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In this case study, the researcher examines how three elementary teachers, all certified by their school district in culturally responsive teaching (CRT) through professional development (PD) opportunities, implement CRT in mathematics. The study was designed to understand 1) the CRT certification process and structures that were intended to support teachers in the focal district, and 2) how the teachers were enacting CRT in mathematics based on these experiences. Data were collected via interviews, questionnaires, observations, teacher journals, and other reportable data. The teachers were enacting CRT practices that aligned with Hammond's (2015) Ready for Rigor framework, which includes awareness, learning partnerships, community of learners, and information processing. Yet, at times, the teachers engaged in CRT practices that were more thoroughly captured in other literature, including that in mathematics education. Thus, the researcher created an adapted model to display these findings about practice across four quadrants. From these findings, researchers in mathematics education may gain a more informed understanding of how elementary teachers may enact CRT in mathematics based on their backgrounds and experiences with a district-developed and applied certification model, rather than a researcher-designed PD with selected participants of practicing teachers.

The main reason for the research significance is misconceptions arising in the field when implementing Sekolah Penggerak Program, which started in 2021. Thus, the objectives of this study are to describe programs for enhancing exceptional human resources, and to explore the Kurikulum Operasional Satuan Pendidikan (Education Unit Operational Curriculum), and the Merdeka Curriculum learning. Four elementary schools in Indonesia's urban and rural areas served as the research unit for analysis, which used a qualitative comparative case study design. The results demonstrate that the programs of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology for improving human resources, which includes training and mentoring, have a favourable effect on both rural and urban primary schools. However, only one out of four schools examined the context of the educational unit while creating education unit operational curriculum documents, and every school simply used education unit operational curriculum as a prerequisite for administrative fulfilment. Based on the available components, all teachers developed teaching modules for the Merdeka Curriculum. It was found, nevertheless, that the students were not genuinely exposed to the content of these modules.

This article examines the ways in which teachers and community-based activists collaborated to advance an anti-privatisation agenda within an urban school district. The article emerges from our respective studies of privatisation in Oakland, one a historical study of the advance of neoliberalism and the other a case study (Merriam 2007, "Qualitative Research and Case Study Applications in Education: Revised and Expanded from Case Study Research in Education," 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass) of teacher and community organising against privatisation and school closures. Utilising interviews with key activists and organisers as well as observation and participation in the education justice movement, we describe a set of collaborative political education projects through which activists reclaimed racial justice as the framework to strengthen the movement against privatisation. In these projects, activists called attention to the centrality of antiblackness in advancing privatisation and to the shared disposability and precarity of students of color and the teachers and schools that served them. By shifting from a 'defend' public schools to a 'transform public schools' framework, they also increased solidarity between teachers, the teachers' union, and the local community. In the context of the school reform's industry's appropriation of racial-justice language, these political education projects were both a counter-hegemonic and power-building strategy.

This narrative study examines a failed attempt to unionise an urban charter school. To investigate why this effort failed, I construct two competing 'stories of the school' -- the discursive narratives each side told about how the school operates, who it serves, and how it fits into a larger battle for educational, racial, and economic justice. I then read these narratives through the critical lens of 'neoliberal urbanism' (Lipman, P. 2011. "The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City." Routledge) to highlight how the school's official narrative pulled on neoliberal structures and hegemonic discourses to ultimately help administrators quell the unionising effort despite initial widespread staff enthusiasm.

For schools implementing Response-to-Intervention, it is important to understand how to efficiently intensify interventions. Treatment intensity, or intervention design, is a critical yet overlooked and understudied aspect in math. More frequent dosage results in greater student gains. However, questions remain regarding how teaching episodes impacts student outcomes. Limited reporting of these variables leads to questions regarding recommendations for intervention dosage or number of teaching episodes. This exploratory study used an adapted alternating treatment design to document the number of teaching episodes, calculate cumulative intensity, and evaluate the learning rate of a Cover-Copy-Compare intervention across three dosages. Results indicate that learning rates were the greatest during the smallest treatment dosage for most students. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Employing transnationalism and transnational literacies as theoretical perspectives, this study explores how two focal students from Asian immigrant families construct their transnational and transcultural identities by reflecting on their dynamic border-crossing experiences. The students' creation of artifacts (illustrating self-portraits and composing "I Am" poems) and collection of their oral narratives are analyzed to seek how they construct and negotiate their hybrid, sophisticated, and multifaceted identities by moving across both geographical and metaphorical borders. The findings show that Asian American students shape their collective identities when engaging in authentic and meaningful literacy practices that support them to reflect on and make connections to their transnational experiences and (hi)stories. Since the literature on transnationalism has focused on Latinx immigrants, this study narrows the gap in the literature by examining how students from Asian immigrant families build, negotiate, and embody their transnational identities when participating in literacy practices that reflect their unique transnational experiences. The findings provide implications for educators that including literacy practices in transnational contexts can be powerful pedagogy as it offers ample opportunities for transnational students to reflect on their richly diverse life experiences and to connect each facet of their collective identities to make meanings of their transnational lifeworld.

