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Presents a classroom activity designed to teach students about meiosis. Learning by doing as expediting the learning process; Procedures and goals of the activity; Materials needed and setup; Meiotic process: Instructions and questions; Meiosis with no crossovers; Meiosis with a single crossover in the long chromosome; Meiosis showing a double crossover.

In the United States, opposition to traditional standardized tests is widespread, particularly obvious in the admissions context but also evident in elementary and secondary education. This opposition is fueled in significant part by the perception that tests perpetuate social injustice through their content, design, and use. To survive, as well as contribute positively, the measurement field must rethink assessment, including how to make it more socioculturally responsive. This paper offers a rationale for that rethinking and then employs provisional design principles drawn from various literatures to formulate a working definition and the beginnings of a theory. In the closing section, a path toward implementation is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to the critical mathematical literacy of citizens in the United States and around the world. A statistically and mathematically literate society is crucial for ensuring that citizens are able to sift through political rhetoric to maintain life-saving procedures such as social distancing and other infection dampening efforts. Additionally, recent civil unrest due to the disproportionate killings of Black men by police provokes investigation into the public's mathematical literacy. In this paper, we investigate adolescent students' critical mathematics consciousness and mathematics literacy as they reason through two interview tasks on the coronavirus and police shooting data. Drawing on Frankenstein's program of Critical Mathematics Education, we introduce an analytic framework for documenting the critical mathematics consciousness of adolescent students. We interviewed fifteen 14- to 16-year-old students as they solved five tasks designed to elicit their critical and ethical mathematical awareness. Our findings indicate that students exhibit very little critical mathematics consciousness in the context of the police problem but show awareness that data can be presented in ways that manipulate the public's emotions in the coronavirus problem. We conclude the paper with a discussion of implications for designing future instruction to support students' growth in critical mathematics consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversational agents can deepen reasoning and encourage students to build on others' knowledge in collaborative learning. Embedding agents in group work, however, presents challenges where groups may ignore the agents, and this calls for designs where students perceive agents as learning partners. This study examines group interactions with two text‐based agents (ie, chatbots) that posed as an expert and a less knowledgeable peer in a high school marine biology lesson. Student messages (N = 1764) from 18 groups (52 students ages 14–15) received codes for reasoning, building on prior ideas, and responsiveness to the agents. Results indicate no differences between agents in how often each discussion move occurred. Interestingly, sequential pattern mining suggests that the less‐knowledgeable‐peer agent prompted groups to show questioning and building on others' ideas, similar to how students may act as peer tutors to the agent. Meanwhile, sequences with the expert agent resembled student‐teacher exchange, where groups responded to the agent's nudges and then provided reasoning. Findings illustrate the affordances of embedding humanized features in technology designs to promote discussion. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Conversational agents can facilitate group discussions, but can get abused or ignored by student groups.To engage students, agent designs can simulate the characteristics of familiar classroom figures, such as peers or teachers.There are limited explorations of how student groups adapt their interactions to different agent designs in collaborative settings.What the paper adds Illustrations of the utilities of diversifying agent designs in collaborative learning.Insights into the unique interaction patterns that student groups displayed to different designs, such as questioning and building on others' ideas with a less‐knowledgeable‐peer agent.Implications for practice and/or policy Embedding signs of humanness in classroom facilitation and technology design can foster responsiveness among users.Pedagogy can consider adaptive designs to promote interaction sequences that contribute to learning (eg, questioning, expanding on prior ideas) at opportune moments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, every aspect of daily life is being altered in response to the virus. The pandemic has altered secondary education. Classes online, teachers struggling to learn Zoom and make lessons meaningful and relevant to students. Students struggling to make sense of this moment, struggling with mental health issues due to the loss of routine and in many cases contact with adult role models. Unfortunately, in times of crisis such as these some of the most disenfranchized people in society are completely overlooked and forgotten, such as refugees. However, if more teachers were to leverage the social studies potential of current events such as the Coronavirus, greater empathy would be felt for marginalized people more starkly impacted by the pandemic, leading ultimately to a heightened sense of civic engagement among the next generation. The purpose of this paper is to assist teachers in guiding their students through analyzing current events, such as COVID-19's impact on refugees, toward developing civic mindedness. In addition to this, the paper will discuss some of the broader societal impacts the virus is having within the United States, as well as ways in which this event may be viewed as a historical subject in the future. The paper will begin by building the content knowledge of high school social studies teachers through addressing the following question: "What is the difference between a refugee entering the United States now versus one year ago before the COVID-19 pandemic?" Following this, the authors will present an inquiry-based learning segment designed to teach the History correlated to the COVID-19 pandemic to a classroom of secondary education students. The inquiry template follows the standard C3 format utilized by the State of Connecticut. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of 3D printing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning is a promising way for integrated STEM education. This study examined the influence of 3D printing infused STEM integration on students' interest in STEM careers, which is essential for students to participate in STEM disciplines and future STEM careers. The participants included 26 teachers across six states in the United States and their 1455 students in primary and secondary classrooms. Teachers' lesson plans were analysed to examine the level of 3D printing and STEM integration. Students' interest in STEM careers was measured using a previously validated career interest scale. Cluster analysis and multiple regression analysis indicated that girls were more interested in empathetic STEM careers, whereas boys were more interested in analytic STEM careers. While 3D printing integration level was not a significant predictor, teachers' STEM integration level positively predicted students' interest in both analytic and empathetic STEM careers. