French-Arab students and verbal intellectual performance: Do they really suffer from a negative intellectual stereotype?

Stigmatized group membership leads to deleterious consequences for individuals. More specifically, according to stereotype threat literature, the awareness of negative intellectual stereotypes can impair stereotyped group members’ performance. Based on this framework, two studies were designed to explain the lower grades obtained by French-Arab students, compared to French students. An Implicit Association Test (Study 1) revealed that native French students automatically expressed a negative stereotype regarding French-Arab students’ intellectual abilities. The second study (Study 2) examined whether this negative stereotype could alter French-Arab students’ intellectual performance in a threatening context. As expected, French-Arab students underperformed when the verbal task was presented as a measure of intellectual ability, compared to French students. When the task was presented as non-diagnostic, their performance equaled that of French students. The discussion herein addressed implications of these results in terms of discrimination against the French-Arab population.     

Electromagnetic Fields,Pulsed Radiofrequency Radiation,and Epigenetics: How Wireless Technologies May Affect Childhood Development

Mobile phones and other wireless devices that produce electromagnetic fields (EMF) and pulsed radiofrequency radiation (RFR) are widely documented to cause potentially harmful health impacts that can be detrimental to young people. New epigenetic studies are profiled in this review to account for some neurodevelopmental and neurobehavioral changes due to exposure to wireless technologies. Symptoms of retarded memory, learning, cognition, attention, and behavioral problems have been reported in numerous studies and are similarly manifested in autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, as a result of EMF and RFR exposures where both epigenetic drivers and genetic (DNA) damage are likely contributors. Technology benefits can be realized by adopting wired devices for education to avoid health risk and promote academic achievement.     

Beyond turnaround: a synthesis of relevant frameworks for leaders of sustained improvement in previously low-performing schools

We understand very little about what is special that leaders do to facilitate improvement that is both transformational and lasting in previously persistently failing schools in the United States. Relatively little is understood about change not just during the initial turnaround stage, but that endures on the larger journey as the school becomes a healthy organisation for adults and students. This lack of understanding is likely due to the lack of data sources because schools struggle to attain turnaround, let alone maintain the improvement and continue to grow. We conducted a literature review of frameworks implicated in leading a sustained school turnaround. This study synthesises existing frameworks relevant to implicated constructs of (1) school turnaround, (2) effective educational leadership, (3) turnaround external to education, and (4) sustained improvement external to education through developing a cohesive set of practices to inform the work of researchers and practitioners. We end by suggesting that this framework be tested and refined through examination of principal data so that it more robustly represents the work that leaders of sustained improvement undertake.     

The effects of consultee-centered consultation on teacher behavior

The purpose of this investigation was to respond to two deficiencies in past consultation research. It described the consultee-centered consultation techniques which were used, and it attempted to demonstrate the effectiveness of consultee-centered consultation in changing observable teacher behavior. Evidence was presented to show how consultation was followed by a reduction in the negative verbal behavior of two out of three teachers who participated in the study. An attempt was made to show how this study related to Caplan's (1970) assumptions regarding consultee-centered case-consultation. It was concluded that multiple baseline designs offer a viable approach to experimental research in consultation with small numbers of subjects.     

School psychological referrals in an inner city school

The present study investigated number and nature of school psychological referrals in a black, lower socioeconomic, “inner-city” school system. Unlike earlier investigations, this study demonstrated statistically significant sex and/or developmental differences in stated reason for school psychological referrals. Results were examined in terms of suggestions for the training of school psychologists as well as in light of several theoretical issues in urban education.     

Soliciting,vetting, monitoring,and evaluating: A study of state education agencies’ use of external providers for school improvement efforts

Journal of Educational Change - Recent United States (U.S.) educational policies—especially the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015—have challenged state education...