Early adolescence is a time of rapid cognitive, psychosocial, and physical development, and an array of contextual factors, such as systemic racism, exert significant influence. Universal behavioral health screening data of 4,234 middle school students were examined to explore the influence of demographic (e.g. ethnicity, race) and contextual factors (e.g. school configuration). Findings suggest that middle school students are rated as having higher levels of behavioral concerns and lower adaptive skills compared with elementary and high school students and are influenced by both factors. Implications for universal screening, critical analysis of structural inequities, and district practices are also examined.

Despite rich and growing school choice and school marketing literatures, little is known about if and how principals of zoned public elementary schools engage in marketing. We address this gap by drawing on in-depth interviews with principals of nine schools--in different neighborhoods--in the Baltimore school district. We find that principals have internalized marketing as a key component of school leadership. Further, marketing strategies differ depending on school and community contexts (e.g., enrollment, neighborhood, and resources, and principals' perceptions thereof). Our study reveals how differences in neighborhood conditions and inequities in school resources affect marketing pressure, capacity, and actions. Our findings underscore a need to support urban principals as they navigate marketing pressures and also show how neglecting to do so may exacerbate inequity among students.

Though culturally responsive practices (CRP) are widely lauded as important for educational practice, the field to date does not have a systematic video-based strategy to observe CRP across classrooms. Through a qualitative review of 68 classroom videos from the Measures of Effective Teaching dataset, we examined the presence, absence, and antithesis of CRP. Strikingly, our analyses revealed that CRP were largely absent from the observations. Building upon our meticulous and reflective iterative process, we discuss measurement challenges and link findings with practice-focused recommendations that can serve to bolster teacher education in a crucial domain for an increasingly complex, multicultural society.

Informed by austerity politics, struggling school districts have closed buildings to pursue cost savings. We investigate the factors affecting which schools are shuttered, proposing that the share of students with an Individualized Education Program (SIEP) influences the way building utilization is measured because of the different instructional spaces required. We examine the case of elementary schools in Chicago, where 44 of 402 schools were closed in 2013. Simulating administrative decision-making parameters with a logistic regression model and demographic, student, and school data, we find that Chicago Public Schools was more likely to close school buildings with higher shares of SIEPs. Such punitive measures reflect the politics of austerity and disposability, leaving students with disabilities, particularly those in low-income neighborhoods of color, with fewer educational options.

We used the emerging postcolonial frame of plantation pedagogy to understand parent involvement within urban Bahamian schools. We report on survey (parents, n = 377; teachers, n = 96), interviews (n = 33), and forum (n = 17) data to identify barriers and solutions to involvement. Findings demonstrate pervasive plantation ideologies and practices that shape interactions between parents and schools. We discuss our findings in relation to social and economic issues within Bahamian society, school and ministerial bureaucracy, and the metaphor of the inner planation. We make recommendations to teacher education programs.

Previous research identifies instructional program coherence as a school condition that has positive effects on student performance. This study investigates how instructional program coherence (IPC) operates as a social mechanism that supports teachers' psychological needs. We hypothesized that IPC would be positively related to teacher perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Hypotheses were tested in HLM 7.0. As expected, instructional program coherence had a statistically significant relationship with teacher autonomy and teacher relatedness. Interclass correlations for competence satisfaction did not reveal adequate variation at the school level, suggesting that in this data sample, teacher perceived competence had more to do with individual experiences of teachers rather than school-level differences. Findings in this study suggest that instructional program coherence works by creating conditions that enable teachers to thrive in the classroom, specifically by satisfying their needs for autonomy and relatedness.

In the midst of the pandemic, this school district made a significant investment with recovery dollars to expand enrichment opportunities in art, music, and physical education for students in their K-8 schools. The hypothesis was increasing the quality and quantity of these opportunities, the school district would increase student engagement, lead to more empathetic and joyful learning environments, and create more time for teacher preparation and collaboration. There were a number of challenges in planning and implementation that district leaders and principals had to overcome in order to see this initiative come to fruition. Early results show some promising trends and anecdotes indicate that students are participating in extracurricular experiences that they never would have been exposed to without these opportunities.

This study aimed to investigate grade-7 students' negotiation during the engineering design process regarding the students' status of argumentation training. The participants were 33 students studying at a public urban middle school in Turkey. They worked in small groups on four engineering design tasks about electricity and light. Data were collected through small group audio recordings, student worksheets, and the observation. The data were analyzed by using content analysis. The results indicated that negotiation patterns were similar across all groups. However, differences were found between the group that received argumentation training and the one that did not receive in terms of proposing ideas for material design, using justifications when in agreement with others, counter proposing and acquiring information for better planning and altering the design, and critiquing for design advantages and disadvantages.

