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In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the ensuring culture wars, the American school choice coalition has almost completely unraveled, but many school choice advocates assert that the coalition can be rebuilt. In this essay, I argue that the school choice coalition dissolved not because of politics or circumstance, but because the coalition's libertarians, progressives, and conservatives have fundamentally different first principles in politics and education -- first principles that are present in the works of theorists like Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill. By studying Paine and Mill, we can understand that any education-reform coalition will be a temporary aberration rather than an enduring alliance.

Background: Feeding behaviors adopted by parents influence children's eating, and parent mental health may affect feeding interactions. Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent mental disorders among adults; thus, there is a need to comprehensively understand the relationship between parent anxiety symptomatology and feeding behaviors. Objective: This systematic review provides the first comprehensive overview that focuses solely on parent anxiety and nonresponsive feeding. Based on PRISMA guidelines, the goal of this review is to elucidate current literature gaps and to inform future interventions that aim to reduce the risk of childhood obesity. Methods: PubMed and APA PsycInfo were searched with an extensive keyword combination to identify empirical studies from peer-reviewed journals that focus on parent anxiety and feeding behaviors that are utilized with typically developing children of ages 6 months or older. After independent and masked screening rounds of 925 articles, 10 studies were included for data extraction. In accordance with the PRISMA guidelines, the independently extracted data included the following: authors, year of publication, sample characteristics, study design, anxiety and feeding measures, study goal, main findings, and methodological limitations. Results: Of the 10 studies included in this systematic review, 70% indicated an association between parent anxiety symptomatology and nonresponsive feeding behaviors of restriction, control, and emotional feeding. Ninety percent of the included studies had a mother-only sample. Conclusions: Parents with anxiety symptomatology tend to use nonresponsive and obesogenic feeding practices. Given this relationship, parent anxiety is a potential area for inclusion in interventions that aim to reduce children's risk for obesity.

There is a need to better understand the complex landscape of adolescent literacy intervention as a shared responsibility across all educational stakeholders. To address this need, we examined the self-reported literacy beliefs and practices about secondary readers and literacy intervention among a group of educators (including administrators, teachers, and specialists) who participated in a year-long professional learning series focused on providing adolescents with rich and responsive literacy learning opportunities. We found that educators' beliefs and practices shifted as they developed shared understandings of asset-based mindsets and ways of supporting students' situated literacy learning and comprehension within disciplinary contexts. We offer suggestions for how to create shared learning opportunities for educators across roles and discuss implications for future research.

Most schools operate as hierarchical structures, where adult stakeholders largely dictate what counts as knowledge and how to teach it. While previous scholarship has documented the promise of youth-led initiatives to trouble hierarchical structures, these explorations tend to occur outside of schools and do not typically account for the kinds of changes in relations between youth and adults necessary to disrupt hierarchical structures from within. Using third-generation cultural-historical activity theory as our theoretical framework, in this study we explore the shifts in subject-subject relations that emerged as high school youth literacy mentors, their teacher, and university researchers participated in iterative processes of co-configuration to open up new possibilities for literacy learning at their public school. We examine how youth mentors and adults co-designed and co-taught the Literacy Mentorship Class (LMC) while increasingly engaging contradictions as double binds within the Literacy Mentorship Debrief (LMD). We trace how evolving subject-subject relations in the LMD contributed to shifts in divisions of labor, rules, objects, and mediating artifacts in and beyond the LMC. Ultimately, we propose debriefs as a set of reflective practices to facilitate future possibilities for co-configuration among youth and adults that can be responsive to the particularities of any school community.

It is critically important to understand the environmental contexts and demographic factors that put families at greater risk of COVID-related parenting stress. The current study examined a new scale measuring situational stress caused by concern about family safety and stability during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined how this stress differed by socioeconomic status and children's schooling modality, and how this stress and parent social support affected parents' severity of overall psychological distress. Parents of children in distance learning experienced significantly less COVID-related family safety/stability stress. COVID-related family safety/stability stress was a significant predictor for severity of psychological distress, and this positive relationship was significantly moderated by perceived parent social support, controlling for all other predictors. Going forward, financial resources and perceived parent social support should be incorporated in plans to assist parents during the pandemic, as these serve as protective factors from COVID-related family safety/stability stress.

