Understanding inclusive STEM high schools as opportunity structures for underrepresented students: Critical components

Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) can be viewed as opportunity structures for students underrepresented in STEM. By opportunity structures, we mean an education that provides not only access to high quality STEM curriculum and instruction or “opportunity to learn,” but also the capacity to create learning environments where students can build STEM social capital and the dispositions, knowledge, skills, and networks to be successful in STEM college majors and careers. This is a cross‐case analysis of case studies that describe the design and implementation of eight “exemplar” ISHSs. Beginning with 10 hypothesized critical components, we found evidence for all 10, but present in unique patterns of prominence, depending on the school context. Further inductive analysis located an additional four emergent critical components that complete the picture of how these successful ISHSs were able to achieve their goals. Importantly, across schools, four components stood out as foundational: a flexible and autonomous administrative structure; a college‐preparatory, STEM‐focused curriculum for all; well‐prepared STEM teachers and professionalized teaching staffs; and supports for students in underrepresented groups. Although many of the critical components found in the ISHSs are also found in the school reform literature, these schools also had characteristics unique to STEM education. This paper is important in understanding STEM high schools as opportunity structures and as a school reform alternative that can help solve equity and social mobility gaps in STEM.     

The Nature and Consequences of Essentialist Beliefs About Race in Early Childhood

It is widely believed that race divides the world into biologically distinct kinds of people—an essentialist belief inconsistent with reality. Essentialist views of race have been described as early emerging, but this study found that young children (n = 203, M_age = 5.45) hold only the more limited belief that the physical feature of skin color is inherited and stable. Overall, children rejected the causal essentialist view that behavioral and psychological characteristics are constrained by an inherited racial essence. Although average levels of children's causal essentialist beliefs about race were low, variation in these beliefs was related to children's own group membership, exposure to diversity, as well as children's own social attitudes.     

数字技术赋能我国医疗治理现代化建设研究

数字技术的快速发展为我国实现医疗治理现代化提供了可行的操作路径。文章在分析数字技术赋能医疗机构和医生、政府、社会群体等多元主体、提升医疗服务供给能力、普惠性和公平性、友好性和便利性等方面作用基础上,探讨了数字技术赋能医疗治理现代化建设的4个重点问题,即数字医疗基础设施建设、数字技术采纳的影响因素、数据资产属性确权、数据安全与科技伦理。基于国际数字医疗应用场景,提出推动数字技术赋能我国医疗治理现代化建设的对策建议：以道路自信为核心、以医疗情景驱动为引擎、以技术融合应用为抓手,聚焦数字技术价值创造引导多元主体协同治理,融入全球创新、承担大国责任、倡导科技向善。     

Colleagues’ roles in the professional development of teachers: Results from a research study of National Board certification

This study investigated the nature of interaction among teachers that occurred around the National Board certification (NBC) process and how that collegial interaction influenced teachers’ professional development. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 14 teachers who were either considering NBC, in the process, or had been awarded NBC. Interview data were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Results indicated that teacher interactions triggered by NBC helped one another's professional development in several ways: (a) enhancing reflection on teaching practice, (b) establishing a professional discourse community, (c) raising the standards for teaching performances, and (d) facilitating collaboration. Implications for teacher professional development were discussed.