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topicStudent career interest in primary and secondary school predicts college degree and career choice.3D printing has the potential to improve students' interest in STEM careers.STEM career interest is associated with student gender.What this paper addsThis study examined the role of 3D printing and STEM integration level and student gender in students' STEM career interest.Teachers' 3D printing integration level was not a significant predictor, but STEM integration level positively predicted students' interest in STEM careers.This study confirmed that boys were more interested in Analytic STEM careers, whereas girls were more interested in Empathetic STEM careers.Implications for practice and/or policyStudent STEM career interest improves when teachers integrate STEM in their instruction.STEM instruction can be made relevant by focusing on empathetic aspects of STEM for girls, but caution should be exercised to minimise stereotyping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Indicators for quality of schooling are not only relatively new in the world but also unavailable for a sizable share of the world’s population. In their absence, some proxy measures have been devised. One simple but powerful idea has been to use the schooling premium for migrant workers in the USA (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to extend this idea and compute measures for the schooling premium of immigrant workers in the USA over a span of five decades.Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors focus on the schooling premia for the Latin American and the Caribbean region and compare them to those of migrants from other regions, particularly from East Asia and Pacific, India, Northern Europe and Southern Europe, all relative to immigrants from former Soviet Republics. The available data allow us to measure such premia for workers who graduated from school, either at the secondary or tertiary levels, in their home countries between 1940 and 2010.Findings The results show that the schooling premia in Latin America have been steadily low throughout the whole period of analysis. The results stand after controlling for selective migration in different ways. This contradicts the popular belief in policy circles that the education quality of the region has deteriorated in recent years. In contrast, schooling premium in India shows an impressive improvement in recent decades, especially at the tertiary level.Originality/value In this paper, the authors extend the idea of computing schooling premium for migrant workers in the USA (Bratsberg and Terrell, 2002) and present comparative estimates of the evolution of schooling premia in 17 Latin American countries for both secondary and tertiary schooling levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact and consequences on college students in the United States whose names are Americanized (‘Americanization’ is used throughout this paper to apply only to residents of the United States and has two possible meanings: within the US, it refers to acculturation of immigrants, whereas internationally it refers to the influence of the US on other countries. Our paper uses ‘Americanization’ as a description of acculturation. The process of ‘Westernization’ might be applicable to citizens outside of the United States.) because they are deemed foreign, difficult, and inferior. Our research also examines the difficulties that educators often have with the correct pronunciation of names. Through an exercise designed to teach and learn the correct pronunciation of names, we examine the responses of college students who describe their experiences with teachers and peers with the incorrect pronunciation of their family names and the renaming that occurred. This renaming reinforces the Americanized paradigm of privilege and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) represents a significant development concerning the teaching mission of the university in the UK. This paper considers the background to, and the development of, the TEF. It explains the context from which the TEF emerged and unpacks a series of rationales which illustrate the need for, and the role of, the new framework. The TEF is presented as an instrument to fulfil a range of functions, including: a mechanism to determine tuition fee rises and inform student choices in a reconfigured higher education market; a means of updating the quality and regulatory regime; and a way of raising the esteem of teaching within the academy, and the importance institutions place on student education. The paper explains how the contested idea of “teaching excellence” is defined within the framework, and the metrics and methodology used to assess this. An overview of the submission process and results illustrates how the TEF works in practice. How the TEF embeds two agendas in higher education is discussed: the use of quantitative measures to capture and convey performance, and the role of the student as a consumer not just a learner. The paper concludes the TEF can be viewed as a multi-purpose evaluation tool, not merely designed by the imperatives of teaching excellence or quality assurance, but also by the need for a measure to provide market information to consumers and allocate fee increases to institutions, and this is reflected in its content and character. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the efficacy of sexual violence prevention education (SVPE) in the USA and Australasia: areas, which have some of the worst rates for sexual violence prevalence, globally. Paradoxically, they are also at the forefront of innovations in sexual violence prevention, compared to some European countries where SVPE is virtually non-existent or at the embryonic stage, such as the UK. Drawing upon the Authors' previous research on the delivery of SVPE in New Zealand secondary schools, and literature reviews into these innovations, the authors argue that social work education is ideally placed to develop SVPE, due to the ways that some of these innovations, coalesce with social work theory, critical andragogy, and social work values. These synergies have the potential for transnational application through the ways that they can inform SVPE in those countries where it is delivered by social workers in schools, and via the ways it can enhance the social work curriculum to improve post-qualifying practice in addressing sexual violence (SV). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Calls for essays for `Children's Literature in the Secondary Classroom,' an edited collection which will explore the ways teachers use children's literature with young adults. Topics to be considered; Requirements.

