claims made at this border. This number nearly quintupled in 2018, with 19,085 claims, totaling nearly 40,000 asylum claims since 2016 and coinciding with the changes in US governmental administration and their immigration and temporary resident policies. Families reported that for them, the US was no longer safe and they sought asylum in Canada. Due to the Safe Third Country Agreement, which does not permit asylum claims from the United States at official border crossings, many asylum seekers have crossed through unofficial border crossings, most of them in the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba. This article touches upon a number of issues that have come to light with the rising numbers of children who are asylum seekers trickling across the US-Canada border.

Contemporary children are growing up in a post-typographic era, where mobile electronic devices and digital texts are increasingly present. For parents and educators, shifts into new digital practices and new text forms can create a sense of uncertainty. In response to parent and teacher interest, popular media have frequently focused on topics relating to young children and shifting digital practices. This study addresses popular media accounts of children and digital technologies over five years (2013-2018), looking in particular at the emergence of mobile devices and their impact on children's changing literacy practices. The authors collected popular media articles over this time period and analysed them for the ways in which children and digital technologies were represented and these media called on teachers and parents to respond. The authors provide an overview of their findings and address key themes from the articles, sharing influential examples and addressing the implications and influences of media perspectives. Finally, the authors examine the implications of popular media accounts in relation to informing parent beliefs and approaches, and curriculum responses.

The health and well-being of young people remains a critical issue. For Indigenous girls and young women in Canada and South Africa, the situation is exacerbated by high rates of sexual violence. The article draws on examples of artworks and close readings of several images of resistance produced by Indigenous girls and young women participating in a six-year study that seeks to address sexual violence in the two countries. Exploring resistance is an understudied area in relation to young people and well-being. Building on our visual research and fieldwork, we posit that the idea of "picturing (as) resistance" through the various participatory visual and arts-based tools is a promising area of investigation in relation to well-being.

Student belonging to school has been consistently correlated with many significant outcomes, yet there is little research that depicts how this sense is developed. This study explores the factors through which late elementary/middle school students (Grades 4-8) develop a sense of belonging to their school. Individual interviews with teachers and students indicated that students foster a sense of belonging through reciprocal caring relationships with teachers, through peer friendships, and through participation in extracurricular and school-based activities. These themes are discussed, and the responses from teachers and students are juxtaposed to highlight points of convergence and divergence, revealing opportunities for teacher professional development to support teachers' understandings of student school belonging.

From a purely educationist perspective, gaining a deeper understanding of several aspects related to the prevalence of autism/ASD in a given population is of great value in planning and improving educational and psychological intervention for treatment, training, and teaching of children with this disorder. In this article, I present and discuss numerous facets of prevalence studies, beginning with assessing the changes in diagnostic manuals (DSM and ICD) over time. Based on the existing available research literature and empirical studies published during 2000 to 2016, I address the geographical-dimension and age-dimension of prevalence of autism/ASD. Over 50 studies from 21 countries reveals that prevalence rates of autism/ASD among children are on rise. There are inter-national and intra-national, regional/territorial variations with regard to prevalence rates, and I present and discuss possible factors/factor-groups that can explain these variations. Regardless of their geographic location, children with autism/ASD can be treated, trained, and taught, but to do so effectively requires reliable prevalence studies that can properly inform policy makers and higher institutions about the steps that must be taken in the field in order to improve the learning conditions of these children with special needs. Moving forward, it's essential that studies of geographical dimension and age dimension of prevalence of autism/ASD must be supplemented by other (i.e. gender, socio-economic, ethnic, cultural, and language) dimensions to help give us the perspective we need to grapple with this increasingly common disorder.

Using both child-guided and adult-guided learning, Intentional Teaching in the early years can be a powerful tool for enhancing young children's numeracy skills. As Epstein (2009) notes, this can include providing "opportunities for children to represent things by drawing, building and moving" (p. 47). This paper investigates how kindergarten (four-five year olds) children represented and demonstrated numeracy concepts through their drawings and explanations, completed for a research study that used arts-based strategies to enhance children's environmental understanding. This research study involved kindergarten children in Australia creating and exchanging postcards (drawings and explanations) of their local environments with their peers in Canada. Findings include that the kindergarten children, through creating postcards of their physical environments and explanations, demonstrated their growing understanding of numeracy concepts, such as spatial orientation, quantification and attributes of objects. The study argues for quality Intentional Teaching and the development of an "early childhood numeracy progress monitoring framework" that maps and assesses children's mathematical development.