With advances in technology, researchers and test developers are developing new item types to measure complex skills like problem solving and critical thinking. Analyzing such items is often challenging because of their complicated response patterns, and thus it is important to develop psychometric methods for practitioners and researchers to analyze these new item types. In this study, we describe a generic approach that involves data-driven analyses and expert feedback from different research areas so that the analysis results can provide valuable information to test developers and researchers on how complex item types contribute to score reliability and validity and on how to make the test more efficient and reliable in measuring complex skills. A real data example was used to illustrate how to identify nonfunctioning options that might be removed from the test and whether partial credit for certain response selections can be considered.

Stand-alone reading intervention courses, or reading classes, are designed to facilitate the literacy development of adolescents who have been deemed "struggling" readers. However, the existence of such courses does not mean that these goals are realized. Decades of qualitative research on youth perspectives and experiences have documented how inequity can persist within reading classes. Nevertheless, district mandates or curricular adoptions often require schools to offer these courses. To mitigate students' negative experiences when these courses are offered, Maneka Deanna Brooks, Katherine K. Frankel, and Julie E. Learned draw on their research to propose a four-phase process to evaluate and revise policies and practices for placing students in reading classes.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to demonstrate far-reaching impact on individuals, families, and communities. Emerging research highlights the detrimental impact of the pandemic on perinatal mental health. Warm Connections is a behavioral health program embedded in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) clinics. The authors describe changes made by Warm Connections to address the increased needs of this population during the pandemic. In collaboration with WIC staff, the program developed a new outreach model to provide timely, comprehensive support for caregivers in the early postpartum period. Included is a case example and an important reminder that systems under stress can find resilience and inspiration in connection and innovation.

While educators may be well positioned to support unaccompanied immigrant youth, there is limited interdisciplinary research focused on understanding the complexity of youth's experiences in US schools. The purpose of this qualitative, interview-based study was to better understand how youth's transnational experiences pre-, during, and post-migration affected their school-based experiences, and to explore how schools supported them. Participants included ten unaccompanied immigrant youths from Central America and six key informants who worked with youth in a professional capacity. Findings indicate that youth experienced multiple challenges including stressful and traumatic events, barriers to mental health and legal services, and unfamiliar cultural and linguistic norms that sometimes were not recognized or understood by their teachers and schools. The youth also brought important resources, such as high expectations and aspirations and strong connections to family and community. School-based experiences that built from youth's resources and motivations (e.g., through school-community partnerships and responsive classroom practices) had the potential to enhance belonging, community connections, and wellness. More interdisciplinary research is needed to develop and support school-based practices and partnerships in consultation with youth that build from knowledge of their particular resources and challenges.

Prior research on peer literacy teaching tends to be conceptualized as peer tutoring and often focuses on the cognitive aspects of reading (e.g., skills, strategies). In this multiple case study, we draw on theories of identity and positioning to propose a conceptual shift from "tutoring" to "mentoring" to also describe the affective and relational dimensions of peer literacy teaching. In our analysis, we explore how two 11th graders positioned themselves as readers and mentors in a cross-age literacy mentorship class in a public high school in the northeastern United States. Data sources include mentor interviews, field notes, and artifacts. Our multiphase coding process identified three main themes: the importance of (a) texts and (b) relationships and reciprocity to mentors' positioning, and (c) complexities of the mentor position. Findings suggest that school-based opportunities for youth to work collaboratively to understand their own and others' reading processes may contribute insights into both the affective and the cognitive aspects of peer literacy teaching.