There exist passionate debates about the best way to teach children to read. Since the Bush administration, school districts receiving federal funds have been required to have research evidence justifying their methods of teaching reading, and in recent years the need for evidence-based practices have intensified with the "Science of Reading" movement. Last year the country's largest school system changed from balanced reading to three other programs for teaching children to read. In this study we examined the empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of the three newly adopted reading programs for the country's largest school system. Our study consisted of website review of the research evidence provided by the three publishing companies regarding the effectiveness of their reading programs. Borrowing from studies of program effectiveness, we applied three criteria for analyzing the quality of research used by the publishers to document their program effectiveness. These criteria were the following: (1) Comparative clinical trials; (2) replication of results and (3) publication of evidence in professional journals. The results of our analyses indicated that only one of the selected reading programs was supported with empirical evidence meeting our criteria regarding program effectiveness. We argue that teachers, not programs, are what best affects children's learning to read. Overly simplified and politicized methods of teaching reading lacking empirical evidence of effectiveness are unlikely to accomplish this important goal.

This study examined the Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) professional development needs of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Teachers. EFL teachers participated in semi-structured interviews from seven primary schools in a middle-sized urban school district in the east part of China. Content analysis with frequency tables and quotations from the interview transcription were conducted. The results indicated that though primary EFL teachers in China have the basic technological knowledge to support teaching, they lack appropriate knowledge and training particularly in areas of TPACK related to EFL teaching. Results from the present study indicate that there is a need for professional development (PD) that helps EFL teachers integrate technology in teaching reading, speaking, and writing.

Preschool through third grade (P-3) alignment is regularly named as a key aspect of early childhood education and the transition to formal schooling. However, little is known about P-3 alignment in practice. Using data from 265 observations of math instruction in preschool, kindergarten, first-, and third-grade classrooms in New York City public schools, we explore P-3 instructional alignment as it would be experienced sequentially, over time and across grades, by students. We examine the continuity of developmentally appropriate instructional environments and high-quality pedagogical practices, as well as the progression of P-3 mathematics content coverage. We find notable discontinuities in instructional environments and some pedagogical practices, particularly across preschool and kindergarten. We also find both progression and repetition in math content coverage. Results suggest that, on some dimensions, kindergarten may be poorly aligned with both preschool and the early elementary grades.

Pandemic-era disruptions to schooling resulted in academic setbacks for many students. To help students catch up, school districts nationwide are implementing a range of academic recovery interventions. In this paper, we use multiple data sources to evaluate the impact and implementation of academic recovery interventions in four school districts during the 2021-2022 school year. Our estimates suggest the interventions failed to reach the expected number of students and had little detectable impact on students' test scores. Interviews with district officials highlight a host of challenges districts faced during the 2021-2022 school year. Considering the overall scale of pandemic learning loss, our results raise urgent questions about the adequacy of academic recovery efforts relative to students' needs. The results also have implications for how districts might respond to disrupted learning in the future (e.g. in the wake of natural disasters).

National interest is growing in Integrated Student Support (ISS) interventions, which offer schools systematic ways to reduce barriers to learning. The present study exploits the random component embedded within the school assignment system of a large urban school district to estimate the effect of schools providing ISS on student academic achievement at third, fourth, and fifth grade. The sample included students (N = 2,342) randomly assigned to schools--with or without ISS--via enrollment lottery. Students assigned to schools implementing ISS demonstrated higher achievement (from approximately 0.02% to more than 50% of a standard deviation) than those assigned to control schools. While we found some evidence for the efficacy of ISS by third grade, treatment effects were consistently largest and proved most robust across modeling strategies at fifth grade. The practical significance of these findings is discussed with attention to ongoing national efforts to improve the learning opportunities of economically disadvantaged students.

The Gifted and Talented program in New York City is one of the largest and longest running programs for gifted students in the nation. Yet little is known about its effects on student outcomes. Using student-level administrative data of New York City public school students between the 2010--2011 and 2018-2019 academic years, we studied the effects of the Gifted and Talented program on students' test score performance. Estimates from a matched comparison study show significant gains in middle school English language arts and math proficiency, after controlling for cohort, ethnicity, and district. Our balanced treatment and control groups provided sufficient sample sizes with which to analyze the performance of underrepresented minoritized groups, and we found significant treatment heterogeneity, where Black and Hispanic students showed the largest increase in academic proficiency scores after participating in the Gifted and Talented program. Implications of these findings for education policy--particularly related to new developments in selective school admissions--are discussed.

