Considerable evidence shows the detriments of neighborhood social disorganization for urban youth. Researchers have focused less on potential neighborhood strengths or on the interplay of neighborhood perceptions and objective neighborhood characteristics. The authors examined the presence and perception of positive and negative neighborhood…

During 2009, three alternative teacher retraining programs in English as a Foreign Language, mathematics and biology were launched for the first time in one of Israel's largest teacher education colleges. The programs, which offered varied economic incentives to participants, were initiated by the state owing to shortages of teachers in these…

This study collected and examined information on K-12 teachers currently involved in online education in the United States. The purposes of this study included defining the demographics of these teachers, determining the extent to which they were formally educated and/or trained to teach online, and to compare these findings to those from a…

This mixed-methods study reports on the perspectives of 208 teacher candidates on teaching children with developmental disabilities and delays (DD) in inclusive classrooms from Kindergarten to Grade 6. The questionnaire included items on demographics, experience, knowledge, and feelings of competence, advocacy, and sense of efficacy. Open-ended…

A growing body of research suggests that school leaders and policymakers should attend to the social conditions within schools that promote instructional improvement and student achievement gains. This dissertation uses theoretical and empirical work on social capital to frame three aspects of the relationships among teachers. The three studies…

The purpose of the study was to determine the extent of use and experience that elementary school principals in Georgia have in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating student achievement results to evaluate teacher performance. The study included components related to principal behaviors and comfort level surrounding the teacher evaluation…

Background: In educational research on children's academic performance, few topics have received more attention than the consequences of school segregation and the impact of self-fulfilling prophecies. However, virtually no research has investigated whether self-fulfilling prophecies account for the impact of school composition on academic…

During a regular free writing time in class, children in Kindergarten through sixth grade in various areas of the city were given the writing prompt,"My dreams for the world". Writing samples were collected from an elementary school in an affluent area of the city, an elementary and a middle school in a low socio-economic area, and an…

Following the belief that diversity breeds innovation in scientific endeavors, there is a national push for more diversity in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce in order to maintain national economic competitiveness. Currently, STEM-related employment is only 28% non-White; however, greater efforts to recruit…

Today, boys generally underperform relative to girls in schools throughout the industrialized world. Building on theories about gender identity and reports from prior ethnographic classroom observations, we argue that school environment channels conceptions of masculinity in peer culture, fostering or inhibiting boys' development of anti-school…

This country review offers an independent analysis of major issues facing the use of school resources in Portugal from an international perspective. It provides a description of national policies, an analysis of strengths and challenges and options for possible future approaches. The analysis focuses on the process of decentralisation of school…

Educational access in developing countries has improved significantly in recent years, but less evidence is available on learning and learning progress in comparative perspective. This paper employs data from Young Lives to examine levels and trends in cognitive skill development and the links to enrolment in school across the four study countries…

The purpose of this study is to explore the journey of one large urban inner-city school district with a high population of Hispanics in South Texas as it worked to implement Positive Behavior Intervention and Support into primary (elementary) schools. We questioned, "How does a large urban inner-city school district serving a majority of…

The evidence is clear: better teachers improve student outcomes, ranging from test scores to college attendance rates to career earnings. Federal policy has begun to catch up with these findings in its recent shift from an effort to ensure that all teachers have traditional credentials to policies intended to incentivize states to evaluate and…

The authors use a rich data set on New York City public elementary schools to explore how changes in immigrant representation have played out at the school level, providing a set of stylistic facts about the magnitude and nature of demographic changes in urban schools. They find that while the city experienced an overall increase in its immigrant…