The extent to which teachers make changes in classroom seating reflects, in part, the degree to which they value promoting positive peer relationships in the classroom. We assessed the frequency with which teachers made both minor (i.e., involving only 2-3 students) and major (involving half or more students in the class) changes in classroom…

Most US students attend coeducational classes, but to what extent do students feel integrated into the entire classroom of their peers, especially with other-gender (OG) peers? The major goal of this study was to investigate how variations in gender integration (GI), measured by students' expectancies about inclusion, efficacy, and social costs of…

This study examined whether defending and passive bystanding during peer victimization episodes were associated with individual- and classroom-level efficacy to stop peer victimization. Self-report survey data were analyzed from 1,467 Swedish fourth-grade students (mean age = 10.55) from 100 classrooms in 63 schools. Multilevel analyses revealed…

The present study examined the role of school connectedness in mediating the relations of social skills and school climate of diversity (SCD) to life satisfaction (LS) among school-aged children. This study also investigated whether there is any gender difference in relationships. Participants included 873 elementary school students in Grades 4…

The purpose of the present study is to examine whether physical and relational victimization negatively impacts indicators of school climate--students' perceptions of school safety, their attachment to school, and their help-seeking behavior--and whether gender moderates these associations. Using a sample of 361 third through fifth-grade students…

Hong Kong attained the top place in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011, an international study of reading achievement, which arouses keen interest in understanding the reasons behind this remarkable achievement. Although factors associated with reading achievement in English have been widely studied, similar studies…

In this study, we sought to create and validate a brief measure to assess students' perceptions of kindness in school. Participants included 1,753 students in Grades 4 to 8 attending public schools in a large school district in southern British Columbia. The School Kindness Scale (SKS) demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and adequate…

This study investigated teacher preference, the degree to which a teacher likes a specific student, as a predictor of students' perceptions of teacher preference as well as conflict and support in the student-teacher relationship. Child and teacher reports of teacher preference and child reports of conflict and support were provided in the fall…

Resilience is a very useful construct for framing school mental health services to children and is particularly applicable to mental health services in school settings. Still, resilience perspectives should not be overgeneralized to school mental health practice because risk and resilience wax and wane over time and daily decisions about students'…

This article provides background on school mental health (SMH) programs in Baltimore and efforts to integrate evidence-based preventive interventions into the schools served by these programs. We describe the triangular model of SMH promotion, building at the base from environment and relationship enhancement, followed by universal and selective…

This study examines the degree to which English language learners' (ELL) descriptions of classroom supports for learning are similar to or different from the descriptions of non-ELL students. Specifically, the study compared the classroom perceptions of ELL students and general education students using the "ClassMaps Survey" (CMS), which…

There is growing interest in the role of emotional competence in middle school children's adjustment and functioning, yet many populations remain underresearched. Few studies have explored the emotional competence, especially emotion understanding, of children with, or at risk of, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and even fewer…

This exploratory study examined the contribution of the "RC" Approach over a two-year period. The "RC" Approach integrates social and academic learning in order to produce classroom environments that are conducive to learning by integrating social and academic learning. Two questions are addressed. First, how does teachers' use of "RC" practices…

This study evaluated the Gentle Warrior Program, a traditional martial arts-based intervention to reduce aggression in children, as it was implemented in three elementary schools. The sample consisted of 254 children in grades 3, 4, and 5 who participated in the Gentle Warrior Program as part of a larger school violence intervention. Results…