Can summer programs, as remedial supplements to regular schooling, extend learning opportunities and other benefits to disadvantaged students? To frame this question, we compare logics from "social reproduction" and "partial compensation" perspectives, and then apply them to a large mixed method study of four kinds of summer…

Parent engagement is often promoted as a remedy for reducing achievement gaps between students from high socio-economic and low socio-economic backgrounds. However, researchers have found mixed results when examining parent engagement and student outcomes. Drawing on a study investigating the effectiveness of summer literacy camps offered by…

This short report will outline a remote work experience scheme that has successfully been running for three years in the psychology group within the Leeds School of Social Sciences. It is designed to aid transition to university for pre-tertiary students by introducing them to undergraduate literacy skills and making their expectations of…

Universities around the country are beginning to feel the need to add a global dimension to their programs. One way to prepare teachers to address the challenges associated with teaching children in a global age is through carefully structured, international study abroad where the candidates are immersed in another culture and school system. This…

There are concerns that too many young people, from disadvantaged backgrounds, are moving into secondary education in the UK, and elsewhere, without the necessary literacy skills to make progress with the wider secondary school curriculum. A large number of interventions have been proposed to reduce this poverty gradient. This paper summarises the…

Summer learning loss--decreased academic performance following an extended school break, typically during the period after one grade ends and before another grade starts--is a well-documented phenomenon in North America, but poorly described in sub-Saharan African contexts. In this article, we use the term "grade-transition break" loss…

Few studies compare educational programming designed on principles of inclusive pedagogy and feminist practice for both girls and boys. Broadly defined, inclusive pedagogy refers to theory and practice in education that is adaptable and responsive to the intersections of difference (class, race, culture, gender, sexuality, ability) and aims to…

This article reports on student surveys and faculty interviews with regard to a university pilot project of a common book program for first-year students. We found that a minority of students read the book and the book was integrated into only some faculty members' courses. First-year students varied in their perceptions of the impact the project…

This article focuses on a bookmaking project that was conducted with pre-adolescent Serbian and Bosnian girls at a summer camp outside Sarajevo, Bosnia in 2005. During this camp, children from Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia were brought together by the Global Children's Organisation to engage in a variety of activities, including conflict resolution,…

This study reports on the evaluation of a "summer pre-school model" as an intervention measure. A 10-week program was designed to increase the school readiness of Turkish children from disadvantaged and multilingual environments by supporting their cognitive and linguistic skills during the summer prior to the start of school. The…

This study was intended to design, enact, and evaluate a teacher education project on multiple forms of literacy and to examine whether teacher-learners would develop new understandings about language arts when defined more expansively to include multiple symbol systems offered by music and other art forms. The project was developed by teacher…

In the summer of 1995, the Toronto Board of Education implemented its New Expanded Opportunities Summer Program in order to provide the best support possible, and the most effective use of students summer school time. This report outlines data from surveys disseminated to 415 students and 48 teachers during the final week of summer school. Survey…

Reporting on small-scale classroom research projects dealing with diverse aspects of literacy, this collection of 13 research reports from Canada emphasizes common themes. These themes are: the need for parental participation in literacy and numeracy development, the beneficial effects of tutoring, the need for a wide and varied classroom…