Publicly funded pre-K is often touted as a means to narrow achievement gaps, but this goal is less likely to be achieved if poor and/or minority children do not, at a minimum, attend equal quality pre-K as their non-poor, non-minority peers. In this paper, I find large "quality gaps" in public pre-K between poor, minority students and…

Purpose/Objectives: This study investigated the use of electronic and paper-based point-of-service (POS) systems in school nutrition programs (SNPs), including associated challenges and the desired skills and existing training practices for personnel handling such systems. Methods: A questionnaire was developed based on interviews with 25 SNP…

School counselors help foster student's academic, social, and career development; yet, school counselors are often neglected in research on school climate and student safety. Framed by the theory of planned behavior, this study examined how 206 school counselors' multicultural counseling competence, multicultural self-efficacy, and perceptions of…

Research Findings: It is widely acknowledged that consistent, high-quality teacher-student interactions promote optimal developmental outcomes for children. Previous research on the quality of teacher-student interactions provides empirical support for this premise. Little research has been conducted on the consistency of teacher-student…

Acculturation and linguistic factors were examined as predictors of self-esteem and language confidence among 91 international college students. The majority of participants were Asian (64.8%), female (59.3%), and graduate students (76.9%). Assimilative (adopting host cultural values) and integrative (blending both host and home cultural values)…

Black and Latino young men who have sex with men (YMSM) are at disproportionate risk for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV. This study informs school-centered strategies for connecting YMSM to health services by describing their willingness, perceived safety, and experiences in talking to school staff about sexual health.…

Research Findings: As policymakers expand access to preschool, the sociodemographic composition of preschool classrooms will become increasingly important. These efforts may create programs that increase the concentration of children from low-income families or, alternatively, foster the creation of socioeconomically diverse preschool classrooms.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between acculturation, birthplace, and alcohol-related social problems across Hispanic national groups. A total of 5,224 Hispanic adults (18+ years) were interviewed using a multistage cluster sample design in Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Houston, and Los Angeles. Multivariate analysis…

A great deal of developmental research has relied on self-reports solicited using the "some/other" question format (""Some students" think that...but "other students" think that..."). This article reports tests of the assumptions underlying its use: that it conveys to adolescents that socially undesirable…

This report examines the results of the field test for the base year of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). The general purposes of the field test were, in anticipation of the base-year full-scale effort, to test instruments, forms, and procedures; to experiment with different approaches to questionnaire content and survey…

Recent research conducted on adults in the United States indicates low ocean literacy (Ocean Project, 2009b, 1999), but there is a dearth of peer-reviewed research on K-12 students' ocean literacy. This paper presents two research studies that examined the ocean and environmental literacy of 464 K-12 students in five states. Like the majority of…

The challenge of producing the systemic changes that are needed to boost educational attainment and economic competitiveness across the country falls heavily on entities that coordinate public postsecondary institutions. Coordination of postsecondary education, whether of a single system of institutions or across an entire state, requires…

The National Center for School Counseling Outcome Research (CSCOR) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst studied exemplary practices of 18 high schools that received recognition for college preparation and placement in 2004 and 2005. Through interviews with key personnel at each of the high schools, the researchers generated a set of ten…

When the modern U.S. environmental movement began in the 1970s, it relied largely on regulation to reduce negative environmental impacts. Companies responded by creating centers of environmental expertise within their organizations. The major focus of a second wave of corporate environmentalism, which began during the late 1980s, was on…

Enculturation is the degree to which a person adheres to the values and behaviors of an indigenous or ethnic culture. This study was conducted to develop the Enculturation Scale for Filipino Americans (ESFA). Items were generated from a literature review, interviews with 5 Filipino American academic experts, and a survey of 24 cultural informants.…