Towards Critical Justice: Exploring Intersectionality in Community-based STEM-rich Making with Youth from Non-dominant Communities

We investigated how community ethnography as a pedagogy approach to STEM-rich making supported youth makers from two low-income urban communities engaged in sustained STEM-rich making towards making a difference in their communities. Data is drawn from two-year long ethnographic data across two community-based, youth making programs. We highlight two cases. Case # 1 focuses on one African American girl's making endeavors across one school year. Case # 2 looks at how two youth engaged in critical sense-making with regards to the currently available how-to making resources they could locate online. We discuss how these pedagogical moves supported the youth in making towards a more just future in ways that addressed intersecting scales of injustice.     

Capturing urban student voices in the creation of a science mini‐documentary

It has been widely proposed that student voices should play a crucial role in designing and implementing curriculum and instruction that promote students' engagement in science learning. In this study we examined the voices of two seventh grade boys from a low‐income urban community as they worked together in an after‐school program to create a student‐directed video documentary about science. Our analysis showed that these students used their voices to construct identities that they cared about in school, by reconstructing some aspects of their school identity that did not match who they aspired to be, as well as by gaining new resources to enact their desired identities. The examples provided demonstrate that integrating student voice in a science project can make participation in science a valuable tool in students' identity formation. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 667–694, 2006     

Joint Attention and Conversation in Mother-Infant-Sibling Triads

The current study investigated the general nature of joint attentional and conversational interaction in mother-infant-sibling triads. 9 19-month-old infants and 9 24-month-old infants were videotaped during 20 min of free play with their mothers and preschool-aged siblings around a common activity. Analyses revealed that even 19-month-old infants were capable of participating in triadic interactions and conversations, and that the proportional frequency of both these measures increased with age. Triadic conversations were nearly 3 times longer and elicited nearly twice as many infant turns per conversation as dyadic conversations. Infants were more likely to join into an ongoing conversational topic than to initiate one themselves, and they were more likely to take a turn in those conversations if they were in a joint attentional state with the speaker. Infants were just as likely to respond to a comment or request directed to another person as they were to one directed to themselves, indicating reliable comprehension of language not addressed to them. These results suggest that the mother-infant-sibling interactive context differs in important ways from the mother-infant dyadic context and that it is a richer language learning environment than previously supposed.     

School and Neighborhood Friendship Patterns of Blacks and Whites in Early Adolescence

This research examined the school and neighborhood friendships of 292 black and white children who attended an integrated junior high school. Most students reported having a close other-race school friend, but only 28% of the sample saw such a friend frequently outside of school. Reports of an interracial school friendship that extended to nonschool settings were significantly more common among black students than whites and among children who lived in integrated neighborhoods rather than segregated ones. Race differences in reported friendship behavior were also found on other friendship variables. Compared to whites, blacks reported more extensive neighborhood friendship networks but indicated that they talked to fewer friends during the school day. In addition, the study replicated prior findings that white girls report more peer social support than white boys but failed to find a gender difference in peer support among blacks. The discussion emphasizes the importance of the school/nonschool ecology and the need for further comparative study of white and black children's friendship patterns.     

Preparing for Leadership Turnover in Christian Higher Education: Best Practices in Succession Planning

In the face of unprecedented disruption and complexity, the higher education sector appears to be largely underprepared for the projected exodus of senior-level administrators due to retirements and briefer tenures in leadership roles. Given that religiously affiliated institutions account for more than one in five colleges and universities in the United States, it is concerning that relatively few studies have addressed succession planning in this sector, and in Christ-centered higher education in particular. This article provides a review of the literature that has addressed the topic of succession planning and discusses the findings from a single-institution ethnographic case study that explored the culture of succession planning and leader development at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. The conceptual framework used in this study was developed through the dissertation research of C. L. Richards in 2009, and is referred to as the 5Cs Model: Strategies for Succession Planning in the Academy. Through a grounded theory study, Richards suggested five strategies leaders should consider as they approach succession planning in academic institutions: culture, champions, communication, competency-based, and continuous. The article then discusses succession planning as an effective process that presidents, boards, and senior leaders can use to intentionally develop a cadre of future leaders, highlighting the unique challenges and best practice opportunities of pursuing this strategy, and recommends several implications for practice in Christian higher education.     

Humanizing the Journey Across the Mexico–U.S. Border: Multimodal Analysis of Children’s Picture Books and the Restorying of Latinx (Im)migration

Children's Literature in Education - In response to current anti-immigration rhetoric and policy coming from national leadership, the authors engage in multimodal analysis of picture books that...     

Development,content validity and test-retest reliability of the Lifelong Physical Activity Skills Battery in adolescents

Numerous skill batteries assess fundamental motor skill (e.g., kick, hop) competence. Few skill batteries examine lifelong physical activity skill competence (e.g., resistance training). This study aimed to develop and assess the content validity, test-retest and inter-rater reliability of the “Lifelong Physical Activity Skills Battery”. Development of the skill battery occurred in three stages: i) systematic reviews of lifelong physical activity participation rates and existing motor skill assessment tools, ii) practitioner consultation and iii) research expert consultation. The final battery included eight skills: grapevine, golf swing, jog, push-up, squat, tennis forehand, upward dog and warrior I. Adolescents (28 boys, 29 girls; M = 15.8 years, SD = 0.4 years) completed the Lifelong Physical Activity Skills Battery on two occasions two weeks apart. The skill battery was highly reliable (ICC = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.72–0.90) with individual skill reliability scores ranging from moderate (warrior I; ICC = 0.56) to high (tennis forehand; ICC = 0.82). Typical error (4.0; 95% CI 3.4–5.0) and proportional bias (r = ?0.21, p = .323) were low. This study has provided preliminary evidence for the content validity and reliability of the Lifelong Physical Activity Skills Battery in an adolescent population.     

The culture of power and science education: Learning from Miguel

In this paper we begin a discussion around the need for science educators to understand the relationship between cultural and socioeconomic issues and the science education of inner‐city students. We refer to the works of critical scholars in science, education, and sociology in order to help us deconstruct the relationship between sociopolitical agendas and the lack of opportunity in science education for students from lower socioeconomic inner‐city enclaves. Through our ethnographic case study of a homeless family in a major metropolitan area in the Northeast, we frame our analysis through the pedagogical questions of representation of science through culture, socioeconomic status, and “culture capital.” We use this analysis to raise questions for further research on the significance of understanding, accessing, and critiquing the “culture of power” in science education. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 871–889, 2000     

Correlates of ability patterns in children and adults: Implications for teaching

Several researches are presented as evidence that children with a high verbal -low spatial ability profile fend to respond in the “usual” way to social reinforcement or praise, whereas children with a high spatial - low verbal profile do not find such praise reinforcing. Several implications for teaching such HiS-LoS and HiV-LoS children are seen in these studies and considered in detail. Specifically the following implications are discussed: (a) the need for better identification of children with HiV-LoS and HiS-LoV profiles, (b) what kinds of reinforcers to use with these children in the classroom, (c) group vs. individual instruction, (d) the need to socialize the HiS-LoV child, and (e) the need for care in academic assessment.