Background/Context: In the past two decades there have been at least 10 quantitative reviews, syntheses, or meta-analyses focused on literacy interventions in secondary schools. To date, much of this research has focused on quantifiable outcomes such as reading test scores, and few efforts have been made to synthesize studies of adolescent literacy interventions that attend to how students themselves experience those interventions and what mediates their experiences, which previous adolescent literacy research suggests should be considered alongside other outcomes. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This meta-synthesis of qualitative research highlights additional factors that are overlooked when evidence of effectiveness is defined predominantly through assessment outcomes. It contributes insights from two decades of research on reading intervention classes (RICs), which are a long-standing approach to adolescent literacy intervention. We define RICs as compulsory, yearlong courses that supplement content-area classes with the goal of improving adolescents' reading. Grounded in sociocultural theories of literacy and learning, our research question was: How do students experience and perceive RICs? Research Design: We conducted a qualitative meta-synthesis of 21 studies published between 2000 and 2020 that (1) focused on secondary (grades 6-12) RICs in the United States and (2) included data related to students' experiences and perspectives. Data Collection and Analysis: We followed best practices in qualitative meta-synthesis, including assembling an author team composed of researchers with expertise in RICs, identifying a research meta-question, conducting a comprehensive search, selecting and appraising relevant studies, and coding and presenting findings using qualitative techniques. Findings/Results: We found that youth's own diverse understandings of themselves as readers and writers, combined with the extent to which they viewed their RICs as relevant, agentive, and facilitative of relationships, mediated students' experiences and perceptions of their RICs. In addition, students across studies described placement policies and practices as confusing, frustrating, and embarrassing. Conclusions/Recommendations: By providing a perspective that extends beyond test scores, the findings highlight some of the consequences of intervention placement policies and practices for adolescents. They also address the need for educational stakeholders to expand definitions of what counts as evidence of effectiveness to inform the future development of re-mediated literacy learning opportunities for adolescents that (1) rethink curriculum and instruction to affirm students' literacy identities, histories, and capacities, and (2) reposition youth as literacy knowers and doers.

This report describes the pilot conducted in the final phase of a project, Expanding Audio Access to Mathematics Expressions by Students With Visual Impairments via MathML, to provide easy-to-use tools for authoring and rendering secondary-school algebra-level math expressions in synthesized speech that is useful for students with blindness or low vision. The pilot evaluated the authoring and speech-rendition tools, including interactive navigation. Teachers participated in the portion of the study that evaluated the authoring tools. Secondary school students with blindness or low vision participated in the portion that evaluated the speech-rendition and navigation tools, comparing those tools to each student's usual method (braille or print) for working with math. The teachers received an interactive authoring tutorial and the students received an interactive navigation tutorial before using the tools studied. Prior to the pilot, feedback studies on authoring and navigation gathered information that was used to fine-tune the tutorials and the functionalities being evaluated. In the pilot we attempted to simulate a likely use-case for each group. In the students' case, the tools for reading and navigating spoken mathematics were compared directly with the methods each student typically used for reading math (braille or print in a size appropriate for the student). Teachers and content providers were instructed to author math expressions that matched those used in the pilot instruments given to the students. The studies showed that the authoring tools were easy for teachers to use as intended and that little observable difference existed between students' success in answering math and math-parsing questions when using the spoken math tools and their success in answering parallel questions posed in braille or print of appropriate size. Please see Appendix E for information on obtaining a version of this report that is fully accessible using the tools described.

The Tennessee First Five Training Institute (TFFTI) is a workforce development project to build infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) capacity across Tennessee's community mental health agencies. TFFTI focused on foundational trainings in IECMH concepts, training in child-parent psychotherapy, dyadic, trauma treatment for children birth to 6 years old, and reflective consultation. This article will discuss TFFTI's programmatic shift in the wake of Tennessee's March 3, 2021, tornado, COVID-19, and the murder of George Floyd. The authors highlight TFFTI's collaborations with national partnerships to adapt training and provide support through virtual formats. The authors discuss lessons learned and provide guidance for others considering large-scale IECMH workforce development efforts.

The work described in this report is the second phase of a project to provide easy-to-use tools for authoring and rendering secondary-school algebra-level math expressions in synthesized speech that is useful for students with blindness or low vision. This report describes the development and results of the second feedback study performed for our project, Expanding Audio Access to Mathematics Expressions by Students With Visual Impairments via MathML. That study focused on the use of certain prosodic and lexical elements in the ClearSpeak speech style and served as a basis for further refinements in that style's definition and implementation in the MathPlayer software. The primary parameters evaluated are students' success in drawing conclusions about the content and structure of certain math expressions and their perceptions regarding the helpfulness of the pace and wording of different text-to-speech renditions of the same or similar mathematical expressions. Please see Appendix A for information on obtaining a version of this report that is fully accessible using the tools described.

