Differences in Graduation Rates Between Young Black and White College Students: Effect of Entry into Parenthood and Historically Black Universities

Black and White students who enrolled in college by age 20 were selected from a national probability sample, in order to estimate the prevalence of having children and the effect of having a child on probability of graduation with a bachelors degree. Black students reported significantly higher rates of having children than White students, but rates for Black students at historically Black universities were similar to those of Black students at predominantly White universities. After controlling for family background, achievement, and other student characteristics, having a child within 5 years of starting college generally reduced the probability of graduating with a bachelors degree for Black women and White women and men. The independent effect of attending a historically Black college was significantly positive for Black women but not statistically significant for Black men.     

The relationship between grit,self-control,and early grade reading: a trial measuring soft skills in rural Tanzania

Abstract

Soft skills such as grit, self-control, and self-confidence have been shown to predict outcomes in school and in life. As such, their valid and reliable measurement is of substantial interest in educational research and policy circles. However, the vast majority of this research originates in Western countries; relatively little is known regarding the measurement of soft skills in developing country contexts and whether similar types of instruments can provide evidence of these skills. This paper presents a novel means of assessing grit, self-control, and self-confidence in rural Tanzania: through the use of scenario-based self-report questionnaires. Survey instruments were administered in three regions in Tanzania to 961 Standard 2 pupils. We found that scenario-based items provided valid and, in most cases, reliable estimates of the three tested soft skills. When comparing self-reported soft skills and reading ability, we found that both grit and self-control were significant predictors of reading and mathematics performance. After controlling for sex, region, and age, grit was found to have a stronger association with reading performance than socioeconomic status.     

Teacher–Child Interactions in Early Head Start Classrooms: Associations With Teacher Characteristics

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: The current study examined characteristics of 71 Early Head Start lead teachers in relation to classroom interactions with infants and toddlers. Measured teacher characteristics included education, years of experience, beliefs about child rearing, depressive symptoms, and the temperamental characteristics of positivity and frustration. Teacher–child interactions were measured using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, Toddler Version (La Paro, Hamre, & Pianta, 2012). Results indicated that field of degree was directly associated with the majority of dimensions of teacher–child interactions. Examination of teachers’ years of experience and intrapersonal characteristics revealed a number of significant interactions, indicating that teacher experience and appropriate beliefs may serve as protective factors in the presence of psychosocial risk factors. Practice or Policy: Overall, our findings suggest that both early childhood education degrees and years of experience are directly or indirectly associated with multiple dimensions of teacher–child interactions, confirming that these patterns established for preschool teachers hold for teachers of infants and toddlers. These results also suggest that years of experience and progressive beliefs about children may be especially important for teachers who are depressed or who have low levels of positivity and high levels of frustration. Implications for future research, as well as preservice and in-service professional development, are discussed.     

Young children learning about well-being and environmental education in the early years: a funds of knowledge approach

Early childhood educators currently provide content focused learning opportunities for children in the areas of well-being and environmental education. However, these are usually seen as discrete content areas and educators are challenged with responding to children’s interests in popular-culture inspired food products given these influence their consumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor and highly packaged food in the early childhood setting. This paper reports preliminary findings from a pilot randomised trial examining the interconnectedness of sustainability, well-being and popular-culture in early childhood education. Planning, assessment documentation and summaries from twenty-four learning experiences implemented by six educators over a six-week period were analysed using a deductive approach. Twenty well-being and environmental education topics were identified and shown to be generated by the educators when considering the children’s ‘funds of knowledge’ on popular-culture inspired food products. We argue that topics derived from children’s engagement with popular-culture may help educators to create an integrated approach to curriculum provision. This may impact child weight and facilitate obesity prevention and environmental sustainability as children create stronger connections between these content areas and their everyday choices and practices.     

Validity of the comprehensive receptive and expressive vocabulary test in assessment of children with speech and learning problems

The current researchers investigated construct, predictive, and differential validity for the Comprehensive Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test (CREVT). Participants were 243 public school students, ages 5.5 to 17.25 years. They represented four primary disabilities: Learning Disability (n = 115), Learning Disability with Speech Impairment (n = 29), Mental Retardation (n = 40), and Speech Impairment (n = 59). Adequate construct validity for the CREVT was documented, using the Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children–III as a criterion. Also, the CREVT significantly predicted the scores on the Wide Range Achievement Test–3. Lastly, the CREVT effectively differentiated between students with disabilities. These findings suggest that the CREVT may be helpful in identifying the presence of learning problems. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 39: 613–619, 2002.     

Causal Connections Between Mathematical Language and Mathematical Knowledge: A Dialogic Reading Intervention

The acquisition of early mathematical knowledge is critical for successful long-term academic development. Mathematical language is one of the strongest predictors of children's early mathematical success. Findings from previous studies have provided correlational evidence supporting the importance of mathematical language to the development of children's mathematics skills, but there is limited causal evidence supporting this link. To address this research gap, 47 Head Start children were randomly assigned to a mathematical language intervention group or a business-as-usual group. Over the course of eight weeks, interventionists implemented a dialogic reading intervention focused on quantitative and spatial mathematical language. At posttest, students in the intervention group significantly outperformed the students in the comparison group not only on a mathematical language assessment, but on a mathematical knowledge assessment as well. These findings indicate that increasing children's exposure to mathematical language can positively affect their general mathematics skills. This study is an important first step in providing causal evidence of the importance of early mathematical language for children's general mathematical knowledge and the potential for mathematical language interventions to increase children's overall mathematics abilities.     

The use of engineering design scenarios to assess student knowledge of global,societal, economic,and environmental contexts

Product archaeology as an educational approach asks engineering students to consider and explore the broader societal and global impacts of a product's manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal on people, economics, and the environment. This study examined the impact of product archaeology in a project-based engineering design course on student attitudes and perceptions about engineering and abilities to extend and refine knowledge about broader contexts. Two design scenarios were created: one related to dental hygiene and one related to vaccination delivery. Design scenarios were used to (1) assess knowledge of broader contexts, and (2) test variability of student responses across different contextual situations. Results from pre- to post-surveying revealed improved student perceptions of knowledge of broader contexts. Significant differences were observed between the two design scenarios. The findings support the assumption that different design scenarios elicit consideration of different contexts and design scenarios can be constructed to target specific contextual considerations.     

Restorying as political action: authoring resistance through youth media arts

ABSTRACT

This article explores the lived realities for young people growing up and learning in a climate of racial discrimination, religious intolerance, misogyny, and xenophobia, and how school-sponsored and school-supported uses of digital media can afford young people opportunities to navigate their experiences of social injustice and resist exclusionary discourses and practices. In a collaborative inquiry into the practices of two youth media producers, we explore how these counternarrative efforts are forms of restorying, in which young people write themselves into existence in ways that can reconfigure school spaces. Framed in Black feminist and critical cosmopolitan perspectives, this article considers how young people use new media tools in school to engage the narrative imagination and build the worlds they want to live in, simultaneously representing the political histories and realities of their everyday worlds and imagining alternative futures. We explore the ways schools can create opportunities for youth to engage in these new media practices that re-author themselves and the institutional spaces they encounter – and how these opportunities are situated within broader intersectional forms of systemic inequity and oppression.