Background: Anger, a component of negative affect, has previously been associated with increased drug use primarily among white high school-aged students. However, few studies have examined these associations over time, and fewer have examined them among younger adolescents and students of color. Affective factors may play a greater role in drug…

This study described and compared the reading of sixth and eighth grade students both in and out of school using a unique data set collected with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). On average, students read forty minutes a day out of class and seventeen minutes a day in class indicating that reading is a common leisure practice for…

The goal of the study was to examine whether social motives (social mimicry, mutual attraction, and unreciprocated attraction) predict changes in antisocial behavior across middle school grades. The 2,003 initial participants (55% girls) were drawn from a larger longitudinal study of urban public school students: 44% Latino, 26% African-American,…

Research demonstrates a host of negative student outcomes associated with the transition to middle school. As school personnel seek to connect students to the new school, extracurricular participation, in particular, has the potential to influence student belonging and promote positive academic and psychosocial outcomes. Data from this…

Although achievement goal theory is currently one of the dominant theoretical frameworks used to understand and improve student motivation (Brophy, 2004), little work has been done to evaluate the achievement goals of students with ADHD. After an initial review of achievement goal theory, the current study begins to address four research…

This English textbook aims to foster and guide children's natural interests. The material is organized in three divisions, designed for use in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, respectively. The offering for the fourth year is greater in amount than that for the fifth and sixth years, in the expectation that some of it, if not adapted to the…

This textbook is part of a series that aims to develop all the mathematical power needed by the average person in the accurate control of his affairs. The purpose has been to teach first the most important topics of arithmetic and last those least frequently used. In addition to giving the child all the fundamental skills of calculation, room has…

This paper explores whether analysis of school library borrowing records can reveal any insights into the reading habits of junior age children. Data in the form of computerised library-borrowing records were collected from a cohort of 90 Year 6 (age 10-11 years) children over the full course of the academic year. Two-thirds of the cohort were…

This article describes one classroom's experience with a unit of study that helped students connect their artistic experiences with their understanding of prehistoric times. The unit, culminating in a performance, involved three sixth-grade classes. The components of the thematic unit reinforced an understanding of the elements and principles of…

This study was undertaken to examine the suspension percentages among three sixth-grade transition groups: (a) students who attended elementary or K-8 schools in sixth grade and K-8 schools in seventh grade, (b) students who attended elementary or K-8 schools in sixth grade and middle schools in seventh grade, and (c) students who attended middle…

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the perceptions and experiences of one class of sixth grade students enrolled in a Title I supplemental reading class. Qualitative research methods included observations, interviews, archived data, and Miscue Analysis. I examined the data through a Vygotsky constructivist perspective to provide…

This qualitative study examined individual-level factors that influence adolescents' responses to problem situations involving peers. Interviews were conducted with 106 middle school students (97% African American) from an urban school system. Participants described factors that would make it easier and those that would make it more difficult for…

This article is a cross-case study exploring two young African-American adolescent girls' experiences with school mathematics and the impact of the socio-cultural context upon their motivation and mathematical identity. Based on repeated in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation of their mathematics classroom, the researcher portrays…

This paper reports on Year 1 of a two-year study of implementing new literacies strategies into social studies and English/language arts content areas in two low-performing middle schools (grades 6-8). Situated within a New Literacies Studies framework, the study addressed three overarching questions: (1) What are teachers' and students'…

This appendix focuses on the descriptive statistics of the middle study schools that participated in the "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better. A Large-Scale Study of Middle Grades Practices and Student Outcomes. Initial Research." This appendix contains the following figures: (1) Student…