The work described in this report is the first phase of a project to provide easy-to-use tools for authoring and rendering secondary-school algebra-level math expressions in synthesized speech that is useful for students with blindness or low vision. This report describes the initial development, software implementation, and evaluation of the ClearSpeak speech style--implemented for initial testing purposes using prerecorded synthetic speech, and implemented later in the project as a collection of predefined rules and in some cases variations (called "preferences" in ClearSpeak)--for automatically generated synthetic speech. In addition to wording, speech styles can specify pausing (or other prosodic cues) within the speech.The ClearSpeak style focuses on speech for secondary school algebra.The evaluation compares a prototype of the ClearSpeak style to two pre-existing speech styles: MathSpeak and SimpleSpeak. The primary parameters evaluated are students' success in drawing conclusions about the content and structure of math expressions and their perceptions regarding the familiarity, helpfulness, and understandability of the expressions as spoken. Please see Appendix E for information on obtaining a version of this report that is fully accessible using the tools described.

Critical thinking is one of the most important skills deemed necessary for college graduates to become effective contributors in the global workforce. The first part of this article provides a comprehensive review of its definitions by major frameworks in higher education and the workforce, existing assessments and their psychometric qualities, and challenges surrounding the design, implementation, and use of critical thinking assessment. In the second part, we offer an operational definition that is aligned with the dimensions of critical thinking identified from the reviewed frameworks and discuss the key assessment considerations when designing a next-generation critical thinking assessment. This article has important implications for institutions that are currently using, planning to adopt, or designing an assessment of critical thinking.

This study examines transitions to school from the standpoint of the work of families. We identify systemic differences constructed through state responses to childhood disability. Based on data from a longitudinal institutional ethnography conducted in Ontario, Canada, these differences illuminate the ways in which ability and disability are constructed in early childhood, and how these constructs are reinforced through procedures, policies, and documentation. Ultimately, we identify five key phenomena in the study: implicit messages of exclusion, the work of families, the supremacy of labels, a fallacy of choice, and the flexibility of institutions to adapt for children. These findings are taken up in the context of broader discourses of school readiness and transition to school with the intention of expanding our conversation about transitions.

Despite evidence that youths' literacy practices and identities are important contributors to literacy learning, studies of secondary literacy instruction often focus on understanding classroom storylines from the perspectives of teachers and schools. The purpose of this case study was to examine how one youth, Leo, shaped the storyline of his one-on-one literacy tutorials by attending to his deviations from his tutor's storyline. Framed by theories of identity, agency, and positioning, findings indicate that deviations were acts of agency that manifested as collaborative authoring or improvisation and provided insights about Leo as a reader, writer, and person. Findings highlight the situated and collaborative nature of meaning-making and the importance of theoretically grounded literacy instruction that attends to how students negotiate their positions in relation to teachers' storylines.

Despite recognition of the importance of parent involvement to enable meaningful inclusion of young children with developmental disabilities in education contexts, few Canadian studies have reported how parents experience this collaboration. Recent research suggests that the transition process is critical to the early school experiences of children with developmental disabilities yet challenging for their parents. The purpose of this paper is to report preliminary data from HELPS Inc, a Canadian multi-method research project describing Health, Education, and Learning Partnerships Promoting Social Inclusion of young children with developmental disabilities. In this paper we present parents' perspectives on inclusion and collaboration with case study findings based on the experiences of three families in one Ontario community. The data demonstrate the unique experiences of and meanings of collaboration held by individual families, and highlight the challenges these differences pose for healthcare providers and educators committed to involving parents in the transition into school and for inclusion of young children with developmental delays and disabilities. (Contains 1 table.)