In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries using data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study and the Programme for International Student Assessment. First, we calculate and compare the magnitude of "income achievement gaps" across this sample of countries. Second, we investigate the association between the size of a country's income achievement gap, its income inequality, and a variety of other country characteristics. We find considerable variation across countries in income achievement gaps. Moreover, the U.S. income achievement gap is quite large in comparison to this sample of countries. Our multivariate analyses show that the income achievement gap is positively associated with educational differentiation, modestly negatively associated with curricular standardization, and positively associated with national levels of poverty and inequality.

This paper considers a person's endogenous and emotional relationships to outdoor childhood or adolescent (trans)formative places. By revisiting the (trans)formative places of four citizens and filming the experiences, I gained an understanding of how these places engage emotional learning. The emotional data were explored through phenomenology and participatory analysis. Places transformed my participants through identity development, memory and anxiety, resiliency behaviour, nostalgia, and loss. My participants related to places through knowing a place and being home, engendering bliss and appreciation, the development of pride and hope, and experiencing emotionality. Part of our emotional development is linked to our relationships to place because we are, in some ways, part of that place. Returning to (trans)formative places can rejuvenate our relationships to those places through our emotional reactions.

This auto ethnographic poetic inquiry is fashioned as a dialogue between Kristin Heavey and Kessey Jemmott, on topics of race and embodiment. Heavey is a white mother of a bi racial daughter in the United States of America; Jemmott is a Black Trinbagonian, living in Canada. These vignettes emerged from a collaborative performance piece, drawing from their backgrounds in theatre and dance. As a white mother and a black daughter, we interrogated each other's embodied experiences. We listened to the other's fears, memories, and family histories. We engaged in discourse surrounding the politics of blackness and the way white racial grievance seemed to overwhelm gender solidarity in the 2016 US election. This inquiry attempts to bring personal stories together, to find intersections where an intimate, felt experience of race can find significance and resonance--to find oneself in another's story and to hear its call for action and transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for effective educational programming for students living in poverty. The reviewed literature outlines research that stresses the importance of self-regulation and working memory in learning, particularly for students living in poverty. As well, the paper provides a review of the research regarding the value of building relationships within classrooms, schools, and communities in order to encourage academic and social-emotional growth for students. Within the paper, the promotion of academic programming that integrates kinesthetic activities and social-emotional learning is also examined. Finally, the discussion section provides a focus and direction for the author's current and future practice as she aspires to be a change agent within her school for students who are experiencing poverty

This article documents a community-initiated service-learning project within a teacher education program. A social justice model guided the initiative to raise critical awareness on power and privilege while countering deficit-model thinking. Partnering with community agencies serving immigrant children and youth, the faculty researcher worked with an office for community-engaged learning. Data included pre- and post-experience interviews with pre-service candidates. Findings showed benefits from this justice-based approach in improving self-awareness, appreciating the strengths of immigrant children and youth, and an increased sense of cultural humility in pre-service teachers.

This article examines the ways in which exceptionality is addressed in Canadian children's literature, offering critical literacy as an avenue toward social justice. A content analysis (Berg, 2009) of 134 Canadian children's books offers a wide scope of contemporary titles to include in classrooms. We developed conceptual categories to explore patterns and trends through a qualitative interpretive stance (Seidman, 2006). Our findings include the following results: (1) ethnically diverse characters with exceptionalities, (2) authentic characters with real-world challenges, and (3) fantasy blended with other genres. As narratives that include exceptionalities become more authentic and abundant, we can become more appreciative of diversity, further affecting inclusive schools and communities. [A bibliography is included.]

A clear, well defined policy can help empower school personnel to make informed decisions on how to handle cases of suspected child abuse. This article presents an analysis of (N = 64) school board child abuse reporting policies and procedures in Ontario and explored what training, resources, and support school boards state they will provide to help teachers recognize and report cases where a child may be in need of protection. The results showed that, while most boards had documentation, the amount of information provided by each school board varied greatly, with documents ranging from 1 page to 155 pages long. An analysis of the documents revealed a lack of clear expectations around training and support to assist teachers in reporting child abuse. Policy recommendations are proposed based on the results of the online search.

