While many jurisdictions ban teacher strikes on the assumption that they harm students, there is surprisingly little research on this question. The majority of existing studies make cross section comparisons of students who do or do not experience a strike, and report that strikes do not affect student performance. I present new estimates from a…

Picture books can be used to teach children to infer, hypothesise, question, identify, explain and compare. By making the "invisible visible" preservice teachers in Canada explored ways to enhance the development of critical science and literacy skills through the creation of picture books in collaboration with students in Grades 5 and…

The new Québec curriculum is different from other curriculum reforms in that it is based on a competency approach, both cross-curricular and disciplinary. It thus means a move from knowledge-based to competency-based assessments which represents a real challenge to parents who may find it hard to understand learning assessments and their child's…

This longitudinal study builds on research addressing changes in achievement goal orientations (AG) across the transition to middle school. We had two objectives. The first was to identify and describe different development trajectories of AG (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance) from the last year of elementary school (Grade…

While students begin schooling with high engagement levels, these levels begin to drop in the middle years of schooling but appear to recover somewhat in 10th grade, suggesting that the middle years of schooling are an especially vulnerable time in terms of student engagement (Willms et al., 2009). Moreover disengagement is most common in students…

If the definitions of global citizenship are varied and contestable, how do teachers conceptualize and make meaning of global citizenship when required to teach global citizenship in the classroom? For this study, twenty-nine grade six social studies teachers in British Columbia, Canada, were surveyed on their definitions of global citizenship…

The aim of this mixed methods research study was to examine the construction of adolescents' bi-cultural identities through an exploration of their social practices on the social networking site, Ning. More specifically, we ask: (1) how are new Canadian and first-generation adolescents' bi-cultural identities shaped and performed as they use…

The current study bridges research on peer relational and physical victimization with research on ethnic victimization and situates this research in the context of ethnic diversity. Specifically, the authors investigate how ethnic, relational, and physical victimization relate to concurrent levels of depression/anxiety and physical aggression and…

The goal of the present study was to design, implement, and evaluate a school-based programme that aimed to increase self-esteem and positive body image among preadolescent boys and girls. Participants in grades five and six (N = 77; M [subscript age] = 10.86, 53.2% girls) from a public school in Eastern Ontario completed a battery of validated…

The growing diversity of Ontario's population is increasing pressure on the education system to ensure that all students receive equal opportunities to excel academically and develop personally. Students are more likely to succeed if their own racial, ethnic, and cultural identity is reflected in the classroom. This observation applies no less to…

Educators have long recognized that parental and community supports are important underpinnings for children's success in school. With respect to the teaching of writing, however, little research has been conducted to provide evidence of effective practices teachers use to involve parents and communities. As part of a national Canadian study of…

Most second language (L2) researchers and teachers would agree that input, often defined as the language a learner hears or reads, plays an important role in L2 learning. There is a great deal of research investigating which types of input are most beneficial for learning, how learners process and internalize input (e.g., Schmidt, 2001), and how…

In this article, we explore how we live among students and teachers as a/r/tographers and how we become creatively immersed in the wholeness of the classroom experience as a result. This is in contrast to our initial intentions of using ethnographic techniques and qualitative methods. As we began our project, it became apparent that another lens…

Parent involvement in children's education remains one of the most significant predictors for children's academic achievement. This finding generally holds across the range of social group categories including race, culture, class, and family structure. However, relatively little research has been conducted on parental involvement in children's…

This study evaluated the impact of two metalinguistic factors, English derivational awareness and English-Spanish cognate awareness, and the impact of two sociocultural factors, maternal education and children's length of residence in Canada, on English Language Learners (ELLs)' vocabulary knowledge. The participants of the study were 89…