Coming from a critical youth studies perspective, this article sketches a participatory action research project designed by youth and adults in New York City to evaluate the impact of neo-liberal public policies on young people. Through telling the counter-story of the Polling for Justice (PFJ) project, we propose that re-considering…

The ecological approach, based on the RTLB Toolkit that guides RTLBs in New Zealand, is one of the seven principles used for interventions for students with learning and behaviour concerns. As a result of a paradigm shift moving from a functional limitations perspective to a more inclusive/ecological perspective in 1999, RTLBs have been trained…

The author observes that community college administrators perform their duties on ambiguous and uncertain intellectual and environmental landscapes, so they continually search for meaning and purpose in organizational life. This article proposes a straightforward approach to answering several questions related to the quest for meaning and purpose,…

The author knew she would be picky about where her child started his schooling. After calling over 30 public and private schools within a 50-mile radius of her home, and then visiting more than 15 of them, the author chose Lexington Montessori School (LMS). However, when she tells friends and acquaintances about her son's fantastic school, she…

Although Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning (LGBTQ) youth experience alarming rates of behavioral and social problems, service use among these youth is disproportionately low. It is likely that decreased service accessibility plays a causal role in service underutilization among LGBTQ youth. To expand the existing…

In the days since the surreal horror of December 14th, the author's children have responded to the tragedy differently. His daughter is a first grader, and she lost many of her friends to the gunman. She has been melancholy, sad in a way only a child who feels but does not understand her feelings can be. His 9-year-old son has been less sad and…

Opening up space for authentic inquiry in preschool can influence the extent to which children can make use of their growing mathematical and linguistic understandings to make sense of themselves and the world around them. Authentic inquiry here refers to investigation that arises naturally from the interests and questions of the children as they…

This research study considers the status of middle school students in the 21st century in terms of their tendency to multitask in their daily lives and the overall influence this multitasking has on teaching and learning environments. Student engagement in the learning environment and students' various learning styles are discussed as primary…

Recent studies suggest that plagiarism in U.S. higher education may be more of an issue among Chinese graduate students. When Chinese graduate students are accused of plagiarizing an implicit assumption often exists that poor language skills or lack of integrity may be the cause. The failure to consider cross-cultural issues in learning may have…

Learning should make information meaningful to the students. We can all agree with that --but the messages coming from schools will tell us a different story. Instead of enthusiasm, happiness and joy of learning, the echo repeats problems, ill behaving and indisposition. This makes us wonder: has the traditional school come to its end? This…

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to understand women's perceptions of their experiences as sorority women at an institute of technology. Ultimately, this research strove to determine in what way sorority women at a polytechnic institution perceived their college experiences, including; how they perceive the general campus…

This article outlines the implications of a theory of "sensory-emplaced learning" for understanding the interrelationships between the embodied and environmental in learning processes. Understanding learning as multisensory and contingent within everyday place-events, this framework analytically describes how people establish themselves as…

This article is based on a systematic review of educational research, policy and professional literature relating to creative environments for learning in schools. Despite the search yielding 210 documents, comparatively few empirical studies were published between 2005 and 2011 that addressed the review objectives. Only 18 studies included in the…

This article discusses the nature, power and effects of neo-liberal rationale in educational settings. By introducing discourse analysis of two cases, the influence of neo-liberal ideology on contemporary curricula and school programs were examined. The analysis showed that dominant discourses based on neo-liberal rationale presented themselves as…

Many students in American schools are facing educational limitations due to the effects of poverty and homelessness. Educator preparation programs must address the needs of this special population of poverty by providing training in trauma-informed pedagogy. The goal is to make teachers more aware of the effects of poverty and provide additional…