This paper describes a decolonial perspective on material agency in the context of STEM education and application. Using the framework of generative STEM, we engaged in case studies with African, African American, South American, and Native American educational communities. This research shows that understanding material agency based on Indigenous knowledge systems can open a rich source of research and education content. Using a suite of simulations, Culturally Situated Design Tools, we apply this body of research to the classroom. One important theoretical conclusion is the contrast to a "content agnostic" position. A generative framework instead offers a robust blend of user agency and instructional guidance. The outcomes indicate statistically significant and notable improvement for STEM skills and interests. We conclude with a contrast to the quantum epistemology approach to posthumanism. We show that the Indigenous material agency framework in generative STEM is a better fit to decolonial aspirations, and that it offers a more transformative vision for the potential role of STEM in transitioning from an extractive to a generative economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports results from a six-state study of 62 USA social studies classrooms. We examined the extent to which intellectually challenging authentic pedagogy was present in study classrooms, the characteristics of classroom practice at different levels of authentic pedagogy, and how those characteristics may promote or inhibit high levels of authentic intellectual work (AIW). Like earlier AIW studies, we found generally low levels of AIW in observed classes. However, we did find several cases of classrooms scoring in the highest AIW range. We examined characteristics of practice that typified teaching of exemplar lessons at four different levels of authentic pedagogy and identified noteworthy differences in teacher purpose, the ways teachers structured and enacted lessons to accomplish their purposes, and the ways that the structures of the lessons encouraged different lesson narratives that communicated different epistemological assumptions about the complexity of social reality and the process of sense-making. Teachers at the higher levels of the AIW scale sought to promote autonomy and civic competence. We conclude that to maintain democratic societies, educators must expand the number of classrooms offering students this essential preparation for civic life and provide suggestions for how this might be accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have investigated what occurs inside charter schools with respect to instructional leadership, teaching, and learning. To address this gap in the literature, this case study examines two major issues: how the principals at four charter schools enact instructional leadership in their respective schools, and what barriers the principals encounter when enacting instructional leadership at their school sites. The results highlight three main categories of instructional leadership practices: developing a school mission, managing curriculum and instruction, and promoting school climate and culture. In addition, the data reveal that while the principals attempted to engage in instructional leadership, they encountered barriers related to budgeting and staffing. The paper broadens the scholarly understanding of instructional leadership in schools with high levels of autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the lingering threat of recession of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), this paper examines the ways in which undocumented Latinx students glean hope in a vacillating DACA context to persist through college. A review of immigration policy particularly as it relates to K-12 and higher education is provided as a springboard to investigate the salience of student voice in policy considerations. Findings indicate the critical supports of familial capital as undocumented Latinx students navigate the complex anti-immigrant terrain. As the long-term legislative fate of undocumented students remains unknown, we provide recommendations for educators and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper demonstrates the impact of recognition and valuation of youth interest on potential career trajectory and future pathway choices.Design/methodology/approach This paper presents data from two ethnographies. The first ethnography is of an online professional wrestling fan community, which took place between October 2012 and May 2013. The second ethnography is of the online Scratch community, Scratch is a free online coding program. Observations of the community took place between October 2014 and October 2015, with interviews ongoing as of the writing of this paper.Findings This paper details the importance of valuing youth learning and the impact that receiving recognition and valuation can have on youths’ future choices.Research limitations/implications This research focuses on two online communities and presents four examples of the phenomena of valuation and recognition described in the paper. To draw broad conclusions, a wider sample would be required.Practical implications This paper can offer examples to practitioners and researcher alike as to what the impacts of valuing youth learning in interest-driven contexts can be for youth long-term learning and career trajectory and forms that the valuation of interest to support growth and interest can take.Originality/value The paper demonstrates the importance of valuing learning in all parts of youths’ lives and the impact that the valuation can have on the future pathways and career trajectory of youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to broaden the conversation regarding STEAM by investigating the new form of education. The novelty of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) instruction in K-12 classrooms means few cases of STEAM teaching are documented in depth.Design/methodology/approach As part of a larger multi-year study researching STEAM teaching practices in 14 middle school classrooms in the southeastern USA, the article first summarizes prior research findings and then presents ideas for higher education and K-12 researchers to consider when incorporating STEAM teaching in pre-service education, professional development and in classrooms. Then, the authors use a second-order narrative approach to describe three cases of teachers enacting STEAM practices in classrooms.Findings Drawing on the notion of “remixing” education in the context of STEAM, the authors show how each teacher alters existing practices, instead of offering entirely new instruction, as they implement STEAM teaching.Originality/value With few cases of STEAM teaching detailed in the depth, this paper advances the understanding of STEAM teaching practices in K-12 classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this article is to review and discuss the varied ways computer programming is introduced to schools and families as a new form of learning. The paper examines the rhetoric around coding within academic journals and popular media articles over the past three decades. This article argues that despite the best intentions of media researchers and enthusiasts, if the rhetoric around computer science (CS) in all K-12 schools is to become a reality, there first needs to be a greater focus on monitoring such rhetoric and better understanding exactly how programming is presented to the wider public.Design/methodology/approach This paper represents an analysis of 67 peer-reviewed books and journal articles as well as news articles and editorials related to students’ learning (or needing to learn) computer programming on the K-12 level. In terms of criteria for inclusion, in addition to publication date and article readership, there were three considerations: the article needed to focus on CS on the K-12 grade levels; the article needed to focus on introductory computer programming initiatives, rather than more advanced courses/topics); the article needed to specifically focus on school-based learning environments.Findings Findings point to three distinct ways in which