Using a qualitative bricolage approach (Kincheloe, 2008, 2010), this study explores the school life of immigrant students enrolled in an advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom in a high school. The overarching objective of this study is to examine how these students--five from Mexico, three from Honduras, and one from…

Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, in this research I examine how a group of newcomer Mexican immigrant high school students counteracted a hostile school climate, educational practices and adverse relationships with mainstream peers and adults. The purpose of this study is to help educators and policy makers understand how engaging in…

Changes in school environments are sources of instability and stress for children. The social, educational, residential, and familial changes that usually accompany school changes are likely to exacerbate this stress and negatively impact academic performance. The full range of these changes that occur with school changes, and their relative…

The purpose of this sequential explanatory mixed methods study was to investigate teacher and peer support for young adolescents' academic motivation, classroom engagement, and school belonging within one large, urban, ethnically diverse middle school. In the initial quantitative phase, associations among aspects of teacher support (autonomy,…

Although childhood shyness has been associated with school-adjustment difficulties in contemporary research in China, the conceptual mechanisms that may underlie these relations remain underinvestigated. The goal of this study was to examine a complex theoretical model that explicates the roles of both peer preference and teacher-child…

Peer relationships represent a major source of concern to children transitioning to secondary school. They also offer a potentially important source of support to adjustment and academic progress. However, strategies to support peer relationships at secondary transition have received little attention in previous research. This semi-structured…

During preadolescence, concerns about maintaining and developing friendships, gaining peer acceptance, and avoiding peer victimization become central concerns. The transition to middle school can create or exacerbate these concerns. Parents may be in a position to help preadolescents navigate these developmental and ecological challenges, promote…

This exploratory study investigated how staff at four private boys' boarding schools in Perth, Western Australia, constructed meaning and understanding around the experience of studying away from home and family for Aboriginal students from regional and remote communities. Interviews were conducted with 16 participants recruited from the four…

Peer problems are common among children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). However, the extent to which children's peer functioning varies across settings is unknown, as is the incremental power of peer functioning in different settings in predicting subsequent psychopathology. Participants were 57 children with…

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate psychometric evidence for the Perceived Collegiate Religious Dissonance Scale among calibration ("n" = 425) and validation ("n" = 326) samples of self-identified Christian undergraduate students. Perceived collegiate religious dissonance is defined as emotional tension resultant…

The intergenerational transmission of school adjustment was explored in a sample of 213 children and their fathers. The fathers were participants in a longitudinal study that began when they were in the 4th grade, and their children have been assessed at the ages of 21 months and 3, 5, and 7 years. Two components of school adjustment were…

As part of a larger longitudinal project on the assessment of preschoolers' social-emotional development, children's social information processing (SIP) responses to unambiguous hypothetical situations of peer provocation were assessed for 298 four-year-olds from Head Start and private childcare settings. Measurement focused on emotions children…

This study investigated early adolescent friendship selection and social influence with regard to academic motivation (self-efficacy and intrinsic value), engagement (effortful and disruptive behavior), and achievement (GPA calculated from report card grades) among 6th graders (N = 587, 50% girls at Wave 1; N = 576, 52% girls at Wave 2) followed…

The flipped classroom is a relatively new approach to undergraduate teaching in science. This approach repurposes class time to focus on application and discussion; the acquisition of basic concepts and principles is done on the students' own time before class. While current flipped classroom research has focused on student preferences and…

This study examined physiological and coping responses to peer-evaluative challenges in early adolescence as predictors of academic outcomes. The sample included 123 young adolescents (X-bar[subscript age]) = 12.03 years) who participated in the summer before (T1) and the spring after (T2) the transition to middle school. At T1, respiratory sinus…