Investigating variables associated with the school success and educational resilience of urban youth of color should be a high priority because of the persistent achievement gap in the United States. The current study examined individual and peer factors' relation to the school engagement of 132 seventh- and eighth-grade students from a diverse…

This article discusses how soap bubbles can be used to teach scientific principles such as phases of matter and the reflection of light. The study of soap bubbles addresses the National Science Education Standards for grades 5-8 related to the properties and changes of properties in matter. The exercises suggested here can be flexible in terms of…

To examine the peer context of adolescent substance use, social network analysis was used to measure three domains of attributes of peer networks: social embeddedness, social status, and social proximity to substance users. The sample was a panel of 5,104 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in three public school systems surveyed every 6 months for…

The spin on Frazer School Librarian Laurie LeFever's entry for Syracuse University's 2007 E*LIT competition is what made her school literacy project for children with disabilities really unique. Instead of working with students to create a project that would be targeted toward children with disabilities, she actually used students with…

Students experience many forms of victimization at school, yet few studies address more than one form of victimization. In this study, we explored the incidence of multiple forms of peer victimization, including direct verbal and physical, relational, and sexual harassment victimization among urban middle school students. We examined the overlap…

This study examines how a wide variety of diverse friendship group attributes affect changes in indicators of school performance, social behavior, and mental health between early seventh and late eighth grade. Nine hundred and one middle school students named their friends. Independent data from these friends were used to construct friendship…

The authors test biosocial models that posit interactions between biological variables (testosterone, estradiol, pubertal status, and pubertal timing) and social context variables (family, peer, school, and neighborhood) in predicting adolescent involvement with cigarettes and alcohol in a sample of 409 adolescents in Grades 6 and 8. Models…

This textbook book is an English course intended for use during the seventh and eighth grades and provides for study along both lines of language work, grammar and composition. The book includes a section on dictionary use. The final chapter is devoted to word analysis and was designed especially for the benefit of that great majority of grammar…

The fundamental idea of "Oral English" Books I and II is "appeal to the ear." In many books on oral English, both the eye and the ear are appealed to at the same time. In this book the first appeal is to the ear alone. Contents include 24 fifth-grade lessons; 23 sixth-grade lessons; 30 seventh-grade lessons; and 40 eighth-grade…

Writing comes to life when students remember to watch for and express detail--name names. Examples from favorite authors, classroom exercises and discussion, and practice with absolutes and appositives all support students as they focus the "camera" on vivid descriptive elements. (Contains 3 figures.)

A dynamic cascade model of development of serious adolescent violence was proposed and tested through prospective inquiry with 754 children (50% male; 43% African American) from 27 schools at 4 geographic sites followed annually from kindergarten through Grade 11 (ages 5-18). Self, parent, teacher, peer, observer, and administrative reports…

This study tested the association between mother's early age at first birth and various life outcomes for her children in later adolescence and early adulthood. Data were analyzed from the Rochester Youth Development Study, an ongoing panel study of adolescents enrolled in seventh or eighth grade in Rochester Public Schools in 1988 ("N"=729). Boys…

In recent years in Spain there has been a growing popular concern as well as research interest in the study of social relations pertaining to coexistence at school, including a desire to know the real incidence and nature of conflicts involved. Thus, a great variety of school interventions have been underway, with the aim of reducing the…

This study presents policy and theory as they apply to diversity, equality and equity in Swedish social and educational policy. All education in Sweden should, according to the curriculum (Lpo 94, 1994, p. 5) be of equivalent value, irrespective of where in the country it is provided and education should be adapted to each pupil's circumstances…

The "English Standards of Learning Enhanced Scope and Sequence" for grades 6-8 is a resource intended to help teachers align their classroom instruction with the content found in "English Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools," adopted by the Board of Education in November 2002. The Enhanced Scope and Sequence…