introductory coding initiatives have been portrayed (and been perceived): new literacy, “grounded” math and technical skill. Ultimately, the paper does not propose a single defining metaphor. Rather it argues that the metaphors one selects matter considerably in determining programming’s future in entering (or not entering) schools, and that educators need to make a conscientious effort to consider multiple metaphors without choosing just one.Research limitations/implications In terms of research limitations, the article does not purport to be an exhaustive analysis of all the metaphors that have been used to introduce CS to K-12 schools over the past 30 years. Rather it only identifies the leading metaphors from the literature, and in doing so, makes an important first step in examining the role of metaphor in the presentation of CS as a “new” course of study.Practical implications The article is intended for educators, researchers and administrators to gain a better understanding of what CS is (and could be) for K-12 schooling.Social implications The article is intended for educators, researchers and administrators to likewise understand how they, themselves, can present CS to students and families as a potential course of study.Originality/value There is currently considerable discussion about teaching CS in all US high schools, middle schools and even elementary schools. There is however little examination of past attempts to bring CS into K-12 schools and what these attempts may inform current advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the importance of considering bilingual learners' non-linguistic forms of communication for understanding their mathematical thinking. In particular, I provide a detailed analysis of communication involving a pair of high school bilingual learners during an exploratory activity where a touchscreen-based dynamic geometry environment (DGE) was used. The paper focuses on the word-use, gestures and dragging actions in student-pair communication about calculus concepts as they interacted with a touchscreen-based DGE. Findings suggest that the students relied on gestures and dragging as non-linguistic features of the mathematical discourse to communicate dynamic aspects of calculus. Moreover, by examining the interplay between language, gestures, dragging and diagrams, it was possible to identify bilingual learners' competence in mathematical communications. This paper raises questions about new forms of communication mobilised in dynamic, touchscreen environments, particularly for bilingual learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High schools across the country are restructuring their curricular frameworks to meet the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which emphasize an understanding of cultural diversity in addition to critical thinking and literacy. Despite curricular variance among high schools, the significant roles non-white races have played in constructing a pluralistic America, and the increasing importance of U.S. minorities in global economic sectors, many history/social studies courses fall short of presenting culturally diverse material to students. This paper presents a theoretical argument for using New Historicism, a method of literary criticism, in high school literature/ English education courses to meet the goals of the CCSS while generating greater discussion about and appreciation for the contributions of diverse cultural narratives. Using three case studies, one on a U.S. history textbook analysis, another in an English classroom, and a third on a letter written in 1852 by two Asians to the then Governor of California, this paper reveals a striking lack of discussion about cultural diversity in the secondary curricula and demonstrates the historical and cultural richness that can be illuminated in the classroom via New Historicism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present findings from a preliminary analysis of transcript data in the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS:09), a large-scale longitudinal investigation of academic achievement among U.S. high school students. Using proportional flow diagrams of course-taking patterns, we illustrate differences in calculus completion associated with non-malleable student characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES), as well as malleable student characteristics, such as knowledge of mathematics in ninth grade, the level of mathematics course they take in ninth grade, and self-efficacy. Confirming and extending findings from prior literature, we conclude that “tracks” through high school mathematics curriculum, together with students' ethnicity, SES, and self-efficacy, converge as important factors associated with which of the approximately 19% of high school students complete calculus in high school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not enough is known about the relationship between socio‐economic deprivation and places where young people purchase food at lunchtime on a school day. This paper draws on qualitative data from 600 +  young people aged 13–15 years and illustrates that socioeconomic factors form boundaries that young people have a feeling for when buying food. This informs where they seek out lunch (at school or in local food outlets) and what products, service and prices they access and find acceptable. Such insights help to understand why inequalities in young people's health and eating practices prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research indicates that there is considerable variability in teachers' approaches to assessment resulting in different learning cultures for students. The primary purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between teachers' approaches to assessment across a set of dimensions (including their conceptions of assessment purposes, processes, fairness, and measurement theory) and career stage. The results of this paper illustrate nuanced impacts of career stage on teachers' approaches to multiple dimensions of assessment and enable the generation of assessment profiles that provide empirical support for differences in teachers’ approaches to assessment both within and between career stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although comprehensive sexuality education programmes have the potential to improve the sexual health and well-being of young people, many socially conservative rural states in the USA have laws and policies restricting school-based comprehensive sexuality education and supporting abstinence-only education. This paper describes the process of building a community-university partnership to implement a community-based comprehensive sexuality education peer education programme for high-risk young people and presents preliminary findings from a longitudinal evaluation. Through purposive recruitment, the sample included 386 young people (mean age) who were more diverse than the local community. Important university-community partnership components included (1) establishing local connections and legitimacy, (2) adapting and tailoring programmes to meet community context, (3) sustainability planning, and (4) flexibility, persistence, and patience. Building community trust and capitalising on the mutual benefits of community-university partnerships are effective methods of building community sexuality education programming in a conservative environment. Tailoring evidence-based approaches to comprehensive sexuality education in a politically restrictive environment