The Experiences of Low-Income Latina/o Families in an Urban Voucher,Parochial School

Catholic schools have become a popular choice for many low income families Latino/a families. Families enrollment in these schools are often faced with the mandate to participate. However, regardless of the mandate, some schools often experience low parental participation. The purpose of this study is to document the experiences of low income, Latino/a families around parental involvement in hopes of understanding the reasoning for participating (or not) in their child’s school. The researchers conclude that families do not participate for a number of reasons including lack of opportunities, and an unwelcoming environment. The implications for Latina/o urban education are discussed.     

Unequal academic achievement in high school: the mediating roles of concerted cultivation and close friends

Building from the classic Wisconsin model of status attainment, this study examines whether a specific style of parenting, concerted cultivation, and a close friend’s school-related attitudes and behaviors mediate the relationship between a family’s socioeconomic status and their child’s academic achievement in the United States. Using a recursive path model on nationally representative panel data of high school students (N = 10,350), the results confirm a direct association between socioeconomic status and concerted cultivation. In addition, concerted cultivation and close friends are shown to mediate the relationship between a family’s socioeconomic status and their child’s academic achievement.     

Peer-Collaborator Preferences of African American and White Sixth-Graders in Mathematics Classrooms

Abstract

This study focused on academic and social correlates of collaborator preferences of African American and White sixth-graders in mathematics classrooms in fall and spring. Students’ appraisals of emotional risk were examined as a moderator. Nomination procedures identified collaborator preferences, group affiliations, and social centrality; students self-reported engagement and emotional risk; school records provided achievement scores. Results indicated students preferred group affiliates, but not exclusively, as collaborators. Students with greater centrality, achievement, and engagement received more nominations. In the fall, high achievers received more nominations when appraisals of risk were high; whereas, engaged students whose appraisals of risk were low received more nominations. Results are interpreted in relation to coordinating social and academic factors in peer collaboration.     

Children's agency beliefs, cognitive performance, and conceptions of effort and ability: individual and developmental differences

In order to understand how children's beliefs and cognitive performance vary according to development in their conceptions of effort and ability, 120 fourth and sixth graders were given the following assessments: (a) a measure of agency beliefs, defined as the extent to which persons believe they have access to certain classes of potential means, including effort, ability, powerful others, and luck; (b) a battery of intelligence test scales, including figural patterns, letter series, arithmetic, and spelling; (c) an interview designed to assess developmental levels in conceptions of effort and ability. Correlations between intelligence scores and agency beliefs for effort decreased with increasing levels of reasoning about effort and ability, but correlations between intelligence scores and agency beliefs for ability increased with increasing levels of reasoning. No such trends were found in correlations between performance and agency beliefs for luck or for unknown causes. The results are discussed in terms of the interaction between individual differences and developmental change.     

Edulabs AGIRE project – evaluation of ICT integration in teaching strategies

The AGIRE project, under the Edulab concept, aims to promote the adoption of innovative teaching practices. This paper reports the support strategies used to evaluate the teacher practices at the end of a teacher training course (TTC) and analyse its impact on teacher technology integration, using a design-based methodology. Teachers’ initial perception was gathered using an online questionnaire comprising ICT personal and professional competencies. The questionnaire results and the classroom observations showed that the majority of teachers were at the level of ICT adoption, before attending the TTC, reaching the adaptation level of integration of ICT, after the TTC. A variety of teaching strategies (flipped classroom, collaborative work, …) and technologies (interactive white boards, tablets, videos, …) were explored. The results sustain the thesis that, with proper support, ICT can be integrated in educational contexts in an innovative way and contribute to the development of teachers’ digital literacy.     

Goodness of fit in the home: its relationship to school behavior and achievement in children with learning disabilities

This study examined whether a "goodness of fit" theoretical model, applied to families with and without children with learning disabilities, would be valuable in understanding the children's performance in school. A home interview was conducted with 63 families with a child with learning disabilities and 53 families with a comparable child without learning disabilities. The mothers were asked to rate how their own child fit into the family's expectations for children. It was found that, for both groups of families, children who were rated as a "poor fit" in the home demonstrated less positive behavior in the classroom and poorer achievement over the elementary school years. There was some evidence that poor fit in the home was even more negatively related to outcomes for children with learning disabilities. Discussion is centered on the importance of this theoretical model for understanding the importance of the home on successful school function.     

The role of relevant active questions in learning based upon successive presentations

Both active questions i.e. questions asked by subjects, and provided (or passive) questions i.e. offered to subjects as problems for solution, had been found to facilitate learning and retention of prose material when subjects were faced with a task of sufficient difficulty to challenge their competence. With difficult prose, boys and low ability subjects had gained most from active questions. These effects were more pronounced in the long term. In this study, the effects of relevant active questions i.e. questions which subjects can put alongside answers, are investigated and compared with those of active and provided questions, over a series of six presentations for both the short and the long term (i.e. after ten months). In the short term, although active questions give greater help than provided questions on the first presentation, and relevant active questions give the greatest improvement between the first and second presentations, provided questions are the most helpful overall. In the long term, however, both the active questions treatments prove to be as effective as provided questions. For low ability boys, the difference between treatments is negligble even in the short term; under the relevant active questions treatment the number of questions asked is greater; and the decline in inspection time over presentations is negligible.This study formed part of a Schools' Council Research project (Director: Dr. W. P. Robinson) in the Department of Psychology, University of Southampton.