Social changes have resulted in an increase of students living in households that do not include both a mother and a father, reducing the efficacy of common survey questionnaire approaches to measuring student socioeconomic status (SES). This paper presents two studies conducted to develop and test a new,more inclusive set of student SES items…

A considerable body of evidence highlights how inquiry-based science can enhance students' epistemic and conceptual understanding of scientific concepts, principles, and theories. However, little is known about how students view themselves as learners of science. In this paper, we explore primary children's images of doing science in school and…

Although assigned mentoring relationships have typically involved same-gender matches, a growing number of programs, particularly those in schools, have begun pairing female mentors with male mentees. This practice stems, in large part, from the relative dearth of male mentors and programs' efforts to increase the availability of youth mentoring…

Background: The development of socially appropriate behaviour is increasingly seen as an important part of a student's education. Aim: To examine whether changes in a student's behaviour, as part of an ongoing social empathy intervention, can in part be explained by the difference between the student's self-perception of their behaviour and their…

Objective: To assess social and familial environmental influences on fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption of fourth- and fifth-graders living in a culturally diverse, urban setting. Design: In 2006, students from 9 fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms from a public school in the Washington-Baltimore Metropolitan Region were recruited as part of the…

Barriers to and facilitators of walking and bicycling to school were explored through 12 focus groups made up of fourth- and fifth-grade students and their parents who lived near their respective schools. The barriers and facilitators reported by parents and children generally fell into one of three categories: intrapersonal and interpersonal…

This study examined who among the 526 fourth to sixth graders are nominated as among the coolest kids in their class. There were two questions: (1) Are popular-aggressive (tough) children nominated as cool by a broad spectrum of their peers, or only by a select few? (2) Does variability in children's cool nominations more closely follow their…

The goal of the present study was twofold: first to examine teachers' and students' reactions toward a mathematics reform introduced in Cypriot primary schools, and second to investigate the factors influencing the effectiveness of the reform. Using both quantitative and qualitative data we found that students' progress was determined by a number…

While policymakers have granted a substantial commitment of resources in order to reduce fear of crime among U.S. school students, the research literature on fear of crime at school is in its infancy. This study investigates whether school security techniques reduce or exacerbate fear of crime among students, net of community and school disorder…