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Teacher turnover is an issue of national significance and has worsened since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Teacher-directed violence and teacher turnover can significantly impact school life for students, staff, and communities. Using Wang and Degol's school climate framework, we examined school characteristics that contribute to teacher-directed violence and related turnover. The current study examines the qualitative experiences of 403 teachers who reported that their most upsetting incidents of violence contributed to desires to leave the profession, transfer, or retire. Many teachers indicated concerns about safety and community factors, including parent--teacher relationships and community violence. Educators emphasized issues related to administrators, describing a lack of support and poor leadership. Finally, teachers discussed concerns with policy on both school and government levels. Improving school climate may be one avenue for decreasing teacher-directed violence and preventing turnover.

Teacher turnover is a significant issue in education that negatively affects students' academic performance and instructional continuity. While multiple factors impact turnover, the effects of violence directed against teachers on turnover have rarely been explored. The current study examines the extent to which (dis)empowerment applies to teachers who experienced incidents of violence and related intentions to leave their positions. The study includes 403 teachers from a national survey examining teacher-directed violence and teachers' most upsetting experiences with violence. Using content analysis, results indicated teachers endorsed low levels of empowerment dimensions including status, autonomy and decision-making, and impact. Further, disempowerment was associated with turnover intentions and decisions. Future directions for research, practice, and policy are considered to increase empowerment and prevent turnover following incidents of violence.

Self-appraisals can combine with aspects of the school environment in predicting adolescent emotions and behaviors. This study examined how academic self-efficacy and social self-efficacy are related to anxiety and aggression, and how these relations are moderated by school stressors, academic achievement, and school belonging. The participants of the study were African American and Latino adolescents with an intellectual disability and/or a physical disability. Self-report surveys were completed by 98 adolescents. Regression analyses revealed that higher levels of both self-efficacies were associated with lower levels of anxiety, but these relations were reduced as school stressors increased. Also, high academic self-efficacy was associated with more aggression when academic achievement was low, and high social self-efficacy was associated with more aggression when school belonging was low. The findings have implications for the development of self-efficacy and for the management of adolescent anxiety and aggression.

Urban learning environments pose distinct instructional challenges for teachers and administrators, and can lead to lower achievement compared to suburban or rural schools. Today's educational climate increasingly emphasises a need for positive academic outcomes, often measured by standardised tests, on which student educational opportunities, teacher benefits and school funding can be based. By applying an ecological framework to the urban school environment, it could be possible to better understand and ultimately improve the educational context at multiple levels. This study examined how classroom management, staff relations and school climate contribute to academic achievement, as measured by ACT scores. In a large urban American public school system, 208 teachers from 38 high schools were surveyed. A model was tested in which, when academic achievement was accounted for over time, classroom management and staff relations contributed positively to school climate, and climate in turn contributed to academic achievement. Structural equation modeling revealed that the data fitted the proposed model. Results illustrate the roles of school and classroom factors related to academic performance and underline the importance of classroom management strategies and positive learning environments. Results suggest avenues for interventions to increase academic achievement by supporting students through the lens of an ecological framework.

Successful community partnerships for youth are based on the premise that reciprocity exists between all parties, but to what extent is equal power actually present? The current investigation examines the benefits and contributions associated with partnerships from community partners' perspectives. Respondents from 15 different "Connect to Protect"® coalitions initiated by the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions were interviewed at the onset of their partnerships. Community partners asserted that their contributions to partnerships are more varied than researchers', yet they perceived that researchers acquire more kinds of benefits. Findings indicate nuances regarding reciprocity and power inequities between partners. Community partners' insights have implications for defining best practices within partnerships that benefit youth.

The acceptance and inclusion of persons with intellectual disability can vary across cultures, and understanding attitudes can provide insight into such variation. To our knowledge, no previous study has explored attitudes toward people with intellectual disability among Pakistani community members and disability service providers. We administered the Community Living Attitudes Scale (Henry et al., 1996), a measure of attitudes toward people with intellectual disability developed in the United States, to 262 community members and 190 disability service providers in Pakistan. Confirmatory factor analysis found a 4-factor solution (empowerment, similarity, exclusion, and sheltering) fit the Pakistani sample. More positive attitudes were observed in staff serving people with intellectual disability, females, Christians, Hindus, Sunnis, and people with greater education. We discuss implications for research, theory, and practice.

This longitudinal study uses an ecological framework to examine school and individual influences on academic achievement among African American and Latino students with and without disabilities who had recently transferred to more inclusive schools. The authors' ecological framework includes four domains: organizational policies and practices, school environment, student-school connections, and psychological symptoms. The authors tested a comprehensive model with 111 students from 16 schools over 3 years, as well as an organizational model with a smaller sample. Organizational policies and practices of inclusion and student-school connections of belonging each predicted higher academic achievement, and psychological symptoms of aggressive behavior predicted lower academic achievement across time. Their findings are consistent with and extend existing research through support of a comprehensive ecological model across time. Findings also yield significant implications for ecological theory and research in community psychology, school planning, intervention, and implementation of inclusive best practices for students with and without disabilities. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Researchers and Institutional Review Board (IRB) members' attitudes influence scientific knowledge about individuals with intellectual disability. We recruited 260 intellectual disability researchers and IRB members to develop a measure of attitudes toward the research participation of adults with intellectual disability, the Participation in Research Attitude Scale. Findings suggest three conceptual domains: Opportunity and Choice, Help in Decision Making, and Beneficence. We also examined individual differences in attitudes and the relationships between general and specific attitudes. In general, intellectual disability researchers and those with closer relationships to individuals with disabilities had attitudes consistent with disability-rights principles. Some dimensions of global attitudes toward adults with intellectual disability predicted more specific attitudes toward their research participation. Implications are discussed.

