One of the most striking, and almost universal, educational trends of the last decade has been the shift in the relative achievements of males and females. In almost every OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) country, girls now do better than boys at almost every level, up to and including doctoral, and in almost every…

Although teaching for social justice is a widely recognized goal of many teacher education programs, there are few supports for new teachers who wish to continue this kind of practice. In this article, I discuss the ways that a group of four new teachers found flexible support for developing a vision of teaching for social justice through…

Studies of cultural differentiation have shown that social mechanisms that normally lead to cultural convergence--homophily and influence--can also explain how distinct cultural groups can form. However, this emergent cultural diversity has proven to be unstable in the face of cultural drift--small errors or innovations that allow cultures to…

Teenagers will freely give up personal information to join social networks on the Internet. However, a 2007 study by the Pew Internet and American Life project found that most of the 55 percent of teens who place their personal profiles online take steps to protect themselves from the most obvious areas of risk. Parents, teachers, and librarians…

This paper describes the evaluation of interagency collaboration in a network of child-serving providers as part of the evaluation of the Bridgeport Safe Start Initiative (BSSI). In line with the system of care approach, the objectives of BSSI included reducing fragmentation of efforts and delivering integrated services to families of young…

Factors identified by 16 participants during in-depth interviews as influencing selection of speech pathology as a career were described using the Systems Theory Framework (STF, Patton & McMahon, 2006). Participants were highly likely to identify factors from the individual and social systems, but not the environmental-societal system, of the STF…

Through a qualitative research design, this study examined the experiences of seven gifted university students in an undergraduate honors program. The findings indicated the students as adolescents experienced a sense of isolation resulting from the differences between their abilities, interests, life goals, religious value systems, and the…

This article charts the development of a networked learning community (NLC). NLCs were established by the National College for School Leadership in 2002 connecting groups of schools to further both pupil and teacher learning. This study examines one sub-network in a London borough, focused on developing Assessment for Learning practices. The…

This article presents and discusses a 3-D online environment known as Teen Second Life. TSL is a virtual environment geared just for youth, ages 13-17. Its social appeal is huge, especially for teens who are developmentally inclined to seek out the company of their peers. In TSL one can meet friends or make new ones, hang out, listen to music and…

An issue currently facing the African-American community is the incidence of divorce, which is presently at a higher rate than that of other groups. This study focused on the supportive networks of African-American couples utilizing a network analysis approach to examine the relationship between the networks, and marital satisfaction among the…

After providing examples of the use of computer-mediated communications networks such as Kids Network, Project INSITE, and Project Earth Lab to create real-world contexts for student learning, this paper notes that teacher learning and collaboration has been a secondary issue. It is argued that the urgency of such national efforts as school…

As research on social support and informal helping has increased, there have been more calls for consultation efforts that might strengthen informal helping networks. Many support-oriented consultation interventions attempt to bolster informal helping systems by modifying informal caregivers' attitudes toward their helping role, building their…

This study examined the characteristics of the child's social network as it changes within the preschool period. Of particular interest is how the social network changes as the child moves from a more home-centered existence at 3 years to a more school-centered existence at 6 years of age. Also of concern is the effect of sex and socioeconomic…

The four papers contained in this document provide: (1) a survey of computer based mail and conference systems; (2) an evaluation of systems for both individually addressed mail and group addressing through conferences and distribution lists; (3) a discussion of various methods of structuring the text data in existing systems; and (4) a…

Focuses on the effects divorces of children have on the kinship networks of the older generation. Found a common source of expansion among paternal grandmothers who retained relationships with their former daughters-in-law and her relatives at the same time that they added new relatives with sons' remarriages. (Author/ABB)