Frequent absences in the primary grades are associated with school disengagement, academic failure, and eventual dropout. The Early Truancy Prevention Project (ETPP) was designed to improve attendance of primary grade children by facilitating communication between teachers and parents and giving the teachers the lead role in intervening with…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the lived experience of 11 special education teachers, who implemented iPads as an instructional tool for elementary students with intellectual disabilities. This study was conducted in a North Carolina school district. The theories, which guided this study were Vygotsky's…

This mixed methods study examines perspectives on failure in the classroom by elementary teachers new to teaching engineering. The study participants included 254 teachers in third, fourth, and fifth grade who responded to survey questions about failure, as well as a subset of 38 of those teachers who participated in interviews about failure. The…

With substantial demographic shifts in the U.S. student population, today's teachers educate growing numbers of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Kena, Aud, & Johnson, 2010). While these students bring an abundance of different cultures and languages from their families and communities, these dynamic shifts add…

In this article I report the findings of an intrinsic case study involving seven ecologically minded teachers who participated in a Critical Friends Group (CFG) for five months. The topic of our discussions was EcoJustice education, which involves analyzing and reframing Westernized culture. Findings are focused on how the participants grappled…

An increased accountability in literacy performance for third grade students drew statewide attention in North Carolina upon the implementation of the Read to Achieve Law. Elementary educators have worked to implement this mandate by monitoring the state's reading curriculum, instruction, assessments, and approaches to educating students. This…

This paper summarizes the development and evaluation of an assessment instrument for children ages 7-12. The CHILD CARRE measure is a semi-structured interview with 7 domains. Children from the USA and Argentina (N = 134) completed baseline and follow-up assessments. Substance use occurred at an average age of 8. Almost 33% of the children were…

The purpose of this program evaluation was to investigate the impact over time teachers' self-efficacies and the outcome expectancies of those who participated in an inquiry-based, hands-on, constructivist professional development program to learn science content. The hope was that after active participation in this inquiry-based professional…

This study is concerned with the experiences of beginning teachers working with a district-employed mentor. Based on Illeris's (2002) Three Dimensions of Learning, this study sought to understand the cognitive, emotional, and social processes involved in working with a mentor. This is a qualitative study using the research method of phenomenology…

This study is concerned with the experiences of beginning teachers working with a district-employed mentor. Based on Illeris's (2002) Three Dimensions of Learning, the study sought to understand the cognitive, emotional, and social processes involved in working with a mentor through the use of one-on one, in-depth interviews. Nine beginning…

Beginning in spring 2013, students in seven elementary schools throughout the Project LIFT zone in Charlotte, North Carolina began to receive XO laptops provided by the organization One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) for use both within their classroom and at home. This report details Research for Action's (RFA) mixed-method evaluation of the first year…

The number of Hispanic children entering public schools continues to increase at a staggering pace. With such a change in diversity, educators are struggling with the absence of Hispanic parent involvement in schools. Many teachers consider this lack of parent involvement as uncaring about their children. The problem is much more complex in…

In a mixed-methods study, the authors investigate teacher typologies of elementary teachers (N = 132) in the United States based on their reformed science teaching beliefs. Additionally, the identified teacher typologies were compared with respect to their science content knowledge, self-efficacy and epistemic beliefs. Results revealed three…

Analyzing schools as racial spaces can help researchers examine the role of teachers in the perpetuation of structural racism in schools. Based on ethnographic and autoethnographic work, this article offers examples of schools as racial spaces, spaces where whiteness controlled access. It also highlights four teachers who pursued racial equity in…

We examined the progress of kindergarteners who entered the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) in 2008-09 and in 2010-11 who were identified as limited in English proficiency (LEP). For the 2008-09 cohort, English proficiency increased steadily over time. Few were able to exit LEP status in their first three years in WCPSS (10.5%); this…