College Media in the Classroom: An Innovative Approach to College Preparation

College preparation programs are ubiquitous among secondary schools, ranging from bridge programs and summer camps to STEM competitions. High school students have many options in preparing for the academic pressures of higher education. However, an area often neglected in college preparation programs is the teaching of interpersonal customs and norms of university life. High school students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, may enter college with little to no understanding of the social and organizational expectations of being a college student. This study tests a college preparation approach that utilizes college-themed media as a way to educate students on college life that is unintimidating and enjoyable. Six high school students were presented with various forms of fictional college story plotlines, including a movie, two television shows, and a novel. Through observational data and semi-structured interviews, findings showed that the students identified some valuable personal lessons about what it means to be a college student after consuming the media. The findings suggest that incorporating college media into college preparation programs in high school may provide a more holistic college preparation experience by demystifying college stereotypes and relieving some of the pressures that high school students face about what is waiting for them in college.     

Preparing Students for College: The Implementation and Impact of the Early College High School Model

As implemented in North Carolina, Early College High Schools are small, autonomous schools designed to increase the number of students who graduate from high school and are prepared for postsecondary education. Targeted at students who are underrepresented in college, these schools are most frequently located on college campuses and are intended to provide students with 2 years of college credit upon graduation from high school. This article reports on preliminary 9th-grade results from 285 students in 2 sites participating in a longitudinal experimental study of the impact of the model. These early results show that significantly more Early College High School students are enrolling and progressing in a college preparatory course of study. This expanded access, however, is associated with somewhat lower pass rates for some courses, suggesting the need for strong academic support to accompany increased enrollment in more rigorous courses. Implementation data collected on one school indicate that it is successfully implementing the model's components.     

Authoring Student Voices on College Preparedness: A Case Study

African American students continue to attend college at much lower rates than their white, Asian, and Latino counterparts. Although researchers have examined this issue from a multitude of vantage points, the voices of students—particularly students of color—have been limited in this research. Using a counter-storytelling narrative approach, this study examines what urban African American high school students identify as the critical factors affecting their educational trajectory and college-going prospects. Findings from the current study reveal that students identified inadequate resources, tracking, lack of AP courses, and poor teachers as factors that influenced their high school to college transition. This study provides much needed insight into the discourse on school reform from the most important constituent in schools—the students.     

Improving College Enrollment of At-Risk Students at the School Level

Many federal, state, and local education policy priorities are aimed at preparing high school students, especially those at risk, to be college- and career-ready when they graduate from high school. A number of programs across different institutional entities have been initiated to achieve these goals, encompassing individual partnerships with schools. Many of these programs include a variety of interventions, ranging from college and course counseling to college visits. Although there have been some evaluations of the larger federal programs, and some state and district programs, few have examined national observational data on the impact of these programmatic efforts on college enrollments. This study uses the HSLS:09 database to investigate the impact of specific treatments in at-risk schools on college enrollments. Results show that several of these programmatic initiatives have a positive effect on college enrollment; however, the effects are small compared to some of those reported by other national studies.     

Those Who Left,Those Who Stayed: Exploring the Educational Opportunities of High-Achieving Black and Latina/o Students at Magnet and Nonmagnet Los Angeles High Schools (2001–2002)

Being that educational disparities, manifested through socioeconomic instability, were a major contributing factor to the Los Angeles riots, it is important to examine how public high schools are now shaping the postsecondary opportunities of underrepresented students. Using opportunity-to-learn (OTL) and bounded rationality as frames, this article examines the college preparatory experiences of Black and Latina/o students at a magnet and standard urban high school, specifically focusing on the experiences of high achievers. Findings indicate that students at the two schools had equally high college aspirations, but experienced very different college preparatory environments. Magnet students had access to more college-going resources and greater opportunities to learn, manifested directly from opportunities offered at their school and indirectly from the collective college-going culture shaped by the school, peers, and parents. Bounded rationality allowed students at the underresourced urban school to perceive their school's resources positively and stay motivated, but limited their efforts to pursue additional resources to enhance their opportunity-to-learn.     

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.     

