"Deep reading comprehension" refers to the process required to succeed at tasks defined by the Common Core State Literacy Standards, as well as to achieve proficiency on the more challenging reading tasks in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) framework. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that three…

Existing reading comprehension assessments have been criticized by researchers, educators, and policy makers, especially regarding their coverage, utility, and authenticity. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate a new assessment of reading comprehension that was designed to broaden the construct of reading. In light of these issues, we…

Middle school is a crucial transition period for adolescents; in addition to beginning to grapple with the academic literacy demands of college and career readiness, they are working to find their place in public life and developing opinions about civic issues. This article presents debate as a literacy practice that is uniquely suited to helping…

This study examined the associations among gender, empathy, attitudes toward bullying, willingness to intervene, and bullying within peer groups in a sample of sixth and seventh-grade students (N = 346; M Age = 12.22 years). Peer groups were identified via social network analysis using NEGOPY (Richards, 1995) and peer-group predictors were…

Examination of the longitudinal relationship between empathy, social-emotional problems and cyberbullying is still rare and the present study is one of very few. The present study assessed whether low scores of affective and cognitive empathy at wave 1 (t1) can predict involvement in cyberbullying five months later (t2). Furthermore, it was…

The purpose of this action research was to explore and describe the relationship between middle school teachers' reports of their empathy and their reports of their likelihood of intervening in a bullying situation. Teacher volunteers from a single middle school within a suburban school district in a northeastern state were asked to complete…

A developmental model of children's understanding of nationality (Nationality Perspective-Taking Ability or NPTA) was proposed and evaluated in this study. The NPTA model expands extant definitions and provides a theoretical foundation for the developmental progression of national identity. Children (Mean age = 9.33 years) from Latin American and…