The ethnic and racial makeup of the United States has changed during the last several decades. Scholars have qualitatively shown how these changes affect school districts but have not identified their scale. We examine residential demographic change using a novel dataset derived from a geographic technique that leverages satellite imagery with 2000 and 2020 census data. We then analyze the effects of demographic change on student isolation and dissimilarity in elementary school districts. Our findings indicate that most elementary districts have changed, but the changes are uneven. The number of districts with White student intense isolation declined, particularly in suburban locales. Meanwhile, districts with student of color intense isolation increased, particularly in urban locales. These changes indicate that increasing diversity for White students has coincided with greater isolation for students of color. These findings should prompt scholars to reconsider their conceptualization of suburban school districts.

According to the systems perspective, the influence of various systems (e.g., family, school, community) on children's behavior at school is highly acknowledged. It is therefore accepted that problem behavior in the classroom originates from social interactions, providing a conceptual framework where problems are seen as indicative of dysfunction within the school system, thus removing blame from the individual child, the teacher, or the parents. Addressing the importance of interactions among students, teachers, and parents in this system, the present study aimed to identify and compare the types of behaviors that Greek primary and secondary teachers and parents view as problematic in the classroom. A sample of 378 teachers and 69 parents were asked to identify which behaviors were considered troublesome. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five categories of behaviors perceived as problematic by parents and teachers: Externalizing behaviors, School Difficulties, Internalizing behaviors, Attention seeking behaviors, and Hyperactivity/attention difficulties. Both teachers and parents considered externalizing behaviors to be more troublesome than other types of behavior. Teachers tend to worry less than parents about all types of children's behaviors, except for school difficulties. The findings highlight the importance of considering diverse perspectives within the school system when designing interventions to address the specific needs of school communities while also promoting collaboration among all members of the school system.

The making of education governance reforms has led to the transfer of school management powers to teachers' and parents' representatives through primary school management committees. However, the committees have been found to be inadequate in ensuring that collective action is taken by their male and female members in most low- and middle-income countries. In response, this paper examines the possibilities that collective action by school committees is related to gender inequality, controlling for demographic and socio-economic factors across the rural (Iringa District) and urban (Arusha City) contexts of Tanzania. The results of a simple linear regression analysis using Ordinary Least Square techniques show that gender inequality predicts the collective action in school committees in both Arusha City and Iringa District. However, the multiple linear regression model predicts gender inequality in Arusha, and not in Iringa, controlling for membership experience and occupational status for both the rural and urban samples. This paper has implications for both policy and practice. In particular, the next round of school autonomy reforms needs to consider the criteria for school committee membership to incorporate membership experience and occupational status into the qualifications of parents' representatives. In practice, head teachers need to devise innovative, sustainable approaches using the readily available resources to provide planning, budgeting and monitoring skills-based training to newly elected parent representatives.

This paper presents a study conducted in a Greek Elementary school and explores the impact of Digital Storytelling (DST) on developing children's second language (L2) writing skills and their intercultural awareness. The development of digital technologies has enabled the use of different multimedia tools to reconfigure traditional storytelling. The researchers' aim was to reinforce a learner-centered approach to the teaching of writing by provoking influence in innovation of pedagogical practices that personalize learning. L2 learners of diverse cultural backgrounds attending the fifth grade (n = 21) of a Greek state elementary school, were involved in composing, sharing and reflecting upon stories from their own cultural backgrounds. The researchers built an interculturally-oriented language framework for better addressing young learners' literacies, ensuring they work in a stimulating environment, spending time online and engaging with digital applications. Qualitative and quantitative mix methods were used to estimate the feasibility of the intervention, including a pre- and post-test, teachers' journals and focus group discussions with the L2 learners. Variables of the study were fifth graders in the context of an elementary school in Greece (independent variable) and their writing skills in Greek as a second language (dependent variable). Data processing, by means of a pre- and post-test, revealed that the DST approach provided students with opportunities to acquire improved communicative competence through writing creatively. Journal data indicated that DST application in a game-based context enhanced task engagement, encouraging young learners to use interactive media in a digital environment. Young learners' intercultural competence development was also shown to be supported through the DST approach. In the focus group discussions, participants stated their interest and satisfaction in the approach and the methods applied. All in all, the results imply that the approach implemented has the potential to be used as a meaningful technology integration approach as far as language teaching and learning is concerned. The findings additionally explore pedagogical implications for future teaching practices in order to enhance and extend the approach and methods employed.