shows promise in improving the sexual and reproductive health of young people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on the curriculum development stage for a larger science–literacy intervention for secondary school newcomers enrolled in an urban US school. After providing background to the study, we review literature on effective vocabulary instruction and report on theScience Vocabulary Supportprogram development, refinement, and preliminary effectiveness evaluation in a sample of 92 emergent bilinguals. Results indicated that pre-to-post gains in student vocabulary retention were statistically (p< .005) and practically (d= .59) significant. These results, corroborated by weekly quizzes and interview and observational data, highlight the merit of specifically targeting science-specific, technical vocabulary for instructional interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a field, we have a limited understanding and a dearth of empirical research concerning the role of high school instructional coaches focused on English learners (ELs). This paper examines one EL facilitator’s work as an instructional coach and resource for supporting mainstream content teachers as they learn to meet the needs of adolescent ELs in one high school. This analysis is grounded within an examination of the influence of school structure and organization on the EL facilitator’s work and her role as a resource. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, as well as literature on teacher leadership and instructional coaching, case study data from a year-long qualitative research project are analyzed. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Informal institutions are defined as socially shared rules that guide individuals' behaviors outside of officially sanctioned channels. This paper investigates the link between individual educational attainment and education-related informal institutions by examining second-generation immigrants in the USA. I measure the education-related informal institutions by average educational attainment among the adult population conditional on per capita GDP in the second generation's country of ancestry. Empirical analysis shows that given similar family background, market, and institutions, higher average educational attainment in the origin country predicts more years of individual schooling; this relationship is stronger among those with less educated parents. These findings are robust to various methods of controlling for unobserved human capital, alternative sample criteria, and alternative measures of informal institutions (JEL I20, J15, Z10). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we offer a critical examination of Let's Move!, the comprehensive anti-obesity program initiated by the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, that aims to solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation. We argue that Let's Move! is not just a campaign against obesity but is emblematic of the nature of (and assumptions underpinning) the health education of children in the contemporary United States. Drawing on the concept of ‘governmentality,’ we examine how Let's Move! functions as a biopolitical strategy (a solution to the problem of childhood obesity), framed by the political rationalities of neoliberalism. In particular, we identify and explore three interrelated bio-techniques mobilized within, and through, the Let's Move! campaign. First, in an effort to ‘responsibilize’ citizens, the initiative is framed as a social movement whereby all segments of society can (and should) be empowered to take collective action against childhood obesity. Second, an array of multi-sectoral partnerships, including corporate sponsors and non-profit organizations, are being mobilized, resulting in a range of initiatives underpinned by the rhetoric of consumer choice and responsibility as well as the outsourcing of physical education to private entities. Third, the adoption of standardized fitness testing techniques based on the logic of chronic disease epidemiology, and related notions of ‘risk,’ aim to produce the disciplined child-citizen who monitors his/her health goals with the aid of Web 2.0 technologies. In contextualizing Let's Move! in this way, we illustrate how, in line with the soft authoritarian imperatives of the neoliberal enabling state, the campaign functions as a national biopedagogy, working to empower every citizen to be an ‘active partner’ in the fight against childhood obesity, so as to optimize the health of the next generation and allow them, in the words of Michelle Obama, to ‘pursue their dreams.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teacher education in the USA is composed of both defenders and critics of the current system of teacher preparation. Some critics of college and university-based teacher education who describe themselves as ‘reformers’ have referred to the non-university programmes as ‘teacher preparation 2.0’ in order to emphasise the innovativeness they feel these programmes represent. They imply that the programmes existing prior to these new, non-university are teacher education 1.0 programmes, which they see as obsolete. We argue in this paper that many 1.0 and 2.0 programmes are inadequate for meeting the nation’s needs to provide high quality, effective teachers for all children in USA public schools, and we present a case for teacher preparation 3.0 programmes. Given the weaknesses in both teacher education 1.0 and 2.0, there exists a need to transform rather than defend or ‘reform’ the current system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on findings from a research project funded by the Scottish Executive which analysed the gender balance in teaching and explored the underlying reasons for the decline in the number and proportion of men, particularly in secondary schools. As in other developed countries, such as Australia, the USA and Canada, the proportion of men entering teaching has declined fairly rapidly over a ten-year period. At a time when women are participating in paid work in greater numbers than ever before, their concentration in certain areas of work, particularly in the service sector and the 'caring' professions, is increasingly apparent. Despite the clarity of this trend, it is evident that responses from academics and policy-makers have been very different, with some policy-makers linking the declining proportion of men in teaching with the problem of boys' underachievement and a perceived 'crisis in masculinity', whilst some feminist writers have questioned these views, drawing on recent gender theory which questions the utility of the binary categories of 'man' and 'woman', instead suggesting that gender is performed and may have little to do with the body of the person who is involved in the particular performance. Sex and gender thus become decoupled, with the focus on individual actors freely choosing the version of gender they wish to practice. This line of argument suggests that the sex of the teacher is irrelevant; what really matters is the way in which they perform gender in the classroom. Work on the gender balance in teaching therefore provides an opportunity to reflect on underlying tensions in gender theorising and policy-making. The paper begins by considering tensions between modernist and post-structuralist accounts of sex and gender. Having outlined the underlying theoretical tensions, it then goes on to consider the accounts given by teachers and students of the reasons for their own choice