This study is a phenomenological analysis of the experiences of members of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) team when an appreciative approach is taken during the IEP process in a middle school in rural New England. The specific phenomenon studied is individuals' experience when student strengths are discussed explicitly as an IEP is…

In this paper, we aim to untangle positioning theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) and its implications for the field of mathematics education research, considering both existing use and potential use. Specific theoretical assumptions of positions or positionings in the context of learning mathematics are outlined. In this paper, a classroom-based…

Youth are social actors who not only engage in but transform culture. Promoting plurality often means letting go of preconceived notions of power in youth social circles. Here, we utilize parent-child ethnography and the lens of queer theory to analyse four stories of youth identity exploration and answer the following research questions: 1) how…

Most previous research on residential outdoor environmental education (ROEE) programs has focused on the outcomes associated with student participation in these learning experiences. In contrast to these previous studies, this research takes an interpretivist approach to understand how work as a short-term instructor in a ROEE setting may also…

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 study looks at a student writing culture in a fifth grade English language arts classroom through the lens of Foucauldian power dynamics to examine the power relationships in the classroom and curriculum. The research questions were: (1) What is the nature of a writing culture in a fifth-grade writing classroom?; (2) What are students'…

This resource describes how one art classroom used "everyday labor" as a topic to connect artmaking to community workplaces. The work of Theaster Gates, Faith Ringgold, Jacob Lawrence, Jeremy Deller, and Adrian Piper are suggested to stimulate class dialogue about work, labor, and jobs. The author invited members of their farming…

This study examined changes in middle school teachers' beliefs about inquiry, implementation of inquiry practices, and self-efficacy to teach science through inquiry after participating in a year-long professional development program. The professional development model design was based on Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory of learning and…

We illustrate how early adolescents use different patterns of ability feedback to promote a positive self-concept of ability (SCA) in mathematics. Students can simultaneously use ability appraisals from parents and teachers, while also drawing information from peer, dimensional, and temporal comparisons. Although we find these five sources are…

Purpose: Relying on the principles of the social exchange theory, the current study is aimed at investigating the impact of team-member exchange relationships (TMX) among school management team (SMT) members on school outcomes (organizational citizenship behavior [OCB], job satisfaction and innovation) via the mediating role of leader-member…

This concurrent multi-phase mixed methods study investigated whether indicators of Social Cognitive Theory could be observed in Grades 3-5 classrooms and if these indicators could be used to describe teacher effectiveness in high poverty schools. The conceptual framework drew upon Bandura's (1997) measurement of the individual self-efficacy of…

In an effort to provide intervention for struggling adolescent readers, schools are turning increasingly toward computer-assisted reading intervention programs. This case study analyzes the perceptions, and contradictions, that exist between students, teachers, and administrators of the intervention tools used at one urban middle school. The…

Psychological factors such as grit and self-efficacy have been heralded as powerful predictors of performance. Their joint contribution to the prediction of early adolescents' school success has not been fully investigated, however. The purpose of this study was to examine U.S. elementary and middle school students' (N = 2,430) grit (assessed as…

Middle school is a critical time in students' learning of mathematics, something a Learning Management System (LMS) is designed to help parents support. What remains unknown is how parents use an LMS to monitor their children's progress in mathematics. This qualitative case study explored how parents from one midAtlantic middle school with 543…