In 2003, Chicago schools required students entering ninth grade with below-average math scores to take two periods of algebra. This led to higher test scores for students with both above- and below-average skills, yet failure rates increased for above-average students. We examine the mechanisms behind these surprising results. Sorting by incoming…

This study examined the relationship between structure and support in the high school climate and suspension rates in a statewide sample of 199 schools. School climate surveys completed by 5,035 ninth grade students measured characteristics of authoritative schools, defined as highly supportive, yet highly structured with academic and behavioral…

When students and teachers discuss subject matter, at least two processes generally occur: Students and teachers become socially identified as recognizable types of people, and students learn subject matter. This article contributes to recent work on how social identification and learning systematically interrelate by describing one complex way in…

This study tested a model of teacher interventions (TIs) conducted during cooperative learning to examine how they affected students' subsequent time on-task (TOT) and problem solving. TIs involved groups of ninth-grade students working on an algebra problem; videotaped lessons were transcribed and analyzed. Results showed that teachers initiated…

Working from data originally collected by Kropp and Stoker (ED 010 044) on the validity of Bloom's taxonomy, this paper attempts to demonstrate that a multiplicity of analytic methods leads to a clearer conception of causal relationships than any single method. (Author/MH)

Current literature on status attainment and student college choice is reviewed, and a structural model of predisposition to attend college is presented. Data from 2,497 ninth graders attending 21 high schools in Indiana and their parents, analyzed using LISREL, support the model's usefulness in determining students' college choice. (SLD)

Predictive relations between mathematics and verbal achievement and several different measures of motivation were examined in samples of 348 sixth-grade and 325 ninth-grade Norwegian students. Results support the internal/external frame of reference model suggesting that academic self-concepts are influenced by both external and internal…

The causal role of students' self-efficacy beliefs and academic goals in self-motivated academic attainment was studied for 102 ninth and tenth graders (50 males and 52 females) using path analysis procedures. Perceived efficacy to achieve motivates academic attainment both directly and indirectly by influencing personal goal setting. (SLD)

A field study was conducted to investigate classroom management from the perspective of high school students. Findings suggested that students use six strategies to achieve two major goals during classroom events and that the combination of strategies used by students is based on different context features of each classroom. (Author/BS)

Whether there is a gender-by-item interaction that makes easy mathematics test items easier for females than for males and difficult items harder for females than for males was tested in two studies, involving 10,321 eighth graders and 5332 ninth graders and results from nine mathematics tests. The hypothesis was generally supported, as discussed.…

Characteristics of eighth and ninth graders in 92 honors, regular, and remedial English classes (1,564 students); the quality of instruction; and links between instruction and achievement were studied in an organizational analysis of the effects of ability grouping. Student participation and discussion were higher in honors classes. (SLD)

Despite heated debate over detracking, little research exists on how the reform plays out in the classroom. This article, based on a year-long interpretive study of a detracked ninth-grade program at a diverse urban high school, focuses on the encounter between the "official" practices of the detracked classrooms under study and the…

Examines perceived obstacles encountered by collaborating teachers, administrators, and researchers in raising expectations for ninth graders at risk for failure in an inner-city high school. Findings illustrate that preventive action must move beyond the teacher-student dyad to include the context of expectations for students, teachers, and…

Naturally occurring aptitude-treatment interactions (ATI) were investigated with three teaching approaches: lecture-recitation, inquiry, and public issues discussion. When the measure of student performance was based on objectives of the approach, the results showed an ATI for ability X anxiety that was partially replicated across studies.…

To explore question-answering strategy differences between young "good" and older "poor" readers, 60 fifth and sixth grade good readers and 60 ninth and tenth grade poor readers responded to questions about passages read and reinspected. Strategies used were inferred through analysis of response errors. Implications for reading…