Researchers have found that self-concept in students fluctuates during times of change, such as the physical transition between elementary school and junior high. Since Catholic school students typically do not have the physical transition or social network changes in junior high, it was hypothesized that their self-concepts would not fluctuate.…

Twitter, Google Docs and their cousins shrink the spaces between cultures even as they expand the reach of a typical classroom. How can a teacher use them to promote social justice? In Sarah Brown Wessling's English class, students are about to give Little Red Riding Hood a makeover. For weeks, her students at Johnston High School in Johnston,…

Two decades ago, many campuses mobilized a major effort to deal with a clear problem; faculty and students needed access to desktop computing technologies. Now the situation is much more complex. Responding to the current challenges, like mobile computing and social networking, will be ore difficult but equally important. There is a clear need for…

This article explores the connections between adult education participation and parent involvement in children's education--connections identified during an exploratory case study of parents transitioning into the workforce in compliance with welfare requirements. Data sources included interviews with parents, adult educators, and elementary…

Although study abroad trips provide an opportunity for affective and cognitive learning, it is largely assumed that they improve learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a study abroad field trip improved cognitive learning by comparing test performance between the study abroad participants (n = 20) and their peers who…

Using the example of an undergraduate unit of study that is taught both on-campus and externally, but uses Internet-based learning in both cases, we explore how social media might be used effectively in higher education. We place into question the assumption that such technologies necessarily engage students in constructivist learning; we argue…

The aims of this study are to identify health concerns and behaviors, to understand why some concerns are more worrisome than others, and to learn what information sources are relied on for a young age cohort--7th grade students--in two poor and near-poor school districts. Focus groups--one each of girls and boys--in each of two public school…

Significant resources of time, money and expertise are invested in leadership development programs, and networking is often cited as a benefit of participation in these programs. Previous research has traditionally focused on leadership as an individual attribute, but researchers and practitioners are increasingly recognizing leadership as a…

Denver Seminary formulated a program that used mentoring (one-on-one mentoring and small group participation) and practical application of learning (character and competency contracts) to help prepare its graduates for the actual demands of ministry work. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate how Denver Seminary's training and mentoring…

User-centered design is a principle stating that electronic resources, like library Web sites, should be built around the needs of the users. This article interviews Web developers of library and non-library-related Web sites, determining how they assess user needs and how they decide to adapt certain technologies for users. According to the…

Affiliation with substance using peers is one of the strongest predictors of adolescent alcohol use. This association is typically interpreted causally: peers who drink incite their friends to drink. This association may be complicated by uncontrolled genetic and environmental confounds because teens with familial predispositions for adolescent…

"Coming to America" is a journey filled with obstacles for some new faculty from abroad. This paper reports the findings of surveys conducted with foreign-born faculty and their students in order to explore the key issues these faculty face at US institutions. They identify substantial concerns about cultural differences, including…

Peer interactions among children have long interested social scientists. Identifying causal peer effects is difficult, and a number of studies have used random assignment to produce evidence that peers affect each other's outcomes. This focus by sociologists and economists on whether peers affect each other has not been matched by direct evidence…

This article differentiates two ways of understanding family diversity--objectively and interpretively. The search for objective diversity is rooted in the assumption that there are many different kinds of families in the United States and around the world; the search for interpretive diversity is rooted in the assumption that any given…

Background: Many breast cancer outreach programs assume that dissemination of information through social networks and provision of social support will promote screening. The authors prospectively examined the relationship between social network characteristics and adherence to screening guidelines. Method: Employed women age 40 years and older…