During the 2004-2005 school year, Maya Kadakia conducted a pilot study of her master's project which focuses on how student engagement is affected by a curriculum that incorporates popular culture. She created a Language Arts unit which incorporates the video game Morrowhid. Maya teaches seventh grade Language Arts and Social Studies at a diverse…

Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable morbidity and premature mortality worldwide (American Lung Association, 2002). Statistics show that youth who do smoke report having their first cigarette while in middle school, thus this is a critical opportunity for prevention (Eissenburg & Balster, 2000). This…

Vertical connections, constructed using inquiry, give students the skills to reach new heights in both their academic and local communities. In this article, the authors present inquiry projects, developed by middle level teachers, to ensure that students use higher-level thinking skills to improve the community. Each project is connected to the…

The purpose of the Peer Victimization Intervention (PVI) was to develop and implement a culture-specific pilot intervention to address the effects of bullying on middle school students who are victims utilizing the Participatory Culture-Specific Intervention Model (PCSIM; Nastasi, Moore, & Varjas, 2004). The involvement of participants who serve…

The purpose of this study was to develop a program to help cultivate divergent thinking in mathematics based on open-ended problems and to investigate its effect. The participants were 398 seventh grade students attending middle schools in Seoul. A method of pre- and post-testing was used to measure mainly divergent thinking skills through…

Students' abstract reasoning abilities can differ from one society to another. Students' profiles play significant roles in these differences. The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between middle school students' cognitive development levels and their profiles (age, gender, and science achievement) using the Science Cognitive…

This article describes a protocol that was effective in collecting media-use pattern and sensitive health data from young adolescents. Students from three public school districts in the southeastern United States were recruited to participate in a study of the impact of the media on adolescents' sexual health. Using a 34-page mailed survey,…

The Technology Immersion Pilot (TIP), created by the Texas Legislature in 2003, set forth a vision for technology immersion in public schools. Senate Bill 396 called for the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to establish a pilot project to "immerse" schools in technology by providing a wireless mobile computing device for each teacher and…

Current literature on youth development supports the theory that out-of-school programming has an effect on youth development. However, little research has been conducted on types of out-of-school programs and comparisons among involvement in various activities in relation to developmental assets. Hence, the purpose of this study was to analyze…

The education system in Turkey has responded promptly to the need for environmental education (EE). However, the existing lack of relevant research may limit the functionality of EE programs in Turkey. In this study, the goal was to develop an environmental conscious database that would allow effective planning of EE. Specifically, the study was…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school-wide gender equity efforts and seventh grade girls' and boys' educational outcomes and psychological functioning. In this paper, we detail the components of the study, which included documenting that this school did in fact have a gender equitable environment; measuring…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of implementation of student-centered activities based on multiple intelligences (MI) theory on grade-7 students' attitudes toward and perceptions of science. While the experimental group consisting of 25 students was taught a unit on the atom and atomic properties using strategies based on…

This article addresses some important issues in mathematics instruction at the middle and secondary levels, including the structuring of a district's mathematics program; the choice of textbooks and use of calculators in the classroom; the need for more rigorous lesson planning practices; and the dangers of teaching to standardized tests rather…

The voices of students, as they share their lived experiences in school, provide an often missing perspective in the preparation of new teachers. As part of a research study that examined students' views on their educational experiences, particularly on the types of teachers and pedagogical practices that they perceived to be most beneficial to…

Maine is the first state to deliver "anytime, anywhere learning" to schools by providing laptop computers to every 7th and 8th grader in public schools statewide. It's an unprecedented attempt by a state to be a catalyst for school technology. The brainchild of then-Governor Angus King, the Independent who herded it through the…