The term nature deficit disorder describes the "human costs of alienation from nature" (Louv, 2019). While not meant to be a medical diagnosis, Louv argues that the condition has, "profound implications, not only for the health of future generations but for the health of the earth itself" (Louv, 2008). Children most at risk are those who live or go to school in an urban setting, as well as students diagnosed with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD). Students diagnosed with EBD are often kept indoors as their teachers and caretakers are frequently trained in the indoor use only of behavior management techniques (Riden et al., 2022). This means that during professional development training, any that pertain to behavior management techniques, procedure, or protocol are routinely taught inside of a classroom, conference room, or recently home office, using an indoor scenario (classroom, auditorium, cafeteria, etc.) as an example of when and how to use these behavior management tools. Outdoor professional development, equipping students with natural tools that can help improve not only their physical but also their mental health, as well as connecting students with nature in a way that teaches them to advocate for the health of the earth, thus becoming citizen stewards are all themes that are part of the massive, currently dysfunctional system that is outdoor education in schools. This study shows that when students are encouraged to interact with nature on their own terms on-task behaviors and motivation increase. Students also retained lesson information and asked follow-up questions after the lesson when taught outside using hands-on activities.

Purpose: This study investigates middle school students' learning experiences through digital storytelling, applying a multimodal analytical framework to uncover patterns in digital stories. This study explores how participants engage in pedagogical activities, reflect on their learning experiences, and articulate their voices through digital stories. Design/Approach/Methods: Employing qualitative case study methods, we purposefully selected three 12-year-old female students at an urban school in the northern US. Analyses of digital stories and other data sources (interviews, classroom observations, and reflective journals) show that the students were engaged in both teaching and reflection. Findings: The findings describe (1) participants and their learning experiences, (2) students' representational and interpersonal constructs as used in their digital stories, and (3) their participation as teachers as well as learners. Originality/Value: Our multimodal analytical framework illuminates how students express themselves through digital stories. Our discussion focuses on students' learning, their identity development, the effectiveness of the analytical framework, and pedagogical implications.

This study examined the perceptions of participants regarding the use of embedded video demonstration lessons during literacy professional development sessions. The videos were captured in an urban elementary classroom and modeled two new literacy strategies. Based on survey responses from 160 kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school teachers and 117 school or district administrators and instructional specialists, the findings revealed positive participant perceptions and effective instructional use of the videos that modeled the implementation of the strategies in a relevant classroom setting. The analysis of the use of videos during the professional development (PD) sessions was found to positively affect the instructional capacity of teachers to implement the strategies in their classroom settings. The findings also suggest that school administrators more positively understood the process of using the strategies to support the standards, resulting in increased leadership capacity. Implications of using specifically created videos to enhance clarity and credibility of PD for participants are discussed.

This paper investigates the cognitive processes involved in English word recognition among young EFL learners using eye-tracking methodology. A quasi-experimental mixed method design was used to investigate how young L2 learners engage with basic words, with or without pictorial cues. A total of seventeen 6th-grade pupils from two schools participated in the experiment. The participants were presented with a list of 20 words and were asked to read them aloud while their eye movements were tracked to discern their viewing patterns. Immediately after the reading task, stimulated-recall interviews were conducted to triangulate and validate the participants' viewing behaviors. Results indicate that participants focused significantly more on the text than the accompanying pictures yet demonstrated better performance in recognizing and reading the words presented in a picture-based mode. Some participants reported that the pictures were not viewed because the words were easy to read. In contrast, others struggled to read certain words due to an over-reliance on their background knowledge, which sometimes led to misinterpretation. These results emphasize the importance of integrating visual cues with word recognition instruction in early language learning contexts, highlighting when and how these cues should be utilized effectively.

Several empirical studies reveal that students are poorly informed, and often hold stereotyped views of science and scientists. The present study aimed to investigate the Portuguese elementary school students' images of scientists and their work and the influence of gender and grade level on the development of these images. Two hundred and eighty-nine elementary school students enrolled in grades 1-5 in urban public schools participated in the study. Students were asked to draw a scientist and to answer questions about the drawing. The data collected were analyzed, considering three different features: stereotypical indicators, specialized research fields, and scientists' activity. Several descriptive and bivariate analyses were performed. Portuguese students tended to report the same stereotyped image of scientists described in other countries, and students' knowledge seems to be limited to a few fields of specialization and influenced by the pandemic context experienced during the DAST application. Moreover, the results showed differences according to the student's gender and grade level that may result, among other factors, from the influence of the atypical organization of the Portuguese education system in the first years of schooling.

Not all 8th-grade students have an outspoken passion for reading; however, most of them do like choices. This action research study establishes a correlation between offering choices in the English Language Arts classroom and increased affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement. The participants for this research were an 8th-grade class at a Midwest, urban public school. Providing students with reading choices, assignment options, opportunities to collaborate with peers, and multiple assessment forms to choose from demonstrated an increase of not only effective engagement but also cognitive and behavioral. From observations and student data, collaboration, the researcher determines that collaboration is a crucial aspect of student engagement.

