Changing the narrative in schools: Addressing systemic barriers and stereotypes that prevent gender and sexual diverse youth from thriving

Schools are no different than other political and cultural institutions that have at their foundations assumptions and policies based on stereotypes, hegemonic masculinity, binary notions of gender, and heteronormativity. When these foundations are questioned or challenged, resistance and disruption can occur. While there is evidence of greater acceptance of gender and sexual diversity (GSD) in schools, school professionals are often called upon to address the needs of GSD youth, as school environments may contain systemic barriers that prevent these youth from thriving. Addressing the needs of GSD youth can be complicated by other intersecting identities including race, religion, culture, disability, immigration status, and so forth. This special issue of PITS explores gender and sexual diversity, LGBTQ+identity, and the intersectionality of GSD with other identities that have historically struggled with marginalization and bias. An advocacy stance is proposed that focuses on the unique strengths and resilience of GSD youth to change the narrative from one of clinicalization of GSD youth to one of adaptability and empowerment. The articles in this special issue focus on barriers at multiple levels that impact GSD youth, from systemic barriers in educational contexts to those in the classroom, curriculum, extracurricular activities, and sports. Changing the narrative of GSD youth means focusing on stories of youth empowerment, advocacy, and healthy GSD development, while simultaneously challenging and dismantling the oppressive systems of heterosexism, cissexism, sexism, and racism, among others, that perpetuate unequal educational environments for minoritized student populations.     

The Performance Assessment System: A Portfolio Assessment Model for Evaluating Beginning Teachers

The Performance Assessment System (PAS) is a portfolio assessment mechanism used to evaluate beginning teacher performance as a function of the teachers approach and effectiveness at increasing student learning and growth. The PAS was originally developed by Teach For America, the national teacher corps, as an internal assessment tool for its teachers. The PAS has evolved in response to input from participants, administrators, and external evaluations over the course of four pilot implementations. Specifically, developers have streamlined requirements, focused efforts to incorporate measures of student performance, and clarified scoring rubrics. The PAS continues to be piloted as an assessment resource that eventually will help districts to retain only beginning teachers who are effective in the classroom and will empower states to license only teachers whose performance meets approved standards.     

Psychometric approaches to the identification of LD: IQ and achievement scores are not sufficient

Simulated data were used to demonstrate that groups formed by imposing cut-points based on either discrepancy or low-achievement definitions of learning disabilities (LD) are unstable over time. Similar problems were demonstrated in longitudinal data from the Connecticut Longitudinal Study, where 39% of the children designated as having LD in Grade 3 changed group placement with repeated testing in Grade 5. These results show that the practice of subdividing a normal distribution with arbitrary cut-points leads to instability in group membership. Approaches to the identification of children as having LD based solely on individual test scores not linked to specific behavioral criteria lead to invalid decisions about individual children. Low-achievement definitions are not a viable alternative to IQ-discrepancy definitions in the absence of other criteria, such as the traditional exclusions and response to quality intervention. If we accept the premise of multiple classes of low achievers, then we must develop identification systems that are valid and abandon systems whose only merits are their historical precedence and convenience.     

Using peer effects to explain retention rates in a private university

This study identifies factors associated with freshmen retention rates at a mid‐size private university. A key finding from our analysis is that roommates' academic efforts, residing on an honours floor and membership in co‐curricular groups increase retention. We also confirm many standard results in the literature regarding the impact on retention rates, such as student motivation and ability, and financial aid. We show that a timely housing application, closer proximity to home, a higher number of schools on a student's Free Application for Federal Student Aid and peer effects impact freshman retention. Our results suggest that a more sophisticated dormroom assignment algorithm matching students' abilities and interests could be considered to increase freshman retention rates among private institutions.     

Influences on Creativity in Technical Communication: Invention,Motivation, and Constraints

Interviews with 14 technical communicators reveal that skills in rhetorical invention help them creatively address communication problems. They define creativity in relation to four interrelated exigencies of invention: thinking like a user, reinvigorating dry content, inventing visual ideas, and alternating between heuristic and algorithmic processes. They recognize intrinsic factors such as curiosity and sympathy as motivations for their creativity, while being conscious of the external factors (people, money, and time) that may restrain creativity.     

Transactional Links Between Social Anxiety Symptoms and Parenting Across Adolescence: Between- and Within-Person Associations

This 4-year longitudinal multi-informant study examined between- and within-person associations between adolescent social anxiety symptoms and parenting (parental psychological control and autonomy support). A community sample of 819 adolescents (46.1% girls; M_ageT₁ = 13.4 years) reported annually on social anxiety symptoms and both adolescents and mothers reported on parenting. Between-person associations suggested that adolescent social anxiety symptoms were associated with higher adolescent- and mother-reported psychological control and lower mother-reported autonomy support. At the within-person level, however, mothers reported lower psychological control and higher autonomy support after periods with higher adolescent social anxiety symptoms. Our findings illustrate the importance of distinguishing among between-person and within-person associations and including perceptions of both dyad members in longitudinal research concerning parenting and adolescent mental health.     

Training teachers to use verbal immediacy

Previous research clearly demonstrates the positive impacts of using verbal immediacy in the college classroom. This paper explores the issue of training university instructors to increase their verbal immediacy use while teaching. First, a brief literature review recaps recent verbal immediacy studies and the reasons training could be valuable. Next, the training method is outlined and results reveal how university teachers were successfully trained to use significantly more verbal immediacy in their classrooms, compared to a control group of teachers who were not trained. A discussion concludes with the implications for improving college teaching.