This study examines inclusive education within Guyana for children with special needs (zero to eight years), from the perspectives of policy makers, teachers, and parents (n = 22). The study is framed within a social-constructivist perspective, and uses grounded theory for the collection and analysis of data. Four themes emerged from the data as potential barriers to implementing inclusive education in Guyana: attitudes and perceptions toward those with special needs, change agents, resources, and experiences with children with special needs. This study describes the interrelating relationships between the core phenomenon (i.e., attitudes toward those with special needs), and the other conditions (i.e., change agents, resources, and experiences with children with special needs) necessary for successful inclusion. The interrelationship between these factors stimulates strategies or actions. These lead to consequences, which prevent sustainable and successful inclusive education within Guyana. There is a discussion of recommendations and conclusions that may assist in supporting inclusive education within Guyana. (Contains 1 figure.)

Secondary literacy instruction often happens "to" adolescents rather than "with" them. To disrupt this trend, we collaborated with 12th-grade "literacy mentors" to reimagine literacy teaching and learning with 10th-grade mentees in a public high school classroom. We used positioning theory as an analytic tool to (a) understand how mentors positioned themselves and how we positioned them and (b) examine the literacy practices that enabled and constrained the mentor position. We found that our positioning of mentors as collaborators was taken up in different and sometimes unexpected ways as a result of the multiple positions available to them and institutional-level factors that shaped what literacy practices were and were not negotiable. We argue that future collaborations with youth must account for the rights and duties of all members of a classroom community, including how those rights and duties intersect, merge, or come into conflict within and across practices.

Students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are increasingly included in general education and are expected to access core content, including science. Development of science content knowledge, scientific literacy, and scientific thinking are emphasized in legislation as well as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) as critical for all students. However, participation in science is often challenging for students with ASD given their difficulties with communication and vocabulary, and evidence on teaching science to students with disabilities is limited. This comprehensive literature review synthesized 10 studies of science interventions for students with ASD. Findings suggest that students with ASD require interventions to develop the background knowledge and high-level vocabulary necessary to be successful in science. Moreover, though studies related to instructional interventions in science for students with ASD are limited, studies suggest these students benefit from direct instruction with supplementary materials such as e-texts, graphic organizers, and scripted lessons as well as inquiry-based practices that provide hands-on exploration. Implications include the need for more empirically supported interventions applied to teaching science content to students with ASD, particularly in the general education classroom.

Background: Sexting, the sharing of sexually suggestive photos, may be a gateway behavior to early sexual activity and increase the likelihood of social ostracism. Methods: Youth Risk Behavior Survey (N = 6021) data from 2015 among Pennsylvania 9th-12th grade students were used to examine associations between consensual and nonconsensual sexting and substance use, mental health, neighborhood safety, and demographic variables. Results: Almost one-third (29%) of students reported consensual sexting, while 3% reported nonconsensual sexting. Female students were 49% less likely to report consensual sexting (OR = 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI]: [0.54, 0.87]); consensual sexting was significantly more likely in students who reported depressive symptoms (OR = 1.39, 95% CI: [1.10, 1.75]), electronic bullying (OR = 1.46, 95% CI: [1.05, 2.04]), suicide attempts (OR = 1.96, 95% CI: [1.22, 3.17]), current tobacco use (OR = 1.99, 95% CI: [1.30, 3.03]), current alcohol use (OR = 4.23, 95% CI: [3.04, 5.89]), ever having sex (OR = 5.21, 95% CI: [3.87, 7.02]), and reported both ever having sex, and current alcohol use (OR = 7.74, 95% CI: [5.37, 11.14]). Conclusions: High school students, particularly men, that report sexting may be more likely to participate in other risk behaviors and experience negative mental health outcomes. Further research should clarify the temporality of links between sexting, cyberbullying, depression, and suicide to inform mental health screening and treatment availability in high schools.

