The "TIMSS 2011 International Results in Mathematics" summarizes fourth and eighth grade student achievement in each of the 63 countries and 14 benchmarking entities which participated in TIMSS 2011. The report includes trends in mathematics achievement over time for participants in the previous TIMSS 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007…

The complexities of the Internet and other electronic data technologies have greatly heightened the information literacy needs of students in all subjects. Law courses are common components of many undergraduate programs and other settings external to a law degree program. The field of law has many information literacy aspects which are…

The consequences of gender social and learning interactions in the classroom are of interest to parents, policy makers, and researchers. However, little is known about gender peer effects in schools and their operational channels. In this paper, we estimate the effects of classroom gender composition on scholastic achievements of boys and girls in…

This article discusses how representations of individual discipline and risk-taking in mass media inform the broader public discourses about public education and the public sector generally. Such representations and narratives about individual discipline and risk-taking often function in mass media as moral imperatives of consumer culture. Such…

The use of seclusion timeout in school settings has again become controversial. For more than 35 years there have been recommendations that states and schools develop policies and procedures regarding the use of seclusion timeout in school settings. Recent lawsuits brought against school districts accusing them of violating student rights through…

This article assesses religion teaching as a profession in terms of selected characteristics that scholars agree are common to all professions. The characteristics that are addressed include essential service, call to serve, special knowledge and skills, specialized and advanced university training, public trust and status, code of ethics and…

School boards, who have been regarded as the keystone that links public education to ordinary citizens, are normally elected. However, these elections are usually low-turnout, low-interest affairs in which the vast majority of ordinary citizens play no role at all. In school board elections, the incentives of the teacher unions are strong and…

Objective: The aims of the study were to: determine the attitudes of parents, pediatric residents, and medical students from a Turkish population toward childhood disciplinary methods; ascertain the association of participants' abusive childhood history with their attitudes toward discipline; and assess their attitudes about disciplinary actions,…

The great naturalist Edward O. Wilson's (1998) recent plea for the "consilience" of knowledge should strike a chord in the heart of every generalist. Invoking the unfinished agenda of the Enlightenment, Wilson has called for a rapprochement among the several branches of learning so that they can be viewed as interrelated and constituting a whole.…

In many middle schools, poor student lunchtime behaviour is an ongoing problem. Such behaviour can have a detrimental effect on a school's climate and culture, which can in turn degrade the quality of learning that occurs in the classroom. As a result, improving students' lunchtime behaviour should be a priority for staff. One solution is to make…

Background: Parenting factors may be important to the development of attributional style in adolescence, which in turn relates to depression symptoms. These relationships have mainly been considered in terms of social risk mechanisms, and little is known about the role of genetic influences. Method: Self-reported measures of attributional style,…

In this article, the author explores seven "unanswered questions" concerning the preparation of future teacher educator-researchers. She considers five questions concerning the substance of doctoral preparation: what the new generation of teacher-researchers would need to know about teacher education, relevant disciplines, research methodologies,…

Recent EU social science research programmes have stressed the importance of the "user". Using a study of EU funded social science projects, the article develops a typology of the different forms of user involvement. A case study of a "cluster" of research projects shows that user involvement within projects has significant…

The present paper reviews the literature regarding time-out interventions employed in home, school, and clinical settings. Characteristics examined include types of time-out, populations and settings, legal implications, and research implications. Policy recommendations for teachers, parents, and clinicians regarding time-out interventions are…

Results are presented of a cross-cultural study of differences in the reasons that children in the United States and Japan give for refraining from common types of aggression. Over 200 children, primarily fifth-graders, were interviewed individually. The study was an extension of previous research showing that children who voice a self-centered or…