Exploring the relationship between school discipline referrals and delinquency

There is a growing concern about violent and destructive behaviors of youth that require intervention by juvenile justice and youth‐serving agencies. This concern has led many to conclude that schools and community agencies must increase efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency and to provide programs that will facilitate rehabilitation, education, and vocational training for youth already involved. A clear understanding of the nature and range of behaviors that result in juvenile crime is needed in order to develop programs and interventions that can be expected to lead to beneficial changes for youth and for society as a whole. The purpose of this article is to describe the relationship between school behaviors and youth characteristics in school (e.g., discipline referrals, teacher nominations, nomothetic ratings) and referrals to juvenile authorities (e.g., illegal behaviors). We describe a strategy of using teacher nominations, school discipline referrals, and community arrest data to predict delinquent and violent behavior in youth. We outline data from a group of socially maladjusted middle school youth to illustrate the relationship between the two data sources and recommendations for identification and treatment of youth at risk for delinquency and antisocial behavior. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The structural relationship between writing attitude and writing achievement in first and third grade students

This study tested three models of the structural relationship between the writing achievement of primary grade students and their attitude towards writing (defined here as an affective disposition involving how the act of writing makes the author feel, ranging from happy to unhappy). The three models tested were: (a) writing attitude influences writing achievement in a unidirectional manner, (b) writing achievement influences writing attitude in a unidirectional manner, and (c) the effects of writing attitude and achievement are bidirectional and reciprocal. The model that best fit the data was based on the assumption that writing attitude influences writing achievement. In addition, the direct path between attitude and achievement in this model was statistically significant. Although third grade students were better writers than first grade students, there was no statistical difference in younger and older students’ attitude towards writing. In addition, girls were more positive about writing than boys, but there was no statistical difference in their writing achievement related to gender. This research extends models based on the cognitive and language processes of writing to include the role of attitude, which is an affective component of motivation.     

Lower-Division Class size at U.S. Postsecondary Institutions

The 1992—93 National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) provides a unique opportunity to examine class size and the institutional and academic factors associated with class size differences. The institutional characteristics examined in this paper include public or private control, Carnegie classification, and institutional size. The course academic characteristics considered include academic discipline as described by Biglan (1973a), student level, and principal method of instruction. The results support the formation of comparative distributions for class size comparison and better understanding of institutional and course characteristics associated with class size differences.     

Imagining and Moving Beyond the ESL Bubble: Facilitating Communities of Practice Through the ELL Ambassadors Program

When educators do not facilitate English language learners’ (ELLs) social integration in schools, this can perpetuate ELLs’ marginalized status and the plateauing of ELLs’ English language development. This study highlights a program for secondary ELLs called the ELL Ambassadors program, which partnered ELLs with non-ELLs based on shared extracurricular interests. Comparing the stories, perspectives, and test scores of five newcomer ELLs from varied countries of origin, this article shows how program participants strengthened their English language skills and achieved academic success, demonstrating tremendous agency as they gained access to, and were socialized within, interest-based communities of practice. Further, this article documents how youth imagined and claimed new identities, moving beyond the insulation and isolation of the ESL bubble to gaining confidence through interest-based learning with other peers. Findings suggest that interest-based peer programs at schools may create important opportunities for ELLs’ academic, language, and identity formation.     

Social Media References in Newspapers

Social media are increasingly being used as sources in mainstream news coverage. Yet, while the research so far has focused mainly on the use of social media in particular situations, such as breaking news coverage, during crisis news events or in times of elections, little attention is paid to journalists' routine, day-to-day monitoring of social media platforms. The aim of this study is to examine the use and selection of social media as sources in routine newspaper coverage. First, it presents a quantitative overview of all the articles published between January 2006 and December 2013 in the print editions of two Flemish (north Belgian) quality newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen, that explicitly refer to Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Next, a content analysis is conducted of a sample of newspaper articles published in 2013 that explicitly mention Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as sources of information. The goal of this content analysis is to examine the different appearances and functions of social media references in the news. The study thus provides a first insight into Belgian newspaper journalists' regular sourcing routines in relation to social media.     

Introduction: The prospects for mobile learning

The issue that this article introduces grew out of an event, the UNESCO Mobile Learning Week, but also out of a wider and growing movement of people and organisations exploiting mobile technologies, as they pursue varied educational missions. The UNESCO Mobile Learning Week represented by contributions here was a focus for contributions from across the field. This article provides a wider discussion of these contributions, first by looking at the achievements of UNESCO and then by considering these achievements more critically. In particular, it highlights several sets of inherent challenges facing UNESCO and other organisations engaging in mobile learning: those around evidence, evaluation, and sustainability; the problematic tension between large-scale interventions, based on scale and content delivered by national governments, and the language and culture of marginal or indigenous people; the absence of appropriate ethics procedures to manage educational interventions delivered by a powerful and ubiquitous technology; and the absence of learners in the forums that address all these various issues.     

Teaching writing to middle school students: a national survey

A random sample of language arts, social studies, and science middle school teachers from the United States were surveyed about their preparation to teach writing, beliefs about responsibilities for teaching writing, use of evidence-based writing practices, assessment of writing, use of technology, and adaptations for struggling writers. The findings from this survey raised concerns about the quality of middle school writing instruction. Many teachers believed their preservice and inservice preparation to teach writing was inadequate. Middle school students spend little time writing or being taught how to write. While most teachers used a variety of evidenced-based writing practices and made adaptations for struggling writers, such methods were applied infrequently. Most teachers did not appear to use assessment data to shape how they taught writing, and computers played a relatively minor role in middle school writing instruction. Even though teachers generally agreed that writing was a collective responsibility, language arts teachers placed a greater emphasis on writing instruction than social studies and science teachers.