bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effects of Enzymatic Browning and Leaf Browning Inhibitors on Tobacco
Authors: Wang Pei , Chen Zhenguo , Xu Chensheng , Song Jiangyu , Liu Jiawang , Li Jingchao , Duan Weidong , Sun Guangwei
Published: February 2022

The maturity of fresh tobacco leaves affects the browning of leaves to differing degrees during the curing process, thus affecting the quality of cured tobacco leaves. In this study, tobacco leaves of increasing maturity (M1–M4) were selected. Dark-box experiments were performed
to investigate the roasting characteristics and relationship between tobacco leaf maturity and browning and to determine their polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activities and qualities. We found that mature tobacco leaves (M3) had high substance accumulation, and the PPO activity decreased throughout
the baking process. After 72 h of curing, the PPO activity in the M3 leaves was 81.22 U/g, which was significantly different from that in M1 and M2. On this basis, three different browning inhibitors (control: 10 mL of distilled water; T1:10 mL of 0.5% citric acid+0.5% polyphenol; and T2:10
mL 0.5% citric acid+0.5% salicylic acid) were sprayed onto the surface of M2 leaves before curing to observe their inhibitory effects. The T2-treated leaves showed inhibited PPO activity, and after baking for 72 h, the peroxidase enzyme (POD) content of the T2-treated leaves was higher, which
effectively inhibited the enzymatic reaction. In conclusion, to reduce the browning ratio of tobacco leaves during the curing process, the harvested tobacco leaves should be allowed to reach full maturity when the values of Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) chlorophyll meter ranged 9–13,
and 0.5% citric acid+0.5% salicylic acid (T2) should be used as a browning inhibitor to produce tobacco with the highest sensory quality. The results of this study can help inhibit browning and maintaining the quality of the tobacco leaves during the curing process.
Cross-Linguistic Trends in Speech Errors: An Analysis of Sub-Lexical Errors in Cantonese
Authors: Alderete John
Published: February 2022

Though past research on the sound structure of speech errors has contributed greatly to our understanding of phonological encoding, most of this research comes from a small set of majority languages with similar linguistic structures. To increase the linguistic diversity of relevant evidence, a large collection of speech errors was investigated in Cantonese, an under-studied language with unique phonological structures. In particular, the Cantonese data were examined for nine psycholinguistic effects commonly used as a lens on word-form encoding. Detailed quantitative analysis found that Cantonese has eight of these effects, providing broader cross-linguistic support for models based on these patterns. Yet Cantonese also exhibited differences with well-known Indo-European languages by having a higher rate of errors involving whole syllables and sub-constituents inside the syllable rime. These differences can be accounted for by recognizing the primacy of the syllable and mora in encoding Cantonese words, following proposals that have been made for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.
‘Unpleasant’ but ‘helpful’: Immigration detention and urban entanglements in New Jersey, USA
Authors: Conlon Deirdre , Hiemstra Nancy
Published: February 2022

As a reflection of changing geographies of US migration control, when Essex County, New Jersey’s local government adopted a new immigration detention contract with the federal government, an elected official noted: ‘This is a very unpleasant way of getting revenue…But it’s going to be helpful.’ Despite politically liberal leanings as well as active and expanding resistance to a persistently conservative immigration enforcement agenda from the national level, New Jersey has been a leading provider of detention in the United States, with numerous counties benefiting significantly from immigration crackdowns. This article examines local debates in three New Jersey municipalities alongside public records data that detail financial relationships central to immigration detention operations, to argue that the ensuing relationships intersect and intertwine in ways that make detention economies a critical facet of municipal development. Further, following a 2021 paper by Lauren Martin, we argue that attention to the array of entities that are linked through detention economies demonstrates the usefulness of understanding the migration ‘industry’ as an assemblage. Using a site-specific investigative focus we trace myriad entities’ involvement in immigration detention and reliance on income from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We detail how these multifarious actors, sometimes with opposing views on detention and distinct rationalities, converge in ways that contribute to the further entrenchment of detention in municipal areas. Through this focused case study, our analysis advances a critical migration industries approach and details how detention economies are ‘assembled’ and entangled with urban areas.
The Rising Social Media and Declining Alcohol Use: The Case of Finnish Teenagers
Authors: Luomanen Jari , Alasuutari Pertti
Published: February 2022

The article aims to make understandable a significant change that has taken place in the adolescent drinking habits: throughout the world, the teens are drinking much less than previous generations. Previous research has approached this phenomenon through survey research methodology, trying to identify the variables that correlate with individuals’ alcohol consumption level, thereby explaining the phenomenon. The impact of social media use on drinking habits has been identified as one possible explanation, but the results have been contradictory. The article hypothesizes that the rise of social media created an institutional change in young people’s conditions for and patterns of socializing. Using qualitative interviews with Finnish teenagers as empirical data, the article concludes that since socializing with peers and initiating romantic relationships takes place primarily in virtual contexts, there are less occasions in which alcohol would serve as a social lubricant. Consequently, compared with previous generations, alcoholic beverages play a smaller role in young people’s lives. The current living conditions molded by the social media concern everyone, which is why individual-level correlations between social media use and alcohol consumption level do not capture the aggregate effect that the changed living conditions have brought about.
Reforming Teacher Preparation and Licensing: Debating the Evidence
Authors: Darling-Hammond Linda
Published: February 2022

