Background: Rates of PA are low among adolescents living in rural areas. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to measure 1 week of "free-living" PA via accelerometer among 9th- and 10th-grade students who reside in rural Appalachia. A second purpose was to identify gender differences in Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) variables correlated…

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) has been used in several development studies, but few have used it for the purposes of formative assessment. This article reports from a study where the activity system was used to conduct a historical and actual-empirical analysis of the assessment culture at a purposively selected school. The article…

This program evaluation study examines an implementation of a one-to-one laptop initiative in a rural high school. Specifically, the researchers adopted a holistic view in evaluating the process and outcomes of this implementation by examining the interrelationships among the key participants using activity theory as a conceptual framework.…

This study evaluates the Youth Development Program (YDP), a component of the federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA). We examine whether the YDP reduced dropout rates among youth in secondary schools in seven school districts in the impoverished Mississippi River Delta in southeast Arkansas. Initially, the program seems to have an impact. Students…

Younger generations are increasingly questioning the legitimacy of teachers. However, evidence concerning classroom authority and the many factors that shape it tend to disregard the complexity and dynamics of the relationship between the teacher and the student. This paper aims to contribute to further unfold and understand this topic.…

Set within the affective turn in cultural and social theory, in this paper, I explore the significance of materiality and matter, most specifically, bodily matter, in the pedagogic practices of contemporary school classrooms. The received view in education is that affect is tantamount to emotion or feeling and that materials, such as bodily…

The "purpose" of this article is to illustrate how potential learning is related to hegemonic speech genres. This we do through examples from two religious education (RE) classrooms, one Norwegian and one Swedish. By presenting important dimensions of speech genres used in RE classrooms, the article also contributes to developing theory.…

Increasing dropout rates in senior high school physical education, particularly among females, and unhealthy activity and obesity levels in youth have led to recommendations to assess potential contributing factors in physical education participation. Drawing from gender, body image, and social-cognitive theory, this study investigated relations…

Background: Research on PE indicates that the subject is marked by rather stable gendered patterns of behaviour and perceptions of the subject. This paper marks an attempt to outline a theoretical approach that makes it possible to interpret what is going on in the gym in a way that might challenge the reproduction of gender. Purpose: To…

Relationships between contextual support, perceived educational barriers, and vocational/educational self-efficacy and outcome expectations were examined for a group of 114 ninth graders from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Results of this exploratory pilot study indicated that sibling and peer support accounted for a significant amount of…

A school social work intervention called the "Getting Better Phenomenon" is redesigned as a curriculum resource for eighth- and ninth-grade teachers. The activities in the curriculum represent a synergy of provincial learning expectations; academic assessment and evaluation structures; teacher-guided delivery of student-generated "course" content;…