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate teacher-initiated whole-group oral reading practices in two ninth-grade reading intervention classrooms and how teachers understood the purposes of those practices. Design/methodology/approach: In this qualitative cross-case analysis, a literacy-as-social-practice perspective is used to collaboratively analyze ethnographic data (fieldnotes, audio recordings, interviews, artifacts) across two classrooms. Findings: Oral reading was a routine instructional reading event in both classrooms. However, the literacy practices that characterized oral reading and teachers' purposes for using oral reading varied depending on teachers' pedagogical philosophies, instructional goals and contextual constraints. During oral reading, students' opportunities to engage in independent meaning making with texts were either absent or secondary to other purposes or goals. Practical implications: Findings emphasize the significance of understanding both how and why oral reading happens in secondary classrooms. Specifically, they point to the importance of collaborating with teachers to: (1) examine their own ideas about the power of oral reading and the institutional factors that shape their existing oral reading practices; (2) investigate the intended and actual outcomes of oral reading for their students; and (3) develop other instructional approaches to support students to individually and collaboratively make meaning from texts. Originality/value: This study falls at the intersection of three under-researched areas of study: the nature of everyday instruction in secondary literacy intervention settings, the persistence of oral reading in secondary school and teachers' purposes for using oral reading in their instruction. Consequently, it contributes new knowledge that can support educators in creating more equitable instructional environments.

Studies of high school literacy intervention classes have measured reading gains through standardized assessments, but few have considered the impact on students' identities. In this embedded case study, I used theories of identity and positioning to answer two research questions: How did institutional and interpersonal acts of positioning in two literacy intervention classrooms build on, change, or challenge students' personal histories and identities as readers? How did these acts shape students' understandings of themselves as readers over time? I collected and analyzed interviews, field notes, and artifacts. Analyses revealed that ongoing positioning in one classroom thickened one student's identity as a poor reader. Positioning in the second classroom reinforced the other student's identity as a good student but had little impact on her identity as a reader. These findings highlight the need to better understand how instructional contexts privilege particular ways of reading and understandings of what it means to be a reader.

Critical thinking is a learning outcome highly valued by higher education institutions and the workforce. The Educational Testing Service (ETS) has designed a next generation assessment, the HEIghten™ critical thinking assessment, to measure students' critical thinking skills in analytical and synthetic dimensions. This paper introduces the theoretical framework that guided the assessment design, and also reports on the preliminary validity evidence of the pilot data from over 3000 students from 35 two and four-year institutions. The critical thinking scores demonstrated satisfactory total and subscale reliabilities, were reasonably correlated with SAT scores, high school grade point average (GPA), and college GPA, and were able to detect cross-sectional performance difference between freshmen and seniors. In addition, most examinees reported having tried their best when taking the test. Results show that test-taking motivation has a significant impact on performance. We encourage institutions to pay attention to motivational issues in implementing low-stakes learning outcomes assessment such as the HEIghten™ critical thinking assessment.

In their 1985 report, "Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading," Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, and Wilkinson defined reading and proposed five principles that guide its successful enactment: (1) reading is a constructive process, (2) reading must be fluent, (3) reading must be strategic, (4) reading requires motivation, and (5) reading is a continuously developing skill. In this article we revise the definition from "reading" to "literacy" and rethink the principles in response to theoretical and empirical developments in the intervening years with regard to the processes of, and contexts for, reading. Our updated principles include: (1) literacy is a constructive, integrative, and critical process situated in social practices; (2) fluent reading is shaped by language processes and contexts; (3) literacy is strategic and disciplinary; (4) literacy entails motivation and engagement; and (5) literacy is a continuously developing set of practices. We redefine each principle and offer new explanations in light of what we now know.

Theories guide many aspects of literacy research. In this article we describe four theoretical approaches that we have used in qualitative research with students who are perceived to struggle with reading in school, including: New Literacy Studies, Disability Studies in Education, Bioecological Systems Theory, and Cultural Historical Activity Theory. We provide a brief overview of each of the theories and then explain how we have used them to gain insights about students with whom we have worked in the context of our research. Although grounded in distinct perspectives, we argue that each of the theories are lenses through which we were better able to understand the complexities of students' struggles with reading. We further argue that the theories are united in their ability to broaden the perspectives of researchers and teachers to better account for the social, cultural, and institutional factors that shape literacy teaching and learning in schools. We conclude by questioning the use of the term "struggling reader" and highlighting the implications of our individual theoretical frames and analyses for both research and practice.

