School Smarts: A Reflection of Pedagogical and Personal Insights

Recent studies show that many college instructors still believe that Latino students lack the “school smarts” for academic success. This essay challenges the notion of school smarts in order to highlight Latino students’ numerous strengths. I share my model for a mentorship program that facilitates better student–faculty communication and deepens a student-centered learning environment in a large general education course. Establishing the program led me to reflect on how the enduring belief in school smarts affected my own academic training. Directly challenging deficit thinking, I argue that Latino students contribute to a transformative educational process in which faculty are also learners.     

Academic Engagement and Achievement Among Latina/o and Non-Latina/o Adolescents

This article presents an exploratory study of the relation between academic engagement and academic achievement for Latina/o and non-Latina/o adolescents attending a predominantly low-income, Latina/o urban middle school in Southern California. A sample of 61 students (37 Latinas/os and 24 non-Latinas/os) participated in the study. The Latina/o students’ mean grade point average was lower than the non-Latina/o students’ mean grade point average. The study results revealed a significant interaction between academic engagement and grade point average for Latina/o students but not for non-Latina/o students. Findings are discussed in regard to the promotion of Latina/o adolescent achievement through increased levels of academic engagement.     

Balancing Dreams and Realities: The College Choice Process for High-Achieving Latinas

This study’s narratives of 17 high-achieving Latinas revealed how their college choice was a constant balancing of individual and family expectations, being “close, but far enough away,” and “getting your money’s worth.” With the use of critical race theory, further analysis revealed the influence of familismo on the college choice process as well as a financial ceiling that kept the most elite institutions out of reach.     

Improving Educational Outcomes for Latinos: A Study of the Interactive Policy Effects of Representative Bureaucracy and Personnel Stability

This article seeks to determine whether 2 common management strategies, representative bureaucracy and personnel stability, can be used in combination with each other in order to improve educational policy outcomes for Latinos. Using data from Texas school districts from 1994 to 2010 and a cross-sectional longitudinal research design, I find that although each theory on its own improved outcomes for Latinos, the 2 did not have a significant combined effect. Instead I find evidence of a substitution effect that allows 1 strategy to be used in place of the other in order to improve the academic performance of Latinos.     

Identifying Themes for Research-based Development of Pedagogy and Guidance in Higher Education

The high value accorded to the research-based development of education in higher education communities means that researchers in the field have an important role in determining the foci of such efforts. However, it is important to ask whether higher education research is providing answers that satisfy practical educational needs. In this study, themes in higher education research published in Finland during 2000–2008 were compared to those addressed in non-refereed writings published by higher education teachers and students. The thematic analyses, (n = 1,298) focusing on topics related to learning, studying, and their promotion revealed the need for a broader life-wide framework for developing student-centred pedagogy and guidance practices in higher education.     

Resisting the Orthodox Smart Label: High School Latinas and the Redefinition of Smartness on the Western Frontier

Drawing from Chicana feminist epistemology and counter-storytelling, this article argues that Latina high school students’ refusal to attach the culturally constructed and hegemonically imposed label of smartness to themselves, while easily identifying that label within others, stems from a resistance to associate themselves with traditional notions of smartness, a label they often frame as exclusive, inappropriate, and/or incongruous within their experiential contexts. This article suggests that the participants in this study agentically embrace their own constructions of smartness to include alternative funds of knowledge and, in this way, coopt smartness in a culturally relevant and specific way.     

Academic Role and Perceptions of Gatekeeping in Counselor Education

Gatekeeping in counselor education is an ethical responsibility and professional best practice. The authors examined gatekeeping perceptions of 9 counselor educators, with equal representation of assistant professors, associate/full professors, and adjuncts/instructors/lecturers. The authors analyzed data using consensual qualitative research methodology (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997 ). Findings include commonalities and differences between academic role groups.     

论教育研究中量化研究与质化研究的结合

在教育研究整个发展历程中,存在两种研究范式：量化研究与质化研究。本文结合这两种研究范式的历史发展,在比较它们的差异基础上,探求如何将量化研究与质化研究结合起来,以促进教育研究事业的繁荣。     

教育研究方法的一个新视点:质的教育研究方法

近年来,教育研究方法的迅猛发展,使各种方法层出不穷。质的研究方法是教育研究方法的一个新视点。本文就质的教育研究方法的概念、特征、它与定量研究方法的区别,以及它在教育研究领域中的运用等进行了详细的阐述,旨在促进教育研究向更深层次发展。     

高校创业教育研究:回顾、分析及前瞻

采用质的研究方法对2000年至2006年7月国内核心期刊出现的高校创业教育研究进行检索、编码和讨论。从研究主题、内容和研究方法上进行回顾和分析,对未来国内高校创业教育研究提出展望。     

Gender and Bilingual Education: An Exploratory Study of the Academic Achievement of Latina and Latino English Learners

Although biliteracy plays a vital role in academic achievement, there has been little research on the unique needs of female and male English language learners. Becoming biliterate is a complex process, compounded by other variables such as 1st-language background, class, culture, and gender. Among these variables, gender has been the least examined and reported for English language learners in the United States. This exploratory quantitative study investigates the interplay between gender and biliteracy in a diverse urban school district. The quantitative data demonstrate gender variations across all years and grade levels and on both English and Spanish assessments.     