Prior to the fall semester of 2017, the elementary preservice teachers who were enrolled in a science methods course engaged in a variety of field experiences across different settings, mostly informal. Beginning in the fall semester of 2017, students enrolled in this science methods course completed their field experience in formalized classroom settings. Most students were placed at the site of a partnership school, a K-8 building in the local urban school district where an automated greenhouse was built. At the outset, the original study aimed to compare the self-efficacy for science teaching of the elementary education preservice teachers pre- and post-greenhouse implementation. However, the construction of the greenhouse was delayed and thus accidentally created a third cohort of students in addition to pre- and post-greenhouse. This third cohort of students were placed in a K-8 school setting but did not have access to the greenhouse. This paper compares the first two cohorts of preservice teachers, those who completed informal field experiences, and those who completed school-based field experiences without the utilization of the greenhouse.

This case explores a newly implemented Strategic Education Plan, spearheaded by Principal John Barlow, which has added some tensions and sparked concerns among parents and teachers that the myopic focus on standardized test scores risks erasing the cultural richness that defines the school. The narrative explores the complexities of balancing accountability and cultural responsiveness in an educational setting where both seem to be at odds. Readers are asked to consider the case through a plantation lens and consider the ways the traditions associated with it 'colors' the process of education and supervision. In this case, the reader explores how the plantation corporeally and discursively influences instructional and supervisory processes, most notably by erasing or reducing certain aspects of race, culture and diversity. The case is followed by a section that unpacks some of the issues of the plantation narrative and guides the reader through identifying these issues with a set of thought-provoking questions grounded in the literature. The article is concluded with a practical application section which outlines an emerging framework that centers and honors culture and race in the supervisory process. This framework is discussed as a way to move beyond superficial responses -- such as merely increasing oversight to regulate behaviors -- and affirm the power of history, race, and culture.

This qualitative descriptive study explored teachers' perceptions of a peer observation structure, collegial visits (CVs), and CVs' connection to teacher self-efficacy (TSE). The research question was: How do teachers perceive CVs, particularly with respect to their influence on TSE? Semi-structured interviews and a focus group were utilized to collect data from 13 K-12 educators from urban and suburban public school districts in the United States. The theoretical foundation included Bandura's social cognitive theory and the triadic reciprocal causation model. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data, and four themes emerged: (1) cultural drivers and effects of CVs; (2) impact of formal and informal learning experiences on teachers; (3) teachers' positive shift in (a) opinions and (b) emotions regarding CVs; and (4) teachers' increased TSE throughout CV implementation. Conclusions highlighted that CVs were an effective vehicle for professional learning. The results provide qualitative evidence demonstrating that CVs foster educators' TSE beliefs.

This paper presents the findings from a survey conducted on primary students to map their views toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in Greece according to their urban or rural setting and gender. The sample included 281 primary students from different public schools in Attica and 69 primary students from a Greek province. A close-ended questionnaire was digitally distributed to collect the data. The findings revealed that most students, from both settings, consider themselves good at mathematics and science. At the same time, they do not report it to be very likely that they would follow a career that is related either to these subjects or engineering and technology. Regarding their personal skills, most of them stated that they have communication and cooperation skills. Concerning differences between the two settings, there were statistically significant differences in favor of rural students in whether they believed they could improve, both in mathematics and science, their belief that their knowledge in STEM subjects could be useful in their adult life, and their views on the causes and effects of environmental issues. Finally, limited gender differences emerged in favor of the boys' responses regarding future STEM careers. The implications for further research on geographical, gender, and socioeconomic disparities in STEM education are discussed.

Climate change and its effects are impacting our world more and more with each passing day. For this reason, we must ensure that our children, as the society of the future, grow up as individuals with high environmental awareness, being aware of climate change and its effects. The aim of this study is to inform students about the subject of climate change and to educate them as individuals with climate change literacy. In this context, a digital game about climate change and its effects was developed for primary school students. A qualitative research method and techniques were adapted in this research. Interview, observation, and document analysis techniques were used to ensure variety in data acquisition in the research. The study was conducted in the 2022 spring semester during the science courses. It was conducted at an urban primary school in Ankara. 22 fourth grade students were participated as control group and 23 fourth grade students were participated as treatment group in the study. It was determined that the students enjoyed this game, called Stop Climate Change; they had fun and simultaneously learned about concepts related to climate change.

