This interpretive study explored the qualities of six high-performing schools that served low-income South African students. The theoretical framework and methodology derived from research on effective schools conducted, for the most part, in the United States. Data consisted of interviews and classroom observations over the course of two…

Over the past three decades, the environmental justice movement has developed out of growing concern about unequal distribution of environmental harm and unequal access to environmental resources. The mainstream environmental movement has been criticized for failing to address adequately environmental justice issues. Several scholars have claimed…

This article focuses on the impact a collaborative project between university graduate fellows and K-12 classroom teachers had on improved pedagogy in the classroom and in the future at the university. Nine teams participated in a yearlong professional development project to improve pedagogy and communication skills of the participants. This study…

International comparisons help us explore the assumptions made about U.S. schools, students, and pedagogy. That is why the author decided to spend five months in the Czech Republic teaching science education courses at Palacky and Ostrava Universities and learning about the Czech education system. As a result, the new context challenged his…

The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of social support and the influencing factors on social support in nursing home environments. Observations and staff questionnaires from two central Florida nursing homes were used in this grounded theory study to answer the following questions: (1) How is social support manifested? and…

The Psychological Processing Checklist (PPC) is a teacher-completed rating scale published by Multi-Health Systems in North Tonawanda, New York. The checklist was published in 2003 along with a technical manual (Swerdlik, Swerdlik, & Kahn, 2003). The 35-item PPC purports to measure difficulties with psychological processing among children in…

Previous research suggests that performance feedback improves treatment integrity. This study compared the effects of verbal performance feedback and verbal plus graphic performance feedback on implementation of a student-specific behavior support plan (BSP) by members of a second-grade teaching team at a public elementary school. A consultant to…

Many state and federal governments have mandated in such documents as the National Science Education Standards that inquiry strategies should be the focus of the teaching of science within school classrooms. The difficult part for success is changing teacher practices from perceived traditional ways of teaching to more inquiry-based approaches.…

This study provides a clearer portrait of the extent to which practicing history and social studies teachers, who explicitly expressed an interest in the potential of technology and advocate the use of primary sources within their teaching, are using Internet technologies to prepare students to learn to think historically and in turn participate…

The researchers addressed two questions: (1) Does maternal reading mediation and family home literacy environment (HLE) relate to children's emergent literacy (EL) level? and (2) Do the relationships among these variables differ as a function of socioeconomic strata (SES) level. A total of 94 5-6-year-old children, 47 from low SES (LSES) and 47…

This study investigated the degree to which students with intellectual and developmental disabilities have access to the general education curriculum and the degree to which such access is related to and predicted by classroom setting and ecological variables. We observed 19 students during science or social studies instruction and collected data…

To determine the attitudes of teachers of students who are visually impaired or blind about the use of contracted or uncontracted Braille for emergent readers, the author posted a questionnaire on three electronic listservs from October through December 2002 and received responses from 40 teachers in India, Canada, the West Indies, and the United…

The article examines the impact of New Labour policies--particularly the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies and the subsequent Primary National Strategy--on classroom practice at Key Stage 2 in England. Evidence is drawn from fieldwork conducted in 2003-2005 from a sample of 50 schools, replicating a study conducted a decade previously in…

This paper reports on a study of the development of information searching expertise by 12 postgraduate research students. Six of the students were studying education, and six were studying engineering. The paper focuses on the students' perception of the importance of searching skills and the growth of their knowledge with these skills as they…

With increasing numbers of students learning science through a second language in many school contexts, there is a need for research to focus on the impact language has on students' understanding of science concepts. Like other countries, Brunei has adopted a bilingual system of education that incorporates two languages in imparting its…