Understanding inclusive STEM high schools as opportunity structures for underrepresented students: Critical components

Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) can be viewed as opportunity structures for students underrepresented in STEM. By opportunity structures, we mean an education that provides not only access to high quality STEM curriculum and instruction or “opportunity to learn,” but also the capacity to create learning environments where students can build STEM social capital and the dispositions, knowledge, skills, and networks to be successful in STEM college majors and careers. This is a cross‐case analysis of case studies that describe the design and implementation of eight “exemplar” ISHSs. Beginning with 10 hypothesized critical components, we found evidence for all 10, but present in unique patterns of prominence, depending on the school context. Further inductive analysis located an additional four emergent critical components that complete the picture of how these successful ISHSs were able to achieve their goals. Importantly, across schools, four components stood out as foundational: a flexible and autonomous administrative structure; a college‐preparatory, STEM‐focused curriculum for all; well‐prepared STEM teachers and professionalized teaching staffs; and supports for students in underrepresented groups. Although many of the critical components found in the ISHSs are also found in the school reform literature, these schools also had characteristics unique to STEM education. This paper is important in understanding STEM high schools as opportunity structures and as a school reform alternative that can help solve equity and social mobility gaps in STEM.     

The Gap Between Influence and Efficacy: College Readiness Training,Urban School Counselors,and the Promotion of Equity

This phenomenological study presents 11 urban school counselors’ perceptions of their graduate education in school counseling in relation to their engagement in college readiness counseling with low‐income, 1st‐generation college‐bound students. Findings from 2 rounds of interviews suggest that intentional strategies to integrate postsecondary readiness and planning into counselor education curricula is necessary to efficiently prepare school counselors to promote college access and success for at‐risk youth, thereby reducing the inequities that currently exist in postsecondary degree attainment.     

Aztec Middle College: High School Alternatives in Community Colleges

The traditional high school model derived from the factory deficit model of the early 1900s has left many students, mainly minorities and/or low socioeconomic students, disenfranchised. This is evident in the poor school performance and high dropout rates of such students. Whereas the factory deficit model was created to promote only a few high school students to college, the rest of the students were trained for factory jobs. Today's job market requires that high school students go to college subsequent to their graduation. For this reason, middle college alternatives to traditional high schools are being adopted. Although research on middle colleges is limited due to their recent development, the results are encouraging: high school students who would otherwise have failed school or dropped out have high attendance rates and high graduation rates.     

The impact of a college counseling program on economically disadvantaged gifted students and their subsequent college adjustment

The impact of a college and career counseling program on economically disadvantaged gifted students and their subsequent college adjustment was assessed. Fifty‐five students from public high schools in a major urban school district in the midwest were compared to a group of economically advantaged students who participated in a special summer program for high school students at a private midwestern university. Results indicate that both before and after the program, the groups were similar with respect to the basis for their college choices, motivation to attend college, and career readiness. The economically disadvantaged students changed their plans to finance college as a result of the program and expected college to be significantly more lonely. A three‐year follow‐up revealed that economically disadvantaged gifted students were more likely to enroll at in‐state colleges, to experience college as significantly more boring, dull, and snobbish, and to have more difficulty adjusting socially and forming attachments to their universities.     

More ways than one: Federal strategies to equalize access in education and health care

This article examines the responses of school principals from an urban school district to Michigan's zero-tolerance policy. We specifically seek to understand how school leaders interpret and implement the policy and how their administrative discussions subsequently affect the educational experience of children in urban schools. Given that a disproportionately high number of African American and Latino students are negatively affected by this policy, how do school leaders in predominantly African American districts implement it? The findings in this study reveal that the disparate interpretation of the zero-tolerance policy among school leaders and its implementation negatively affects the educational experience of urban students.     

大学生深度辅导工作研究

大学生深度辅导工作是落实中央16号文件,培养高素质人才的重要举措。以概念研究入手,通过比较分析并结合工作实际,确定了深度辅导的概念。进一步归纳总结出深度辅导的工作内容及流程,并提出五类工作模式,对于提升深度辅导水平和促进大学生思想道德建设有一定现实意义。     

大学生心理异常原因分析与对策

大学生中出现不同程度的心理障碍或心理异常,主要与外界社会环境和大学生的个体心理两大因素有关。应该及时采取心理健康辅导、个别心理咨询、结合学校实际开展心理健康教育活动。     