Nature-based learning within the primary school curriculum offers numerous potential benefits. However, there is a lack of clarity about how school grounds can be designed to enable effective nature-based learning. There is also little knowledge of how specific features within green school grounds contribute to specific desirable outcomes, such as improved academic performance or health. To address this gap, a systematised review of peer-reviewed academic literature was undertaken, with 173 databases searched from January to December 2021. The search included studies of nature-based learning on school grounds and literature concerned with the design of green school grounds for fostering nature connectedness and broader educational outcomes for primary school children aged 5 to 11. No date or geographical restrictions were applied. Of a total of 285 articles initially identified, 11 matched the inclusion criteria. Results from these indicate significant research gaps on the design of green learning spaces in schools. While studies note apparent positive links between nature-based learning in school grounds and improved subject-specific learning, wellbeing, and nature connectedness, there is very little empirical evidence of how specific design features are linked to specific outcomes. Furthermore, the current evidence base is poorly representative of different social, cultural, and geographical contexts and not fully reflective of all primary schooling ages. The challenging contexts of urban schools and schools with small footprints are also inadequately addressed. These findings indicate an urgent need for increased research to guide the design of school grounds for the implementation of nature-based learning programmes for primary school learners.

The purpose of this study is to examine preservice teachers' (PTs) meta-awareness related to their developing literacy (teacher) identities and examine the discursive belief systems and patterns embedded within this context. In this instrumental case study, we aim to determine the relationship(s) between meta-awareness and PTs' literacy (teacher) identities through how they demonstrate their knowledge of literacy instruction and envision future literacy practices. The findings include PTs' demonstration of their meta-awareness of literacy through their use of evaluative language, explicit memories, and content appropriation. Because personal and professional identities draw deeply from one another in shaping how PTs demonstrate their learning, our discussion expands upon this duality. Implications for teacher educators include recontextualizing one's past experiences as a reader and writer in literacy methods coursework as a means of moving toward agentic redress and responsive instruction.

Students with intellectual disability (ID) have been participating in statewide general and alternate reading assessments during the past two decades. However, these students' reading performance on statewide assessments over time has not been adequately examined. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between students with ID's 5th grade reading achievement and their 8th grade reading achievement as measured by statewide standardized assessments. We used a longitudinal dataset from an urban school district in a Midwestern state in the United States. Results showed that students with ID's 5th grade reading achievement did not significantly predict their 8th grade reading achievement in the general assessment. On the other hand, students with ID's 5th grade reading achievement significantly predicted their 8th grade reading achievement in the alternate assessment. Implications of these results were discussed and recommendations for future research were provided.

Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Framework was utilized to examine the complexity of the teacher turnover problem in regard to structural inequalities within education that need to be dismantled to create equitable outcomes for all students. Hierarchical cluster analysis was implemented to investigate school report card data of elementary schools in a rural school district (n = 18) and an urban school district (n = 41) in geographical proximity in the southeastern United States. Clusters were formed using school level variables including the breakdown of student race/ethnicity, percentage of economically disadvantaged students, teacher turnover rates, years of teaching experience, and a school performance measure. Four clusters emerged from the analysis. Across all variables there were significant differences found between clusters (p <0.001) in the school performance measure, teacher turnover rates, student race/ethnicity, and percentage of students receiving free/reduced price lunch. The percentage of teachers with between 4 and 10 years of experience was statistically equivalent across all cluster groups, differences were found in the number of initially licensed teachers (a low of 9.9% in Cluster 2 to a high of 27.0% in Cluster 4) and teachers with 10 or more years experience (ranging from 46.5% in Cluster 4 to 62.2% in Cluster 2).

This study introduces the development of a new, transferable, customizable, authentic, and analytic framework for addressing different dimensions of teacher reflection. Given the emphasis on teacher reflection as a socially situated practice spawned by cognitive and affective aspects, this study covers four dimensions (i.e., breadth, depth, dialog, and affectivity). Ultimately and importantly, this empirical study constructs and validates an innovative vignette-based instrument and its analytic coding scheme on the basis of this framework for assessing the quality of reflection of elementary science teachers. The instrument includes eight vignettes, which include various authentic science teaching contexts, followed by three open-ended questions for each vignette to prompt teacher reflection on (1) the issues raised in the vignette, (2) the actions that could be taken to solve the problems, and (3) teacher emotions concerning the problems encountered. The instrument is validated through content, construct, internal, and face validity; and audit trial and inter-coder reliability are used to ensure the reliability of the data and findings. In summary, the study recruits 81 elementary science teachers from 24 public elementary schools in urban and suburban schools in Ankara for two reasons: (1) to ensure that the vignettes are clear and authentic as intended and (2) to develop a coding scheme involving descriptions and indicators of behaviors for each dimension of reflection quality accordingly to assess the quality of teacher reflection. For data analysis, once statistical conclusion validity and inter-coder reliability are established and a high percentage of agreement is obtained for each dimension across all vignettes (a > 0.70), content validity is once again explored by assessing whether the guiding framework of the instrument capture teacher reflections. The results indicate that the instrument can be an effective tool for assessing the quality of reflection of elementary science teachers. The preliminary validity and reliability of the vignettes and the coding scheme suggest that the vignettes warrant further testing.

