The world today faces enormous challenges on the environmental front. Schools may be part of the problem as they use enormous amounts of energy, create thousands of tons of waste, and often operate in less than ideal environments, all of which may negatively impact the health and welfare of students. Some environmental educators and researchers…

Recent charter school enrollment trends suggest that many parents are choosing to enroll students in charter schools instead of traditional public schools, even though data indicate public school achievement is equal to or above charter schools. Guided by Rogers and Maslow's humanistic theory, the purpose of the study was to examine reasons why…

This qualitative study seeks to understand Latinas' college-going behaviors by examining their agency and role in securing opportunity for college. The authors examine the activation of agency among 16 urban Latinas when navigating the structures influencing college opportunity through a cultural ecological model. Examples of agency are…

In 14 focus group interviews, sixth- to eighth-grade high-ability students from high- (n = 36) and low-income (n = 45) families were asked to describe the barriers they perceived to their academic success. Three themes were identified through the qualitative analysis: "Constraining Environments, Integration versus Isolation," and…

The aim of this study is twofold. First, it aims to investigate the impact of the Flipped Classroom (FC) Model on students' academic achievement. Second, it reveals the students' opinions about the model itself. For four weeks, the students in the experimental group were taught in a blended learning context where the FC Model was applied, while…

Through the lens of implementing team-based learning (TBL), this paper unpacks elements of 'excellence' and investigates the influence of individual belief systems, the learning environment and institutional context in influencing perceptions of 'excellence'. We analyse the adoption of a student-centred approach to teaching and explore the…

Using mixed methods, this case study explored outcomes associated with the adoption and implementation of a community schools approach in four Title I schools using the Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement. Trends in school data demonstrate academic achievement improvements in three of the four schools. Absenteeism and the number…

Hong Kong underwent tremendous changes after the transfer of its sovereignty to China in 1997. This study attempts to explore the changing role of schools in preparing students for future democratic citizenship in the post-colonial era. Different researchers have postulated that schools play a crucial role in the political socialization process in…

Many academic development initiatives build on community-based approaches, such as communities of practice or learning communities. While these initiatives are largely successful for the individual academics involved, low participation rates prevent wide-reaching impact on learning about teaching. The research discussed in this article aims at…

This article addresses the issue of bullying and analyzes a set of accounts that were collected from fourteen focus group interviews with 90 secondary school children. The aim of the research was to map out the ways in which young adolescents talk about their social relations at school in relation to home and the ways they construct bullying as a…

Educators and policymakers have expressed considerable enthusiasm for engaging students with data. In this article, the authors consider how teachers commonly examine data with their students, and how these practices are likely to affect student motivation. Combining motivation research with their own study of teachers in six middle schools that…

During the last 10 years, research into schools facing challenging circumstances has attracted the attention of researchers around the world. The aim of this study was to understand the challenges that school leaders face as they per form their work, the nature of the context in which these challenges arise, the strategies school leaders adopt to…

Rural Aboriginal Australians experience disadvantage across a number of significant social and economic outcomes, including educational engagement and achievement. Current debate postulates that educational environments and systems perpetuate this disadvantage. This qualitative study aimed to contribute to the debate by taking a broader ecological…

This study explored the role of elementary parent involvement coordinators (EPIC) in a Northeast Georgia Title I Charter School District. EPICs were charged with facilitating programs designed to build social capital and network closure for families. This nested case study explored the experiences of five EPICs, each located in one of the five…

School systems in Africa are short of skills that link well with rural communities, yet arguments to vocationalize curricula remain mixed and school agriculture lacks the supervised practical component. This study, conducted in eight primary (elementary) schools in Uganda, sought to compare the learning achievement of pupils taught using…