High School Economic Composition and College Persistence

Using a longitudinal sample of Texas high school seniors of 2002 who enrolled in college within the calendar year of high school graduation, we examine variation in college persistence according to the economic composition of their high schools, which serves as a proxy for unmeasured high school attributes that are conductive to postsecondary success. Students who graduated from affluent high schools have the highest persistence rates and those who attended poor high schools have the lowest rates. Multivariate analyses indicate that the advantages in persistence and on-time graduation from 4-year colleges enjoyed by graduates of affluent high schools cannot be fully explained by high school college orientation and academic rigor, family background, pre-college academic preparedness or the institutional characteristics. High school college orientation, family background and pre-college academic preparation largely explain why graduates from affluent high schools who first enroll in 2-year colleges have higher transfer rates to 4-year institutions; however, these factors and college characteristics do not explain the lower transfer rates for students from poor high schools. The conclusion discusses the implications of the empirical findings in light of several recent studies that call attention to the policy importance of high schools as a lever to improve persistence and completion rates via better institutional matches.     

“It’s My Place”: Student Perspectives on Urban School Effectiveness

This study investigated how graduates of an urban alternative school understood, interpreted, and compared their experiences in previous schools that they considered ineffective with their experiences at an effective alternative school. This study found that students find those schools effective that create or allow spaces where they can be empowered, leading to a sense of place. Students’ ownership or affinity to school spaces that lead them to refer to school as “my place” derived from school practices that were instrumental in promoting a sense of identification, commitment, integration, and alliances among students and faculty at the school. Based on the findings of the study, this article argues that for urban schools to be effective for students at risk, they not only need to focus on caring relationships and diverse learning experiences, they also need to create the space to foster a sense of “my place” for students.     

从心理角度浅析大学生自杀现象

文章着重以心理学的角度来剖析大学生自杀的原因,同时,提出要把大学生的生命教育和心理辅导作为校本课程来研究,从而真正建立预防和干预大学生自杀的长效机制。     

Planning for the Future in Rural and Urban High Schools

Studies of postsecondary aspirations tend to assume that adolescents from different ethnic groups share commonalities of perspective that are unaffected by the areas in which they live and go to school. Largely missing from this literature is a consideration of the intersection of ethnicity, development, and location. This study looks at the ways in which White and Latino students in an urban and a rural high school differ in their perspectives on postsecondary plans according to grade level, ethnicity, and urbanicity. We find a number of differences in student attitudes and behavior depending on whether students attend rural or urban high schools. High school experiences are also moderated by ethnicity across locations. However, with respect to how students want others to see them, students in the rural high school are more like each other than they are like their ethnic counterparts in the urban school. We conclude that, in many respects, both Latino and White students experience schooling and adolescent development differently in rural and urban schools.     

The Women's Educational Equity Act Resources for Ongoing Efforts

This article discusses how an experimental social science curriculum has influenced Latina/o students' perspectives of their potential to graduate high school and attend college. The curriculum, which is called the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP), requires students to adopt a serious academic subjectivity to analyze and address social conditions that may undermine their future opportunities. The curriculum reflects graduate-level seminars in critical theory and participatory action research. Many students in the first cohort to participate in the program were labeled “at risk” of dropping out. These students not only graduated but also excelled with the advanced-level course work. Their exposure to advanced-level work was the best measure for preventing their premature departure from high school as well as preparation for college. The article concludes with recommendations for how universities can work with local schools to foster the type of academic climate that is conducive to success.     

The Writing Center as a Key Actor in Secondary School Preparation

Secondary schools use a variety of methods to assess students’ learning. In particular, writing assignments are not only among the most widely utilized type of evaluation but also are one of the most important for future success in post-secondary school environments. The present analysis utilizes the McCallie School Caldwell Writing Center as a case study in high school writing center design and practice. Particularly, this article discusses how writing centers can play a vital role in assisting students, faculty, and schools to better prepare pupils for college and vocational success.     

Expanding the Start of the College Pipeline: Ninth-Grade Findings From an Experimental Study of the Impact of the Early College High School Model

Abstract

Early college high schools are a new and rapidly spreading model that merges the high school and college experiences and that is designed to increase the number of students who graduate from high school and enroll and succeed in postsecondary education. This article presents results from a federally funded experimental study of the impact of the early college model on Grade 9 outcomes. Results show that, as compared to control group students, a statistically significant and substantively higher proportion of treatment group students are taking core college preparatory courses and succeeding in them. Students in the treatment group also have statistically significantly higher attendance and lower suspension rates than students in the control group.