Increased datafication of schooling, a common trend in Australia, the UK, Canada, and the USA, involves the use of standardized testing and its associated systems and practices to achieve high-stakes goals. The purpose of this study, set in an urban, low-income, predominately Black neighborhood in the southeast USA, was to better understand the influence of increased datafication on caregiver perceptions of learning. The qualitative study involved one-on-one semi-structured interviews with caregivers of K-8 public school children. Results show that although children learned many new concepts when examined through the lens of funds of knowledge, these caregivers repeatedly returned to ideas of what counts for schooling as it related to test scores. Implications include how the datafication of schooling devalues the families' funds of knowledge in their homes.

In this qualitative case study, we investigated the role of an advanced math curriculum with language scaffolding on the development of geometric and visual-spatial reasoning skills in young mathematically promising English learners (MPELs). Specifically, we examined the effects of providing MPELs with challenging and supportive math curriculum to facilitate the development of mathematical potential through a geometry unit. Twenty-one MPELs were randomly assigned to either an intervention or a comparison class. The data sources included audio recordings of class sessions, documents of math tasks, field notes, and test scores. Findings revealed that in the intervention class, tasks required more cognitive demands, and students were encouraged to contribute to classroom discourse more than in the comparison class. MPELs in the intervention class demonstrated greater gains in geometric reasoning compared to their peers in the comparison class. These findings underscore the point that challenging and supportive curricula can effectively nurture the mathematical potential of underrepresented gifted students.

The prevailing portrayal of science and scientists within the public domain is a multifaceted mix of conventional stereotypes. Our study investigates these perceptions among Mexican children, analyzing 816 drawings and descriptions collected from fourth to seventh graders in rural and urban schools in Northwestern Mexico. Drawings were analyzed for the scientist's appearance, location, and activity using mDAST/DAST, and each category was subcategorized for deeper compressive. The results confirm stereotypical depictions in all categories, however, girls draw more female scientists, mainly characterized by Caucasian features. Likewise, although stereotypical lab depictions persist, many drawings show alternative lab research and outdoor activities. Our study highlights the importance of promoting a diverse and inclusive image of scientists and their work, starting from an early age, using inclusive textbooks and effective pedagogical strategies.

Childhood obesity is a pervasive health issue, with multifaceted implications for developmental trajectory. Participants included 5,573 K-5 students enrolled in a high-poverty urban public-school setting. Through an informal yet holistic assessment process, students identified as exhibiting overweight issues were compared to peers not designated as overweight across several relevant categories. Overweight students were more likely to be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds; have a high association with special education service needs; represent a more intensive overall risk level as perceived by student support staff; and mostly exhibit decreased performance in report card grades, standardized test scores, and academic engagement. Results confirm previously documented disparities in school functioning and consideration for at-risk status; this is especially relevant in an underserved context, in which regular access to services may be limited. Therefore, reliance on initial screening measures becomes necessary as a preventative mechanism to better assist children in need and to facilitate intervention planning.

It is assumed that digital tools with ubiquitous classroom use have affordances for student agency and a range of social skills. However, few studies have explored the generalised impact of everyday digital classrooms on self-regulation and empathy, perspective taking and prosocial skills. Ten and 11 year old students' (n = 115) ratings of self-regulation, social skills and personality were examined in relationship to school-wide practices and instructional foci in two groups of schools (n = 9) involved in a digital innovation serving low-SES culturally diverse communities. In an early adopting group, students had received a high dosage of three or 4 years of 1:1 digital pedagogy, and in a later adopting group of schools, students had received a low dosage of only 6 months. This natural experiment revealed a context specific effect where high dosage students rated their regulation in digital contexts higher, but not in more general non-digital contexts. However, personality scores particularly those related to self-regulation, were higher for the high dosage students. There were no differences in social skills. The differences were related to the strong focus in the digital innovation on aspects of self-regulation. There was less focus on social skills in the digital innovation. More deliberate teacher augmentation and instructional designs for social skills may be required to capitalise on the affordances of digital tools. School-wide practices, while necessary may not be sufficient to enable the generalisation of skills without this deliberate teacher focus.

Existing measures of belonging in schools do not explicitly elevate the contextual and cultural insights of the educators and students they were designed to assess. Our study addresses this shortcoming through the co-creation of an Opportunities to Belong survey measure for urban middle schoolers. The tool was developed in partnership with practicing educators and normed around Black and Latinx students (N = 225). Results of a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis revealed strong evidence for single factor structure. A within-persons multilevel model revealed that shifts in opportunities to belong predicted fluctuations in student engagement across different academic courses. Implications are discussed.