This study reports the effectiveness of a developmentally based, teacher professional development intervention aimed at improving early adolescent school adjustment. Teachers in rural schools in a Northern Plains state took part in professional development activities across a year. Following a randomized control trial design, Native American and…

The transition from the confines of the home to higher institutions means a different dimension of life for most students. These students need to feel supported and cared for by the new community or the school family to which they are now part. Students' perception of this condition leads to their connectedness to the school and the school…

This study examines Latino student's impressions of the university campus climate. The over-arching question guiding this study asked: How do Latino first college generation students negotiate the psychosocial, cultural and environmental perspectives of the college experience? The conceptual framework integrates three major higher education…

This is a commentary on the article, "Childhood Leukemia Survivors and Their Return to School: A Literature Review, Case Study, and Recommendations" by D. Scott Hermann, Jill R. Thurber, Kenneth Miles, and Gloria Gilbert in this issue (2011). This article addresses issues related to the compatibility of the suggested practices with contemporary…

Drawing from the findings of a qualitative study with female refugee high school students from Somalia in the US, this paper attempts to provide a window to understanding the multilayered character of newcomer students' academic identity construction. The students' micro-level processes of creating spaces for belonging at school are linked to…

This article reports on school functioning for 227 youth ages 7-14 (M = 10.3) with principal diagnoses of separation anxiety disorder (n = 40), social phobia (n = 58), generalized anxiety disorder (n = 76), or no diagnoses (n = 53). School functioning data were gathered via parent and teacher report. Youth with no diagnoses demonstrated…

Educational counseling has declined as a counseling specialization in the United States, although the need for this intervention persists and is being met by other providers. This article illustrates how career theories such as Holland's RIASEC theory can inform a revitalized educational counseling practice in secondary and postsecondary settings.…

Objectives. This study tested the quality of data collected with the online Elementary School Success Profile (ESSP) for Children from a diverse sample of 1,172 third through fifth graders. Methods. Mplus confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) procedures for ordinal and clustered data were used. Results. Of 80 original items, 61 loaded on 13…

This essay describes the utility of employing the medicine wheel with university students in both counselling and instructional contexts. A brief description of the medicine wheel, its history, symbolic significance, and use in diverse contexts is discussed. The preliminary data suggest this to be a valuable tool in addressing both the academic…

The present study is a preliminary investigation of the potential mediating role in the relationship between levels of victimization and students' adjustment for a sample of urban, predominantly Latino middle school students. A sample of 142 sixth through eighth grade students completed self-report measures including: (a) the Child and Adolescent…

As children grow, they transition from home to school environments, where they acquire and master knowledge and skills, and develop an image of themselves as learners and develop several types of relationships with adults as they grow. As they enter and remain in school, these relationships expand from being solely with parents and caretakers to…

International students entering postgraduate courses in Australian universities encounter numerous challenges in their new environments. Many relate to the academic literacy and pedagogical practices in the English-speaking academic environment, which international students time and again have reported assume local linguistic and cultural…

Starting high school can be a challenging but also exciting time for students. The focus of this paper lies with students' experiences of transition into secondary school. Sixteen students from one government school in New South Wales kept a journal for their first ten weeks in high school as a way of recording their experiences. Their journal…

As a result of the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering programs, the culture is male-dominated and perpetuates an unsupportive and biased climate that discourages undergraduate women from connecting to their gender. Using a social identity framework, this study addresses how gender influences undergraduate women's perception of…

We know that social competence contributes to young children's adaptation to, and cognitive learning within, classroom settings. Yet initial evidence is mixed on the social competencies that Latino children bring to kindergarten and the extent to which these skills advance cognitive growth. Building from ecocultural and developmental-risk theory,…