Sunnyside High School in rural Washington faces many tough issues common to urban schools but has shown a remarkable ability to help students at risk for academic failure. The Sunnyside Intervention Program was developed for students with a history of poor academic performance, many of whom were involved in dangerous activities, including gangs.…

First year biology students at Flinders University with no prior biology background knowledge fail at almost twice the rate as those with a background. To remedy this discrepancy we enabled students to attend a weekly series of pre-lectures aimed at providing basic biological concepts, thereby removing the need for students to complete a…

The present study examined children's use of behavioural outcome information to make personality attributions in social and non-social contexts. One hundred and twenty-eight 3- to 6-year-olds were told about a story actor who engaged in primarily successful or primarily unsuccessful interactions with several different people (social context) or…

This paper explores a number of key issues that have been identified as being important in the identification and evaluation of best practice within the context of e-learning and virtual campuses. The "Promoting Best Practice in Virtual Campuses" (PBP-VC) project is a two year European Commission Education Audiovisual and Culture…

Taking tests enhances learning. But what happens when one cannot answer a test question--does an unsuccessful retrieval attempt impede future learning or enhance it? The authors examined this question using materials that ensured that retrieval attempts would be unsuccessful. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked fictional…

How do students' conceptualize the causes of their own academic successes and failures? Taking a phenomenological approach, students identified the causes of their performance immediately following return of a graded examination. We then used factor and item analyses to organize causes that were identified by a substantial number of students into…

In this article, it is argued that Kurt Hahn felt that it was important for children to experience 'failure' at times and to learn how to cope with it. If this is no longer desirable in the classroom, it ought to be possible to encourage children to be adventurous and "take risks" in a wide range of Outward Bound activities.

While many urban teachers flee urban schools after a few years of teaching, many spend their careers in teaching in the urban environment. A series of biographical interviews was conducted with four "career" urban teachers; throughout the data collection and analyses and despite their decade or more in the field, the interactions between the…

The plight of nations labeled as "failed" is well-documented, as are suggested strategies to fix them. One area that receives a great deal of focus in the extant literature is education. How can education contribute to the rebuilding of a failed State? Most often the responses to this question focus on the importance of reestablishing primary and…

This study examines the impact of high-stakes, large-scale, standardized literacy testing on youth who have failed the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. Interviews with youth indicate that the unintended impact of high-stakes testing is more problematic than policy makers and educators may realize. In contrast to literacy policy's aims to…

Three second-grade students at-risk for reading failure participated in an adult-directed repeated reading program that integrated isolated word reading practice, unison reading, error correction, and performance cueing and feedback procedures. During each intervention session, the participants practiced five difficult words key to a first-grade…

This study explored the outcome of academically dismissed students reinstated the semester following academic dismissal at a medium-size Midwestern University. Logistic regression was utilized to identify predictors that may assist academic administrators in making decisions regarding future reinstatement activities. The overall model correctly…

The study explores the attribution styles of in-group and out-group members. Eighty-four (42 female and 42 male) undergraduate students were randomly selected from the Faculty of Education at an institution of higher learning in Zimbabwe. A questionnaire was used to capture the opinions of the participants. The data was analysed using the…

This article examines the increase in segregated placements in the New South Wales government school sector. Using disaggregated enrolment data, it points to the growing over-representation of boys in special schools and classes, particularly those of a certain age in certain support categories. In the discussion that follows, the authors question…

Criminologists have explored the reentry experience of formerly incarcerated adults, documented the pressing challenges of reentry, the correlates of recidivism, and the causes of desistance. Given scholars' focus on reentry to explain what factors impact criminal outcome, this raises the interesting question of whether and how such factors shape…