This digest includes several articles relating to perceived gender differences among early adolescents. "Middle School Voices on Gender Identity" (Cynthia Mee) describes a study in which 2,000 middle school students in grades five through eight were interviewed with a 52-item open-ended questionnaire. Three statements from the questionnaire were…

The Spanish speaking Mexican immigrant population accounts for the fastest growing population in California, where one in six students is an immigrant. This study utilized organizational theory to relate school characteristics such as interdependence, coordination, and information processing to working with immigrant students. The sample consisted…

Designed for those teaching an advisement program to middle school students, this book provides a year-long program with suggestions for many activities geared to middle school students. The text is divided into the traditional four-quarter school year but can be adapted to any school year configuration. The activities are designed so that the…

Resilient Asian American students, who have shown outstanding performance and achievement in spite of adverse life conditions in urban schools, were compared with nonresilient, or marginal, students who have not done well academically. The focus was on the students' perceptions of their learning environments in mathematics. Other background…

This study evaluates an alternate model for middle school education, which was introduced into depressed urban settings in the 1970s by the Jesuit religious order, in two parochial middle schools, one coed and one all-male established in 1993 in an Eastern city. Comparisons of school structural characteristics, attendance figures, report card…

The stories and studies that make up this book pursue two intertwining paths of inquiry: (1) how highly engaged adolescent readers produce meaning; and (2) what can be done in the classroom to help reluctant readers perceive reading as a creative and personally meaningful pursuit. Chapter 1 looks at approaches to teaching reading and discusses an…

Practical classroom activities for teaching narrative/descriptive writing exist which are based on approaches to teaching writing that research indicates improve the quality of student writing. Teachers need to do less lecturing to students about what they should be doing in their writing and more actively involve their students in the learning of…

The interests of two different at-risk populations in Pennsylvania are compared. Both urban minorities and rural youth participated in programs designed to motivate them to continue their education. Participants (52 rural and 30 urban middle school students) completed an interest survey as part of the program orientation. Although the rural youth…

Anchored instruction and anchored assessment are described and illustrated through a mathematics problem from the Jasper problem solving series developed at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (Tennessee). Anchored instruction is instruction situated in a context complex enough to provide meaning and reasons for why information is useful. Problems…

As students with limited proficiency in English transition from English-as-a-Second-Language or bilingual education classes to mainstream classes, they are usually first enrolled in physical education, art, and music classes, and then math or science classes. Later, these students are placed in the more challenging mainstream social studies…

This report presents findings from a spring 1997 survey of all middle-school students (grades 6-8) enrolled in schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The Centers for Disease Control Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) was completed by 6,990 students in 115 of the 122 BIA-funded middle schools; the overall response rate was 74 percent.…

Project YES! (Yes to Education and Skills) is a gang violence and drug prevention curriculum created in part from funding from the California Governor's Office of Criminal Justice Planning. It has been implemented in California schools since 1991, and was introduced to the Austin Independent School District (AISD) in 1998. The program, which is…

Studies have indicated that students' enjoyment of mathematics declines as they proceed from the early elementary grades through the middle grades. This study addresses three questions: (1) was a change in students' preference for mathematics compared to other subjects detectable over the grades 4-7; (2) was a change in students' attitude toward…

The amount of time students spend in classrooms is relatively short--"13% of the student's waking hours in the first 18 years of life" (Walberg, Paschal, and Weinstein, 1985). They are developing intellectually, socially, and emotionally all the time, and parents are their models and teachers most of the time. This report describes and…

At the end of a 14-week program designed to help them improve their writing and editing skills and to increase their interest in college, sixth graders at School #74 in Buffalo, New York published a book of their imagined narratives. They titled the book "Kids With a Dream." Acting on the premise that school children have a better…