of teaching as a career, their experiences in teaching and their views of the reasons underlying the declining proportion of men in teaching. The aim is to consider whether students and teachers believe that sex is an important variable structuring their lives, including their decision to become a teacher and their experiences of working as a teacher, or whether they regard gender as something which is chosen from a wide repertoire of options and is relatively free from the constraints of embodiment. In relation to research on the gender balance in teaching, the paper concludes by suggesting that there is a need to make use of the idea of gender as performance, whilst at the same time holding on to the foundational concepts of 'woman' and 'man'. This is necessary to monitor and understand the career paths and underlying power relations of women and men in teaching and to transform these over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a research study of the long-term effects of a high school home-stay experience for German and American students who participated in the Youth For Understanding program in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. With emphasis on the German sample, this paper (1) briefly describes the study's methodology, (2) provides an overview of major findings, and (3) poses the question: what next? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Increasing calls for equity and accountability in U.S. secondary schools have led to intensified scrutiny of the academic literacy development of English learning (EL) adolescents. This paper discusses some of the challenges that EL secondary students face in achieving the language and literacy skills that will enable them to succeed in their mainstream classes, graduate from high school, and continue their academic careers into college. It presents an instructional approach used to work with students on academic language development and describes the language resources that students were able to take up following instruction. This paper suggests ways that secondary teachers can teach their EL students to use linguistic analysis in order to recognize the expectations of academic writing and produce texts that increasingly incorporate the linguistic features of academic language. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: High-stakes writing assessments currently exert a strong influence on the writing curriculum and instruction in schools across the United States. Under these circumstances it is important to examine the construct of writing competence on which these assessments are based, as well as the extent to which this construct supports the goals of secondary education. In this paper we conduct an exploratory analysis of the genre demands of high-stakes writing assessments from three states – California, Texas, and New York – with the aim of discerning, comparing, and evaluating the role that genre knowledge plays in the construct of writing competence measured by these assessments. Our method of inquiry includes both task analysis of the prompts and genre analysis of high-scoring benchmark papers written in response to these prompts. For the analysis of benchmark papers we employed both structural analysis and quantitative counts of key linguistic features to characterize the genres represented in these assessment tasks. Our results suggest a lack of alignment between the genres of the benchmark papers designated as exemplary and the genre demands of the prompts to which they were written. Exceptions to this pattern were most common on the New York assessments, which contextualize writing tasks in tests of subject–matter knowledge. Findings from our exploratory analysis lead us to argue for greater consistency and clarity of expectations in the design of high-stakes writing exams, and for the design of writing tasks that adequately represent the demands of discipline-specific forms of written discourse. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper is a survey of context‐based chemistry education in the United States. It begins with a very brief overview of twentieth‐century chemistry texts and teaching methods, followed by a short description of a pioneering secondary school text. The major emphasis is on post‐secondary instruction and the central case study is provided by Chemistry in Context , a university text intended for students who are not specializing in science. The paper is more concerned with strategies for curriculum reform than with educational research, and the emphasis is more pragmatic than theoretical. A chronological sequence is used to trace the creation of Chemistry in Context . This developmental account is overlaid with the curricular representations of Goodlad and Van den Akker. The Ideal Curriculum was the goal, but the Formal Curriculum was created and revised as a consequence of iteration involving perceptions of the users, the implementation of the curriculum, the experience of students and teachers, and formal and informal assessment of what was attained. The paper also includes descriptions of other, more recent, context‐based college chemistry curricula. It concludes with a list of problems and unanswered questions relating to this pedagogical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I consider the performativity of racial identities and difference at a southern US high school. I utilize Butler's performativity theory along with geographic theories of race, racial difference, and racism to argue that teenage girls reinstate racial difference through their everyday spatial practices. The paper has two substantive sections in addition to the introduction and the conclusion. The first explores the segregated high school lunchroom. Here I examine two girls' narratives and suggest that these girls encounter the spatiality of racial difference in the lunchroom and repeat the practices of segregated sifting. Thus, they reinscribe racialized difference and identity through their spatial practices of sifting with same-race friends. The second substantive section focuses on girls' practices of identifying others' racial identities. In this section I argue that these identifications are spatialized and that racial difference and categorization are achieved through spatial policing and boundary making. Throughout the paper I argue that racial identity and racial difference are performative, but that performativity must account for the normative spatiality of social and racial practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In educational research, investigators in one field are often ignorant of similar research in other fields. Physics education in particular has undergone dramatic reforms in recent years, all based on insights gained from conducting educational research. Often, pedagogical methods resulting from research in one field can be revised and transferred to another. This paper demonstrates that many methods used in physics and other science programmes Throughout this paper, programme will refer to the curricular concept and program will refer to computer programs. can be adapted to teaching computer science. The author has pursued action research in computer science and implemented ideas from science education, especially from physics education, in teaching computer science classes at a small religious secondary school in the southwestern United States. This paper presents ideas and teaching strategies with the hope of building bridges between computer science education research and other science education