Classroom teachers need effective, efficient strategies to prevent and/or ameliorate destructive student behaviors and increase socially appropriate ones. During the past two decades, researchers have found that cognitive strategies can decrease student disruption/aggression and strengthen pro-social behavior. Following preliminary pilot work, we…

The author talks about graduation ceremonies getting out of hand, wherein graduates misbehave and act without proper decorum. Here, she presents the graduation ceremony at Plainfield High School as an example, when students bounced inflated condoms among their ranks. News of the resulting chaos was plastered in headlines in Chicago-area…

There exists a strong link between ADHD and academic underachievement. Both the core behavioral symptoms of ADHD and associated executive functioning deficits likely contribute to academic impairment. Current evidence-based approaches to the treatment of ADHD (i.e., stimulant medication, clinical behavior therapy and classroom behavioral…

The study examined the unique relationship between multiple dimensions of classroom behavioral adjustment problems and salient social-emotional competencies for urban Head Start children. These relationships were investigated using a hierarchical model that controlled for the variance in social-emotional outcomes attributed to age, gender, and…

This article explores psychometric characteristics of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBS), one of the most widely used instruments to assess the prevalence of violent and other high-risk behaviors in secondary school settings. Response patterns were analyzed for a subset of 414 youths who indicated that they had carried a weapon to…

This study examined the influence of survey validity screening on the results from three group-administered school surveys administered to samples totaling approximately 5500 students in 19 schools. The estimated levels of risk behaviors, antisocial behaviors, and victim experiences were substantially reduced when respondents who gave multiple…

The current study examined the extent to which treatment integrity was increased and maintained for 4 teachers in their regular classroom settings as a result of performance feedback and negative reinforcement. Teachers received daily written feedback about their accuracy in implementing an intervention and were able to avoid meeting with a…

In this article, the authors describe 12 practical strategies identified as empirically effective in preventing behavioral escalation in students: (1) Reinforce calm and on-task behaviors; (2) Know the triggers; (3) Pay attention to anything unusual about the student's behavior; (4) Do not escalate along with the student; (5) Offer students…

Alternative education programmes, in the form of vocational education and flexible or personalised curricula, are rapidly becoming established as a main plank in both mainstream and special schools' responses to pupil disaffection. In this paper, "alternative curriculum" will be used as an umbrella term to include all forms of curricula which are…

This paper reports on a study that examined teachers' concerns and attitude toward inclusive education of students with disabilities in Ghana. A 20 item Attitudes Toward Inclusion in Africa Scale (ATIAS) was completed by 100 teachers from five "Inclusive Project" schools and five Non-Project coeducational basic schools in three different…

This study followed 515 4-year-olds from Head Start entry to exit to investigate their social and behavioral skills and the impact of these skills on school readiness outcomes. Results indicated that, on average, social skills improved across the preschool year, while behavior problems remained relatively stable. Social skills and behavior…

To interrogate pedagogical discourses relating to child behaviour as "practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak" this paper features the analysis of three texts through the development and deployment of what might be called a poetics of pedagogical discourse. The principal text is a statement describing…

This paper investigates the determinants and malleability of noncognitive skills. Using data on boys from the National Education Longitudinal Survey, I focus on youth behavior in the classroom as a measure of noncognitive skills. I find that student behavior during adolescence is persistent. The variation in behavior can be attributed to…

This report describes a program to establish a positive school climate. The targeted population consisted of elementary students in a low socioeconomic area. The problems of poor interpersonal skills and inappropriate social behaviors were documented through structured observations, surveys, and school records. Analysis of probable cause data…

This project involved a program for improving student behavior. The targeted population consisted of second and third grade students in a rural community located west of Chicago, Illinois. Data indicated that behavior problems were disrupting instructional time and students' involvement in learning. The evidence for the existence of the problem…