Ensuring all children and youth thrive as they move through school and into their adult lives requires that they have the opportunity to develop the skills and competencies that will help them land their first job, navigate and overcome the challenges they will face, keep positive relationships, and make good decisions. While families are central…

The third case study from the Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development discusses the role community partners can play in supporting children's learning in collaboration with schools. "School-Community Partnerships: Joining Forces to Support the Learning and Development of All Students" cites key…

MENTOR's newest resource takes the cornerstone best-practice guide for mentoring, the "Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™," and offers research-backed and practice-based tips specifically for STEM mentoring programs. "The STEM Supplement to the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™" provides additional…

Participation in after school care in Australia has more than doubled since the 1980s with hundreds of thousands of children attending every day. Historically this form of care has been regarded as a service for parents rather than an opportunity for children. There is a paucity of Australian research for school age care (SAC). This study…

This article presents data from a two-year ethnographic case study to explore how immigrant and refugee youth in the United States made sense of participation in a weekly human rights club after school. Three types of student responses to human rights education are exemplified through the profiles of students. The article offers new insights on…

In this article, the author challenges the recurrent theory-practice divide in art teacher preparation and its splintering implications for sustaining certain pedagogical practices in K-12 schools. Specifically, the author focuses on the pedagogical practice of emergent curriculum and the derivative curricular cycle of listening, observing,…

Board games are traditionally seen as an important Swedish leisure-time centre activity, but research regarding this activity is sparse. This study aims to fill part of that void through a web survey directed to members in a closed Facebook group focusing on leisure-time centres. Fifty-five informants' answers were analysed using critical…

After receiving a multiyear federal grant, an urban school district and community agency that focused on family literacy implemented a comprehensive school reform initiative called Providence Full Service Community Schools (PFSCS). A host of community partners collaborated to develop the PFSCS model with the broad goal of strategically connecting…

Robotics has been advocated as an emerging approach to engaging K-12 students in learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study examined the impacts of a project-based STEM integrated robotics curriculum on elementary school students' attitudes toward STEM and perceived learning in an afterschool setting. Three…

This article is positioned in the context of a discussion about an increasing focus on quality in education. The aim of the article is to explore discourses enacted in Systematic Quality Work (SQW) in municipalities and leisure-time centres. In Sweden, SQW comes within the statutory obligations of municipals and leisure-time centres and…

Purpose: Homeless children are more likely to have social skills deficits relative to same aged peers and may benefit from a social skills intervention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to assess the Let's Be Social application with the addition of behavioral skills training (BST) to teach social skills to children who were homeless.…

Academic researchers dedicated to contributing to quality improvement in professional practice need to find more effective ways to bridge the gap between research and practice. Bridging the gap requires understanding what encourages the use of research findings by practitioners and what discourages it, as well as understanding how practitioners…

This special "America After 3PM" report takes a closer look at the afterschool experiences of children and families living in rural communities and compares these experiences to those of children and families outside of rural communities. This report also serves to examine the ways programs are increasing opportunity in these…

Locally or individually, STEM programs provide additional opportunities to engage K-12 students, including those from marginalized groups, with the support of STEM outreach organizations through the co-construction and implementation of STEM activities during school, out of school, at home, and in the community. Research suggests that…

We explore whether (a) teacher ratings of texts' cultural relevance along various dimensions differ from those of students, (b) these ratings reflect a single construct, and (c) ratings of specific dimensions are related to specific reading outcomes. Fifty African-American students were each administered two text protocols for a total of 100…