For this study, middle-school teachers, students, and principals completed surveys on organizational climate, quality of life, and use of recommended middle-school practices. Student attitudes toward school life were only slightly affected by openness in faculty relationships; they were more affected by classroom organization and use of accepted…

Describes the participation of four middle school students at the World Youth Conference on Human Rights. Discusses interdisciplinary efforts at a private school to celebrate the founding of the United Nations. Outlines student volunteer activities for both local and international causes. (CFR)

Study evaluated students' knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding the Dietary Guidelines, school lunches, and nutrition instruction. Results indicated students needed education about the Food Guide Pyramid; relationships between fat, weight status, and health; and food sources of fat, salt, and fiber. Students wanted active involvement in…

Explores the hypothesis that declines in achievement demonstrated in early adolescence result from educational context through a review of studies and analyses using National Education Longitudinal Study data (sample of 24,599 eighth graders). Evidence of a mismatch between school environment and student needs is discussed. (SLD)

Investigated differences in low-income African-American children's (n=107) adaptive functioning and maladaptive behavior in association with their father-figures' presence or absence, grade level, gender, and quality of family support as perceived by the children's caregivers. Conflict was the only dimension of quality of family support that was…

Examines the effects of issue-based science teaching on students in rural Idaho. Eighth-grade students investigated the use of the Bear River using the Jurisprudential Inquiry Model of Science, Technology and Society (STS) as a guide. Describes challenges encountered in attempting to integrate the use of technology as part of the project as well…

Discusses results of a study of at-risk eighth grade students that investigated whether a constructivist multimedia learning activity after a social studies unit would show greater social studies knowledge and more positive attitudes toward and self-confidence in learning. Describes instruments used to measure student achievement and the…

In mathematics, physics, and chemistry, women are still considered to be at a disadvantage. In the present study, the development of the symptoms of learned helplessness was of particular interest. A study involving average and mildly gifted 8th-grade boys and girls (top 60%) investigated whether girls, regardless of ability level, experience…

A descriptive study examined the degree to which middle level teachers in grades 6-8 in three states accept the tenets of the middle school philosophy. The guiding questions were: (1) Does a cross difference in variables exist among teachers from different organizational settings or grade configurations in respect to the teacher's acceptance of…

Data in this article were compiled from a number of sources by the U. S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Categories covered include: elementary enrollment, pre-primary enrollment, parent and family involvement, international comparisons of fourth and eighth graders' performance in mathematics and science,…

Objective: This article reports findings of three studies addressing convergent validity and test-retest reliability of the Youth Rating Scale of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale-Second Edition (BERS-2). Method: Pearson product-moment correlations were used in all three studies, the first two addressing convergent validity and the third…

This article describes a theoretically informed methodology for eliciting the voices of adolescent boys identified by their teachers and parents as reluctant leisure time readers. Similar methods have also been used to draw out the voices of the boys' parents to understand their efforts to guide and maintain their sons' literacy practices, within…

This report, submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, contains summary details of Delaware students' growth in the areas of reading, mathematics, writing, science and social studies. The results reported herein are part of a long-term effort to gather data on Delaware students' educational progress and use the data to inform decisions about…

This document provides a guide for the development of the 2006 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) U.S. History Assessment. NAEP measures the U.S. history knowledge and skills of students in grades 4, 8, and 12. According to the NAEP U.S. history framework, the assessment should be organized around three dimensions: historical themes,…

Although students have been taking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Science test for a few years, the State has only recently set the achievement-level standards for the Science test. Science will be included in the school grade calculations for the first time in 2006-07. In addition, although no official guidelines exist…