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Elevated inflammatory activity is one possible pathway through which exposure to childhood adversity engenders risk for physical and psychiatric illnesses. Limited research has investigated the compounding effects of childhood and adolescent stress exposure on changes in circulating levels of inflammatory biomarkers. This study assessed whether childhood adversity interacted with chronic or acute stress during adolescence to affect the temporal trajectories of five inflammatory biomarkers across at least three blood draws in a diverse sample of adolescents (N = 134; observations = 462). Using multilevel modeling, the interaction of childhood adversity, time, and within-person variance of acute stressors significantly predicted trajectories of higher interleukin-10 levels, controlling for demographics, medication use, and body mass index. Adolescents with high levels of childhood adversity who were exposed to a higher frequency of acute stressors compared to their own average rate of stress exposure consistently had higher levels of IL-10 as they got older, but those with average and below frequency of acute stressors had decreasing trajectories of log IL-10 as they matured. The results demonstrate how events early in life shape biological responses to the adolescent environment. This study also highlights the importance of developmental timing on the bodys enhanced reactivity to acute and sustained stressors following childhood adversity.

Drawing on survey and administrative data on cooperating teachers (CTs) and their preservice student teachers (PSTs) in Chicago Public Schools during 2014-2015, this study offers an in-depth look at reports of how CTs engage in their mentoring roles during student teaching, and their influence on PSTs. Our sample includes CTs working with PSTs from across 44 teacher preparation institutions. Central to our analysis is an exploration of CTs as both models of effective instruction and as facilitative coaches on PST development. We find that both CT roles matter--PSTs feel better prepared to teach when their CTs model effective instruction and coach by providing more instructional support, frequent and adequate feedback, collaborative activity, job-search support, and a balance of autonomy and encouragement.

Drawing on survey and administrative data on cooperating teachers (CTs) and their preservice student teachers (PSTs) in Chicago Public Schools during 2014-2015, this study offers an in-depth look at reports of how CTs engage in their mentoring roles during student teaching, and their influence on PSTs. Our sample includes CTs working with PSTs from across 44 teacher preparation institutions. Central to our analysis is an exploration of CTs as both models of effective instruction and as facilitative coaches on PST development. We find that both CT roles matter--PSTs feel better prepared to teach when their CTs model effective instruction and coach by providing more instructional support, frequent and adequate feedback, collaborative activity, job-search support, and a balance of autonomy and encouragement. Keywords student teaching, teacher education preparation, mentoring, cooperating teachers, Introduction Student teaching, a longtime cornerstone and key clinical experience of teacher preparation, has recently become the subject of multiple reform and policy debates (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher [...]

Background: Access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses is stratified by class and race. Researchers have identified how schools serving disadvantaged students suffer from various kinds of resource deprivations, concluding that interventions are needed to equalize access to AP courses. On the other hand, the theory of Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI) argues that schools serving advantaged students may perpetuate inequalities by expanding their AP curriculum so their graduates can be competitive in the college admissions process. Research Questions: Between 2000 and 2002, California attempted to expand AP offerings and enrollments. This study answers whether or not this intervention narrowed inequalities in AP along class and racial lines. It also examines if community affluence affects district officials' views of pressures to offer AP courses, which could explain any effectively maintained inequalities in AP access. Research Design: This study uses a panel dataset of all California public high schools from 1997 to 2006. It examines the changing effects of school poverty, upper-middle class presence, and school racial composition on offerings of and enrollments in AP subjects. It supplements the quantitative analysis with interviews from 11 school district officials in California conducted in 2006. Results: Hierarchical generalized linear models show that upper-middle class presence structures California high schools' AP subject offerings and enrollments, much more than school poverty. California's intervention resulted in increased AP subject offerings and enrollments in high schools serving disadvantaged and less advantaged students, but these reductions in deprivation had trivial effects on inequalities, since schools serving advantaged students increased their own AP offerings and enrollments. In addition, high schools serving White and Asian students had larger increases in AP offerings and enrollments than high schools serving Black and Hispanic students. Interview data indicate that officials in affluent districts perceived a greater demand for AP subjects, and were more likely to report their school staff was proactive to initiate new AP courses than officials in districts serving working-class communities. Conclusions: The findings document that while policies can increase AP access at schools serving low-income students, the actions of affluent schools and families will pose substantial barriers to achieving parity in AP offerings and enrollments. Moreover, studies gauging resource inequalities among schools may underestimate these inequalities if they use school poverty to measure schools' socioeconomic composition.

Previous studies argued that high school resources play a modest role in students' postsecondary destinations, but they ignored schools' programmatic resources, which provide opportunities for marks of distinction, such as Advanced Placement courses, and they focused on older cohorts of high school students who entered colleges before competition over admission to selective colleges intensified in the 1980s. Analyses of data on a cohort of students who entered college in the mid-2000s suggest that programmatic and non-programmatic resources found in high schools influence postsecondary destinations and mediates the effect of family socioeconomic status on choices among 4-year colleges. (Contains 4 tables, 5 figures, and 10 footnotes.)

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00526.x Byline: Joshua Klugman (1), Jun Xu (2) Abstract: Objective. This article examines the black-white gap in confidence in education in the United States and how the gap has changed over time. Method. The study uses ordinal logit regression on General Social Surveys (1974-2002). Results. Whites have less confidence in education, partly because whites tend to have higher levels of education, income, and conservatism, and are more likely to be affiliated with the Republican Party and evangelical denominations. The black-white gap is largest at lower levels of education, and disappears among college graduates. The gap shrinks during Republican control of the presidency in the United States, and widens during Democratic control. Conclusion. The black-white gap in confidence is not due solely to individual factors, but also to the larger political context and to the groups' different relationships to the institution of education. Author Affiliation: (1)Temple University (2)Ball State University