This paper derives from the authors' experiences of the development of a successful science specialism implemented in a large primary school in regional Victoria, Australia, since 2012. We discuss how diverse resources--people, spaces, equipment, materials and ideas--were brought together to support a science specialism that focuses on positioning students as burgeoning experts; leveraging and enhancing connections with community; and, developing positive dispositions towards science and the environment. Our discussion is supported by illustrative excerpts from interviews, focus groups and meetings with school and university staff members. We conclude by identifying characteristics that might suggest principles for success in other contexts.

This study offers an in-depth examination of the experiences of early childhood educators, focusing on their work with Ethiopian immigrant children and their families. We aim to describe and analyze the teachers' insider views vis-à-vis the challenges faced by these children and their parents in the Israeli preschool system. Using narrative methodology, the analysis of findings is based upon 20 stories written by 10 early childhood educators. It reveals that for these teachers, the chief struggle is their relationship with the parents of their Ethiopian pupils, one characterized by difficulties, frustrations, and burdens. The engagement with parents of Ethiopian children exhibited a range of possibilities: from the expression of patronizing, hierarchical viewpoints, to a search for ad hoc ways of coping with a persistent cultural gap, to the attainment of genuine, successful partnerships. Lack of sufficient knowledge and understanding of the unique cultural attributes of the Ethiopian community appears to be the basis for the teachers' view of the parents as lacking faith in them and in the educational system as a whole. In addition, suggestions are made about implications for educational practice and for policies that might assist teachers in ameliorating these challenges via the development of, and professional training in, skills which help coping with the problems and dilemmas unique to the multicultural classroom.

Background: This study examines the social relationships of elementary school children with high-functioning autism, focusing on how gender relates to social preferences and acceptance, social connections, reciprocal friendships, and rejection. Method: Peer nomination data were analyzed for girls with and without ASD (n = 50) and boys with and without ASD (n = 50). Girls and boys with ASD were matched by age, gender, and IQ. Each child with ASD was matched by age and gender to a typically developing classmate. Results: Consistent with typically developing populations, children with ASD preferred, were accepted by, and primarily socialized with same-gender friends. With fewer nominations and social relationships, girls and boys with ASD appear more socially similar to each other than to the same-gender control group. Additionally, girls and boys with ASD showed higher rates of social exclusion than their typically developing peers. However, boys with ASD were more overtly socially excluded compared to girls with ASD, who seemed to be overlooked, rather than rejected. Conclusions: Our data suggest a number of interesting findings in the social relationships of children with ASD in schools. Like typically developing populations, children with ASD identify with their own gender when socializing and choosing friends. But given the social differences between genders, it is likely that girls with ASD are experiencing social challenges that are different from boys with ASD. Therefore, gender is an important environmental factor to consider when planning social skills interventions at school.

This study seeks to examine the predictors of positive social skills outcomes from the University of California, Los Angeles Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills, an evidence-based parent-assisted social skills program for high-functioning middle school and high school adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. The results revealed that adolescents with higher parent-reported baseline social skills and lower self-reported perceived social functioning demonstrated greater improvement in social skills following the intervention.

This study aims to evaluate the long-term outcome of Children's Friendship Training, a parent-assisted social skills intervention for children. Prior research has shown Children's Friendship Training to be superior to wait-list control with maintenance of gains at 3-month follow-up. Participants were families of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder who completed Children's Friendship Training 1-5 years earlier. They were recruited through mail, phone, and email. Information collected included parent and child completed questionnaires and a phone interview. Data were collected on 24 of 52 potential participants (46%). With an average of 35-month follow-up, participants had a mean age of 12.6 years. Results indicated that participants at follow-up were invited on significantly more play dates, showed less play date conflict, improved significantly in parent-reported social skills and problem behaviors, and demonstrated marginally significant decreases in loneliness when compared to pre-Children's Friendship Training.