Positive school environments and school belonging have been associated with a variety of positive academic, social, and psychological outcomes among youth. Yet, it is not clear how these constructs are related, and few studies have focused on urban at-risk youth with disabilities. This study examines baseline survey data from 136 low-income African American and Latino students in grades 5 to 12, most of whom have disabilities, recently transferred following a school closure. Using structural equation modeling, we tested a model that examined the relationships among school stressors and resources, school belonging, academic outcomes (school satisfaction and academic self-efficacy), and psychological outcomes (anxiety and depression). This model was an excellent fit with the data, and findings indicate that school belonging plays a central role in explaining how school context can affect both psychological and academic outcomes. This model has implications for school-based interventions that can enhance student success and well-being. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

We compared the inclusion-related attitudes of community agency staff in the United States and Israel. Samples of 147 (United States) and 74 (Israel) staff members were assessed with the Community Living Attitudes Scale (CLAS). Results showed that higher educational levels, regardless of nation, were associated with higher Empowerment scores, lower Exclusion scores, lower Sheltering scores, and higher Similarity scores. Empowerment attitudes were strongly related to differences in the agencies in which individuals were employed. Controlling for age, education, and agency, we found that staff in the United States had higher Empowerment scores than did Israeli staff. Israeli staff had higher Sheltering and Similarity scores and marginally higher Exclusion scores than did the United States staff.

This article discusses diagnostic overshadowing, a robust bias that negatively affects the accuracy of clinicians' judgments about concomitant mental illness in persons with mental retardation and mental illness. Reviewing 12 studies, it examined moderators of diagnostic overshadowing and found clinician's cognitive complexity negatively affects overshadowing. Research needs are discussed. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Evaluation of the "Choices-in-Transition Intervention" program with 41 low-income, predominantly ethnic minority group high school students with disabilities found the program resulted in significant increases in students' help-recruiting skills. Ninety percent of students received help with their goals and 85 percent met at least one of their goals. Implications for transition services are discussed. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

In this comparative study of the boards of three community agencies, the forces that influence the quality of parent-community member relations are examined. Results indicate that an organization's ability to manage intergroup tension is influenced by organizational history of intergroup relations, group identification, and organizational practices that bridge group differences. (Contains 15 references.) (Author/CR)

This article discusses four necessary elements of the self-advocacy movement: gaining awareness of one's social and political situation; gaining awareness of individual strengths and potential; taking action through participation in community organizations; and having advisors collaborate with people with disabilities rather than treating them as service recipients. (CR)

This study examines an intervention designed to promote goal attainment among vocational rehabilitation (VR) consumers as part of a university-VR agency collaboration. Eighty nine individuals with disabilities receiving VR services from the state agency were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions: (a) help-recruitment training plus follow-along support from counselors, (b) help-recruitment training only, (c) follow-along support only, and (d) an active treatment control group (regularly offered VR services). Fifty four participants were available for data collection at follow-up, at least one year after the initiation of the study (13 to 22 months). Participants who received the combination of training and follow-along support attained more goals than participants in the other three groups, particularly the control group. The challenges and benefits of conducting intervention research through university-VR agency collaboration are discussed., The benefits of intervention research in which new technologies, strategies, or procedures are developed and tested under field conditions have long been heralded in the psychological and rehabilitation research literatures [...]

This study examined attitudes toward disability rights among an ethnically diverse sample of 133 private and public sector representatives. The strength of these attitudes was assessed with an experimental manipulation, whereby respondents obtained negative and neutral presentations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Participants completed measures of 1) demographic, organizational, and experiential information, 2) acculturation to mainstream United States culture, 3) knowledge of the ADA, and 4) attitudes toward disability rights. Individuals from the public sector, presented with the neutral ADA presentation, and with a high level of ADA knowledge were more positive toward disability rights than their counterparts., Enacted in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been hailed as the most significant civil rights law for individuals with disabilities. This legislation was passed following increased political [...]

Pamela Block is a cultural anthropologist and Clinical Associate Professor in the Occupational Therapy Program at SUNY Stony Brook. She collaborates with community organizations in the areas of disability empowerment, [...]

A new model of intergroup cooperation called collaborative advocacy was developed. This model was designed to foster intergroup relationships that are productive and empowering for their members. The basic goals include intergroup cooperation, group co-empowerment and member empowerment. The collaborative advocacy model was applied to the advisory board of an education and advocacy project for individuals with developmental disabilities, family members and professionals. Through archive research and interviews, it was discovered that the project was able to facilitate educational activities, promote the creation of new advocacy projects, gather financial support and offer opportunities for participants to give public contributions to the understanding of disabilities. Group differences in terms of the advisory board's goals and perceptions of the definition of empowerment were still present.