research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ongoing challenge faced by the Chicana author in developing and implementing a feminist of colour curriculum for an after-school women group in a large New York City high school. The focus of this paper is to explore the challenges of diverse cultural exchanges of feminist knowledge, even within the same geographical location and especially where there exists unequal institutional, political or social power among and between group members and facilitators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although significant strides have been made in increasing the numbers and proportions of minorities in nursing, at 2.0% of the RN population (MinorityNurse.com, 2001), Latinos continue to lag far behind other minorities (Buerhaus & Auerback, 1999). As the fastest growing minority group in the United States—an increase from 9% of the population in 1990 to 11.9% in 2000 and projections of 14.6% by 2001 and 17% by 2020 (U. S. Census, 2001)—Latino's under-representation in all fields of health care is expected to continue unless concerted efforts are taken to recruit and educate more students. This paper presents an analysis of narratives of high school completion as articulated by Latino adolescents in group interviews. Narrative inquiry of the focus group data found three major categories of supports and challenges: peers, family, and schools. The paper concludes with a discussion of how these findings can be used to develop community based interventions to increase high school completion and thus increase the pool of applicants for nursing and other health careers. Key Words: Rural Latinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marked-based reforms in education have garnered the support of politicians, philanthropists, and academics, reworking the nature of public education in the United States. In this paper we explore the methods used to produce consent for market-based reforms of primary and secondary (K-12) schooling in the United States, focusing on two case studies to interrogate how this consent is generated as well as how these reforms are resisted in place. In doing so we illustrate how market-making in public services is a contested terrain and the importance of understanding the nature of their roll-out at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turner's (1960) sponsored and contest mobility framework has been much utilized in analyzing mobility in England and the United States. This paper focuses on Turner's more central concern with how folk norms influence educational practices and the efforts to reform them. To test Turner's proposition that reformers and reform debates are bound by the logic of folk norms, I investigated efforts to reform the General Certificate of Education examinations in English secondary education between 1966 and 1976. Qualitative analysis of focused interviews and documentary data suggests that English educators and reformers alike were by and large actuated and constrained by sponsorship beliefs. But the paper moves beyond Turner. It reveals how sponsorship folk norms and functions are inscribed in the ideology and interests of particular educational constituencies who effectively institutionalized and perpetuated sponsorship principles in England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of organisations are emerging as partners to districts pursuing systemic improvement. Given the critical role a consulting organisation could play in supporting system reform efforts, how does a district leader looking to establish a consulting partnership determine what characteristics in a consulting organisation may be more likely to yield success? This paper utilises an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach for two purposes: (1) to assess whether the quality domains of consultants most prevalent in the literature are consistent with multiple sources of expert knowledge at the point of practice and (2) to determine which, if any, quality domains of consultants are perceived as more important than others for partnership success. Overall, the findings corroborated that the domains identified through the literature are influential to partnership success. While no specific domain or set of domains emerged as most dominant, interpersonal skills and content expertise are foundational indicators that crosscut the other domains. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the relationship of the policies and practices employed by 3 high school reform models – Early College High Schools, Redesigned High Schools, and High Schools That Work – with student success in college preparatory mathematics courses by the end of the 10th grade. Data on policies and practices collected through a survey of school principals in North Carolina are combined with administrative data on student course-taking and performance. The examined policies include course-taking requirements, rigorous instruction, academic support, personalization, and relevance. Results show that implementation of these policies varies across models and that higher levels of implementation of combinations of these policies are associated with improved outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: In this paper we call for studying school leadership and its relationship to instruction and learning through approaches that highlight the role of configurations of multiple organizational supports. A configuration-focused approach to studying leadership and other essential supports provides a valuable addition to existing tools in school organizational analysis and is particularly useful in examining equifinality and causal asymmetry. Equifinality is the idea that more than one pathway can result in a desired outcome whereas causal asymmetry suggests that the set of conditions that lead to the presence of an outcome need not be the same as the conditions that lead to its absence. Focus of Study: This study uses a configurational approach to examine how school leadership and other organizational supports are related to an important aspect of instruction--students' classroom participation. Research Design: We apply fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to administrative and survey data of high schools from a large urban school district to examine combinations of organizational supports that are associated with classroom participation. Conclusions: The study draws attention to the utility of applying configurational approaches to investigate the influence of complex combinations of organizational supports on school outcomes. We compare this approach to more traditional methods that focus on the effects of isolated factors, controlling for each other. Our results show that leadership is associated with students' classroom participation via multiple configurations of organizational supports. These configurations are different from the set of organizational supports that are related to an absence of classroom participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates engagement (E), alignment (A), and rigor (R) as vital signs of high-quality teacher instruction as measured by the EAR Classroom Visit Protocol, designed by the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE). Findings indicated that both school leaders and outside raters could learn to score the protocol with adequate reliability. Using observations of 33 English language arts (ELA) teachers and 25 mathematics teachers from four high schools, findings indicated that