The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative, non-experimental study was to determine if there is a difference in reading self-efficacy and perceived learning among fourth- and fifth-grade inner city students who participated in experiential learning and those that did not participate in experiential learning. Experiential learning is…

Background: Youth from low-income, racially and ethnically diverse families are at increased risk for academic challenges and nutritionally inadequate diets. Summer programs offer an opportunity to foster interest and engage students in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education while addressing summer learning loss.…

Background: Creativity is an important ability for problem-solving in both personal life and academic learning. Few creativity studies have investigated the development of children's creativity in disadvantaged rural areas or compared the rural-urban differences through digital game-based creativity learning. Understanding such differences can…

Background: Children in the USA face increasing nutrition-related health risks, including obesity rates of 16.9% -- a figure that has more than tripled over the past four decades. Nutrition education is beneficial to improve children's health through obesity prevention and the promotion of healthy habits, and the elementary school years are a key…

This article presents an evaluation of the first 2 years of a research-based summer learning program that provided self-selected and developmentally appropriate books to students in low-income and low-resource elementary schools by a local philanthropic organization in a large urban district. The evaluation found evidence of a positive effect of…

SHAPE America has highlighted the importance of developing physically literate children as part of quality physical education programming. Unfortunately, most children know little about physical activity and health-related fitness. The purpose of this study was to examine the physical activity and fitness content knowledge of at-risk inner-city…

Background: Urban youth are often exposed to compounded risk factors which make them more vulnerable to negative outcomes. Research examining promotive factors which may reduce vulnerabilities to poor psychosocial adjustment among this population is limited. Objective: The current study addresses this limitation by examining the impact of…

The authors identified trajectories of teacher-child relationship conflict and closeness from Grades 1 to 6, and associations between these trajectories and externalizing and internalizing behaviors at 11 years old among low-income, urban boys (N = 262). There were three main findings. Nagin cluster analyses indicated five trajectories for…

Background: Insufficient physical activity among urban youth increases risk of chronic disease.Purpose:This study assessed reported physical activity to determine when disparities in participation emerge and what ecologically guided factors are linked with high activity. Methods:We administered a cross-sectional survey to a diverse sample of 321…

This study examines gender, grade-level, and baseline depressive symptoms as potential moderators of a school-based mindfulness intervention's impact on the self-regulatory outcomes of urban youth. Ninety-seven participants from four urban public schools were randomly assigned to an intervention or wait-list control condition. Fourth and fifth…

Agricultural literacy of K-12 students is a national priority for both scientific and agricultural education professional organizations. Development of curricula to address this priority has not been informed by research on what K-12 students understand about the agri-food system. While students' knowledge of food and fiber system facts have been…

The authors took a population-based approach to testing how commonly studied neighborhood socioeconomic conditions are associated with the language and cognitive outcomes of residentially stable rural and urban children tracked from kindergarten (ages 5-6) to Grade 4 (ages 9-10). Child-level kindergarten Early Development Instrument (EDI) data…

Community and school violence continue to be a major public health problem, especially among urban children and adolescents. Little research has focused on the effect of school safety and neighborhood violence on academic performance. This study examines the effect of the school and neighborhood climate on academic achievement among a population…

Youth in underserved, urban communities are at risk for a range of negative outcomes related to stress, including social-emotional difficulties, behavior problems, and poor academic performance. Mindfulness-based approaches may improve adjustment among chronically stressed and disadvantaged youth by enhancing self-regulatory capacities. This paper…

This study contributes a novel perspective on grade retention by empirically examining how classroom composition relates to the standardized-testing performance of grade-retained students in their post-retained years. This evaluation employed a sample of entire cohorts of urban elementary school children in the Philadelphia School District over 6…