Social deficits are a hallmark characteristic among adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), yet few evidence-based interventions exist aimed at improving social skills for this population, and none have examined the maintenance of treatment gains years after the intervention has ended. This study examines the durability of the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS), a manualized, parent-assisted social skills intervention for high-functioning adolescents with ASD. Targeted skills related to the development and maintenance of friendships were assessed 1--5 years following treatment for 53 adolescent participants and their parents. Results indicate that adolescents receiving PEERS maintained treatment gains at long-term follow-up on standardized measures of social functioning including the Social Skills Rating System and the Social Responsiveness Scale as well as in frequency of peer interactions and social skills knowledge. Perhaps due to parent involvement in treatment, results reveal additional improvements in social functioning at follow-up assessment.

This study examines the effectiveness of Helping Early Literacy with Practice Strategies (HELPS) One-on-One Program on increasing the reading fluency of two children identified as having reading difficulties. Reading fluency is characterized by quickness and accuracy of reading. Additionally, fluency is the second stage of the learning hierarch, following acquisition of a given skill, and necessary to become proficient in a given academic skill. Reading fluency is particularly important given the necessity of reading across multiple domains of life. This study targeted two students using the HELPS program who were struggling with reading fluency during. One student was found to read at a fourth grade level and the other read at a second grade level. It was found the HELPS program promoted an increasing in reading fluency across both student as evidence by an increase in their amount of words read correctly per minute.

This mixed methods study reports on the perspectives of 143 preservice early childhood educators (ECE) and 208 elementary teacher candidates (TC) on teaching children with developmental disabilities and delays (DDD) in inclusive classrooms. A questionnaire was administered which included items on demographic characteristics, experience, knowledge, and feelings of competence when collaborating with colleagues and meeting the needs of students with DDD. Included was the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale short form (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). Qualitative data were collected through open-ended questions about successes and challenges in including children with DDD. Whenever applicable, items asked respondents to respond based on their most recent practicum in a child care or school setting. Similar findings were reported by both preservice ECE and elementary teacher candidates. TCs reported significantly greater experience, knowledge, and sense of efficacy in their teaching compared to ECEs, but no differences in feelings of competence. Analyses of open-ended questions about successes and challenges experienced by ECEs and TCs yielded similar themes related to differentiating teaching, enhancing participation for children, and collaborating, with TCs also expressing concerns about differentiating curriculum. Implications for early childhood and elementary teacher preparation programs are discussed.

This paper assesses the engagement of family therapy and family practice with families with children, who are living in poverty. It analyzes four promising models from two perspectives. The first perspective relates to critiques, which have been made of the practice of family therapy with families living in poverty; and the second relates to the implications of the theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of poverty on children. To place this discussion in context, the history of family therapy's involvement with families living in poverty is described and the relevance of the cause versus function debate is highlighted. (Contains 2 tables.)

A recent partnership between the Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health and the Community Based Psychiatry Program at University of Colorado Hospital joined two different approaches to child mental health treatment: infant mental health and multisystemic therapy (MST). This article illustrates the compatibility of these two approaches by detailing the application of both models to the treatment of 4-year-old Noah and his substance-abusing mother, Kim. The authors highlight helpful aspects of each approach, such as using ecologically informed interventions (MST) and reflective practice (infant mental health) to show how openness to contrasting frameworks can ultimately benefit families.

In this joint reflection two of the contributors to this issue of the "Journal of Education" consider the processes and practices that led to the publication of their respective pieces. Since one of the authors, Katherine Frankel, was a doctoral advisee of the other, David Pearson, they also reflect on the mentoring practices they shared over the last five years as Katherine completed her doctorate at Berkeley.

At the end of the twentieth century, genre theorists and practitioners debated the possibility of explicitly teaching genres in classrooms. Though the debate is decades old, it continues to be relevant to contemporary discussions about literacy instruction because it addresses questions about how to provide all students with access to genres of power. In this article, I highlight one example of explicit genre instruction in Australia that is particularly noteworthy for its critical and dialogic aspects, and then make connections between this approach and similar theoretical and pedagogical work in the United States. I conclude with a discussion of some of the implications for pedagogy that are derived from my analysis.