engagement, alignment, and rigor were all predictive of math and ELA standardized achievement test scores when controlling for the previous year's scores, although some of the associations were marginal. Students' self-reports of their engagement in school were also generally predictive of test scores in models that included perceived academic competence and observed engagement, alignment, or rigor. We discuss the importance of classroom engagement, alignment, and rigor as markers of instructional quality and the utility of the EAR Protocol as a means of assessing instructional quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares explicit instruction in second-language Spanish with a control treatment on a written picture description task and a timed auditory grammaticality judgment task. Participants came from two intact, third-year US high school classes, with one experiencing a week of communicative lessons on the Spanish clitic se (n = 15) and the other exposed to se only incidentally (n = 20). Explicit instruction consisted of grammar rules with sentence-level examples, followed by communicative tasks. Three test versions were administered within a split-bloc design as a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest 6 weeks after instruction. The instructed group increased targetlike uses of se on both tasks and sustained gains through the delayed posttest, although first-language transfer errors persisted. Meanwhile, overgeneralization errors centered on semantic and syntactic contexts similar to the instructional object, aligning with the unergative–unaccusative distinction among intransitive verbs. It is argued that the data provide evidence for the permeability of second-language implicit knowledge to explicit instruction and against total encapsulation as a model of the mind. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers African-American student protests in secondary schools during the 1960s and early 1970s. Taking a national perspective, it charts a growing sense of independence and militancy among black students as they made the schools a focal point of activism. Activist students challenged established civil rights organisations on a variety of questions. They also engaged in an escalating series of protest activities to make schools change. Much of this focused on curricular change, particularly adding black history courses and hiring African-American teachers and principals. Generally, these protests proved quite successful. Black students also protested against conditions encountered in integrated schools, where they often met hostility from whites. Distinct regional patterns characterised such activities, with more protest over school issues in the North and greater conflict regarding desegregation in the South. By the mid-1970s the era of black secondary student protest concluded, although its legacy continues to live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we share findings of a textbook analysis in which we explored the treatment of segregated education in eight, widely-used secondary United States history and government textbooks. We positioned our findings within the historiography related to the African American school experience which challenges the notion that the lack of resources allocated to Black schools in many areas of the country necessarily equated to a substandard educational experience for Black children. In our analysis we found textbook coverage to be episodically robust, but generally lacking in sufficient context to promote students' recognition of the complexity and nuance of the development and disintegration of African American education. Using the theoretical lens of critical race theory, we suggest that failure of teachers and teacher educators to include recognition of the African American education experience serves to enshrine an approach to learning about America's segregated education history that may contribute to excessively abstract generalizations and perpetuation of historical racial stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This critical case study of one, Somali Bantu male high school student illuminates the struggle for recently arrived refugees at the high school level. Few educational research studies describe how recently arrived refugee students and their families make their transition to US schools (Ngo et al. in Hmong Stud J 8:1-35, ; Hones and Cha in Educating new Americans: immigrant lives and learning. Erlbaum, Mahwah, ; Igoa in The inner world of the immigrant child. Erlbaum, Mahwah, ). Studies that examine how race, county of origin, and low socio-economic status affect refugee students also are few in number. Specifically Kamya (Soc Work 42:154-165, ) argues that there is a compelling need for research that investigates how racism and stereotypes of Black Americans affect the experiences of African black immigrants and refugees. Rong and Brown (Educ Urban Soc 2:247-273, ) add that black newcomers students often face a triple disadvantage of being black, having limited access to educational opportunity, and being poor. These challenges are particularly relevant for high school students as they have a limited amount of time to acquire proficiency in English and content area knowledge before transitioning to post-secondary education or the work force. In order to better understand how some of these processes work for a recently arrived refugee student in an urban school district, this paper examines the educational adaptation and coping strategies of one Somali Bantu male high school student and his family to the US public school system during the 2007-2008 school year through the lens of intersectionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the current Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education research base through an analysis of articles from eight journals focused on the STEM disciplines. Analyzed are both practitioner and research publications to determine the current scope of STEM education research, where current STEM education research is conducted and who is involved in current STEM education research. Articles from eight journals were selected based on the original authors' discussion of STEM education in the articles. The findings in this article summarize the frequency of different research methods in STEM education, the outcomes of STEM education research, the participants in STEM education research, and the universities affiliated with STEM education research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to international education in schools in the USA. Education professionals, business leaders, and politicians realize that schools and school leaders must identify multiple opportunities for students to interact with and experience a global society. Nationally, there has been a considerable investment of funds by several key foundations and much political talk about the need to push American education towards a model of schooling that expressly responds to the need for internationally competent citizens. Using mixed methodology design, this study is fueled by a desire to better understand several overarching elements in international education. In short, the authors of this paper posit that no further research, policy formation, or program development within the realm of international education for public schools can be undertaken until an understanding of the current state of international education and the capacity for internationalization is empirically explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]