Challenges and promises of overcoming epistemological and methodological partiality: Advancing engineering education through acceptance of diverse ways of knowing

The purpose of this paper is to explore some challenges and promises when the epistemological diversity embedded in qualitative research traditions is introduced to research communities with one dominant research paradigm, such as engineering education. Literature is used from other fields and empirical data are used from engineering education, including the practices of the European Journal of Engineering Education and the Journal of Engineering Education, with the expectation that the ideas that are presented are relevant to a broad range of education disciplines. A number of challenges are identified as the epistemological diversity of qualitative research is introduced to the primarily positivist field of engineering education. Ultimately, embracing epistemological diversity holds the promise of researchers being able to ask: ‘What questions and answers become possible from these newly created positions and what can be learned from these alternative approaches?’.     

Research Experiences of Staff within a Specialist UK Higher Education Institution: Challenges,opportunities and priorities

The study discussed here was based on a collective case approach involving a specialist UK higher education institution. Six individual interviews were carried out with a cross-sectional sample of the institution’s staff members. Additional information was gained through observations and examination of relevant documents. These data were interrogated with the purpose of exploring how the institution had made the transition from a teacher training college to a teaching-led higher education institution with a particular commitment to developing research capacity. This analysis yielded a number of key findings: first, the institution had experienced a cultural shift, with research forming a more noticeable profile; second, practitioner-oriented research was the dominant research endeavour; and third, there appeared to be an incomplete understanding of the potential of research to change a staff member’s career and teaching practice. The article concludes by giving consideration to the implications of the findings.     

中国比较教育研究发展:质性研究路径选择

本文提出中国比较教育研究发展的质性研究路径选择议题,着重讨论了其合理性、必要性、制度保障等内容.文章重点讨论了中国比较教育研究中比较的不充分性问题,具体表现为:比较单位的整体性和局部性之间的矛盾,对象国之间教育优势和劣势的比较认知差距,比较单位的历史性和当代性之间非一致性,比较单位的文明性和现实性之间的落差,比较单位实践论和认识论之间的不可通约性,比较单位的本体论和价值论之间的不可调和性,比较单位之间的时间错位性,比较教育学者的研究身份在本土性和他国性的研究对象选择上的分隔性,比较教育理论建构的中国力量不足.进而论证中国比较教育研究发展的质性研究路径选择的必要性,并提出中国比较教育研究发展的质性研究路径选择的制度保障的建议.     

论定量与定性研究的结合问题及其对我国心理学研究的启示

定性与定量研究是社会科学研究领域中的两大主要范式 ,二者既存在较大的差别 ,但是也互相联系 ,具有结合的可能性。定性与定量研究的结合可以在研究视角、研究设计、具体研究方法等不同层面结合 ,从此发挥两类范式的各自优点 ,组成最适合研究所需的混合研究模式。与国际心理学研究先进水平相比 ,我国心理学研究在定量与定性两方面均存在较大的差距 ,两种研究范式之间又缺乏交流与借鉴 ,这极大地限制了我国心理学研究的进一步整合。因此 ,在当前对定性与定量研究的结合问题进行探讨对于我国心理学的今后发展无疑具有重大的意义与迫切性     

The power of ethnic studies: portraits of first-generation Latina/o students carving out un sitio and claiming una lengua

For more than 50 years, college and high school students, families, and community activists have fought for the preservation of ethnic studies. Qualitative research studies consistently have shown positive outcomes, including increased academic engagement and affirmation, for students who take ethnic studies in K-16. In this article, I argue that Latina/o students who enrolled in ethnic studies courses benefited academically and personally from culturally responsive pedagogies. The portraits presented in this article are part of a larger ethnographic study of the schooling experiences of Latina/o students. Data were collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and field notes at two universities. Findings show that the students’ experiences in the courses served as sitio y lengua [a space and a language/discourse] in which they experienced:(1) intersecting sitios of home and school pedagogies; (2) (re)claimed an academic space and identity; and (3) (re)defined and (re)connected the boundaries of community space. Ultimately, this article advocates for the expansion of ethnic studies.     

Smoothing the Transition to Postsecondary Education: The Impact of the Early College Model

Developed in response to concerns that too few students were enrolling and succeeding in postsecondary education, early college high schools are small schools that blur the line between high school and college. This article presents results from a longitudinal experimental study comparing outcomes for students accepted to an early college through a lottery process with outcomes for students who were not accepted through the lottery and enrolled in high school elsewhere. Results show that treatment students attained significantly more college credits while in high school, and graduated from high school, enrolled in postsecondary education, and received postsecondary credentials at higher rates. Results for subgroups are included.     

量变与质变：世纪之交的中国高等教育

世纪之交的中国高等教育体制改革和高等教育大众化进程推动着高等教育快速童变,本科教学工作水平评估和“质量工程”引导着高等教育从量变走向质变,进入提高办学质量的关键时期。     

Transforming Perceptions of Urban Education: Lessons From Rowan University's Urban Teacher Academy

To be an effective urban educator requires teachers to understand the contextual factors of students, the school, and the community, and their cumulative effects on learning. Urban teacher academies support a better understanding of urban classrooms and challenge stereotypes of the urban context. The focus of this study was to compare participants' perceptions of urban settings before and after 2 weeks spent at an urban teacher academy for high school students.