Background: Parental support plays an important role in facilitating the participation of children in physical activity. However, there is evidence that parents overestimate their child's level of physical activity -- this may lead to inaction in promotion attempts by parents. This potential disconnect between parental perceptions and reality was recently the focus of the 'Think Again' social marketing campaign developed by PartipACTION. Purpose: To qualitatively explore parents' perceptions of the Think Again advertisements, and the possible disconnect between perceptions and reality regarding their children's physical activity levels. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 mothers and 12 fathers of children aged 5-11 years attending a supervised recreation class. A thematic analysis was applied to the collected data. Results: The advertisements were generally well received by the parents in serving as a reminder of how much physical activity their children should be getting. Less than half of parents believed their children were attaining physical activity guidelines although the majority believed they were sufficiently active given perceived time constraints for both them and their child. Most parents believed they could accurately estimate how active their child was but that other parents may have difficulty due to reliance on schools and organized recreation to provide opportunities for physical activity. Conclusion: PSAs have a role to play in increasing parental awareness of physical activity guidelines and communicating the importance of physical activity. More creative approaches will be needed to address the disconnect in the perceptions between sufficient and recommended levels of physical activity.

We reviewed research that has evaluated prevention programs for child abuse and neglect. A few universal educational and parenting programs (e.g., abusive head trauma educational programs, enhanced pediatric care interventions) have been found to be effective. Moreover, a few selective home visitation programs (e.g., the Nurse-Family Partnership program), have shown evidence that they can prevent child abuse and neglect. As well, there is some evidence that multi-component programs are successful. Finally, the research on the importance of program length and intensity as a moderator of program effectiveness is mixed. While the evidence base of effective prevention programs for child abuse and neglect is growing, current interventions are more likely to be program-focused than policy-focused, selective than universal, ameliorative than transformative, and directed at the micro-level than the macro-level. Unless prevention programs are accompanied by social policies that have an agenda of social justice, poverty reduction, and community capacity-building, their potential to prevent child abuse will be seriously challenged.

This embedded mixed methods study explores how cultural differences in language socialization practices influence parent-child verbal interactions. The Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) System audio recorded families of children who are and are not deaf and hard of hearing in Canada and Vietnam. Software automatically calculated an average conversational turn count. Canadian families participated in more turns than Vietnamese families regardless of hearing status. Interviews with the children's caregivers provided context for these results. Within Vietnamese families, the language socialization practice "Intelligence" results in reduced opportunities for turn-taking, while the Canadian focus on creating personal "Identity" encouraged them. "Intelligence" encompasses Vietnamese participants' desire to ensure their children are learning and "Identity" expresses the Canadian participants' appeal to encourage individuality in their children. The findings suggest directions for the adaptation of intervention. It is the first known study to incorporate LENA results into a mixed methods design.

Using distributive justice theory as a framework, the purpose of the present mixed methods study was to determine whether parental differential treatment was present and if so, to what degree, in families of children with a developmental disability. Moreover, if present, we examined to what extent parental differential treatment impacted family dynamics. One bilingual (i.e., French-English) family and eight French-speaking families, which were all middle-class families, participated. Mothers, fathers, and siblings who are typically developing were individually questioned during semi-structured interviews and completed the Sibling Inventory of Differential Experiences--Revised questionnaire. Children also completed the Perceived Fairness of Parental Differential Treatment measure. All quantitative data generated by the questionnaires were analyzed descriptively using the SPSS program, whereas interviews were coded using qualitative methods. Specifically, in vivo and axial-thematic coding of the interview data revealed that, according to both parents and children, the degree of parental differential treatment varied across families of children with developmental disabilities; yet, differential treatment was often justified and perceived as necessary by parents and children. These findings provided an overview of struggles and blissful moments that families of children with developmental disabilities may encounter on a daily basis. Implications for practitioners and policy are discussed.

Mental health challenges are common among children, and can interfere with learning and adjustment to school. Although early intervention is crucial and the family-school partnership plays an integral role in the development and implementation of individual education plans (IEPs), there are few supports to assist families in navigating this partnership. This study describes the experiences of parents who participated in the Parents in Partnership with Educators (PIPE) program, an individualized intervention for families who are struggling to communicate and problem-solve with schools around the mental health needs of their children. File review and semi-structured interviews were conducted for ten families. Results indicated that the program gave parents unconditional support and guidance, as well as new skills to help them communicate their perspective in a meaningful way. Parents reported feeling empowered, informed, and prepared to advocate for their children.