This article responds to Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky's claims that the National) Commission on Teaching and America's Future has misrepresented research data and] findings. After reviewing and responding to each of their charges, the article indicates the ways in which their critique itself has misreported data and misrepresented) the Commission's statements and recommendations. Ballou and Podgursky ignore and misconstrue the research evidence presented by the Commission in support of its key conclusions. Following an analysis of the ways in which the critique misrepresents the findings from research on teacher education to bolster the argument that training for teaching is unnecessary, this reply offers an argument for professional teaching) standards as a key factor in achieving greater equity and excellence in American schools.
Instructional Policy and Classroom Performance: The Mathematics Reform in California
Authors: Cohen David K. , Hill Heather C.
Published: February 2022

Educational reformers increasingly seek to manipulate policies regarding assessment, curriculum, and professional development in order to improve instruction. They assume that manipulating these elements of instructional policy will change teachers’ practice, which will then improve student performance. We formalize these ideas into a rudimentary model of the relations among instructional policy, teaching, and learning. We propose that successful instructional policies are themselves instructional in nature: because teachers figure as a key connection between policy and practice, their opportunities to learn about and from policy are a crucial influence both on their practice and, at least indirectly, on student achievement. Using data from a 1994 survey of California elementary school teachers and 1994 student California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) scores, we examine the influence of assessment, curriculum, and professional development on teacher practice and student achievement. Our results bear out the usefulness of the model: under circumstances that we identify, policy can affect practice, and both can affect student performance.
Decent Facilities and Learning: Thirman A. Milner Elementary School and Beyond
Authors: Uline Cynthia L.
Published: February 2022

As we face America's deteriorating school buildings, we also face an opportunity to advance overall educational goals. This article considers the possibilities inherent in designing, constructing, and renovating schools when participants apply a perspective that balances science with the art of constructing and renovating schools. The author advances an expanded notion of “decent” schools, one that accounts for the internal dimension of human experience, a dimension we know to be necessary to all interaction and learning. The circumstances of one urban elementary school in Hartford, Connecticut, its renovations, additions, and history, provide a case in point. The article reviews the research that relates building design and condition to learning and suggests strategies for reinvigorating the design process. The author contends that the possibilities introduced are inherent in all school building projects, no matter the size, geography, affluence, or demographics of a district.
Critical Race Theory and Interest Convergence in the Backlash against Affirmative Action: Washington State and Initiative 200
Authors: Taylor Edward
Published: February 2022

The backlash against affirmative action is gaining political momentum as liberalism's defenses are overwhelmed. This article utilizes critical race theory (CRT) to present a counter-argument to both conservative calls for color blindness and the incrementalism of traditional liberalism. Using Washington State's Initiative 200 as a case study, it argues that CRT not only can inform the debate over affirmative action, but has the potential to reinvigorate multiculturalism's social activist roots.
Social Capital and Dropping Out of High School: Benefits to At-Risk Students of Teachers’ Support and Guidance
Authors: Croninger Robert G. , Lee Valerie E.
Published: February 2022

Do teachers provide students with valuable forms of social capital? Do these forms of social capital increase the likelihood that students complete high school, particularly students who are at risk of failure? Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88), we address these questions and examine whether social capital reduces the likelihood of dropping out between the 10th and 12th grades for a cohort of 11,000 adolescents who attended more than 1,000 public and private high schools between 1990 and 1992. We measure social capital in two ways: (a) students’ beliefs about how much their 10th-grade teachers support their efforts to succeed in school and (b) teachers’ reports about whether individual 10th-grade students receive guidance from them about school or personal matters. We find that teachers are an important source of social capital for students. These teacher-based forms of social capital reduce the probability of dropping out by nearly half. However, students who come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and who have had academic difficulties in the past find guidance and assistance from teachers especially helpful. We discuss the implications of these findings for investigations of dropping out, risk, and social capital.
A Century of Margaret Mead
Authors: McDermott Ray
Published: February 2022

Born in 1901, influential by 1928, engaged by public issues for the next fifty years, and a continuing focus of admiration and complaint since her death in 1978, Margaret Mead is a display board for the twentieth century. This paper analyzes Mead's contributions and contradictions in her ethnographies and in her work on learning. Her first published papers critiqued intelligence tests for Italian children in the U.S., and she insisted always that the children of the world could learn a startling range of skills without suffering the pains of contemporary schooling. Mead had little good to say about American education, but she liked to think that we could get it right, and that school could turn out to be a sturdy foundation for trying on American culture.
From Preparation to Practice: Designing a Continuum to Strengthen and Sustain Teaching
Authors: Feiman-Nemser Sharon
Published: February 2022

This paper was written to stimulate discussions and debate about what a professional learning continuum from initial preparation through the early years of teaching could be like. Drawing on a broad base of literature, the author proposes a framework for thinking about a curriculum for teacher learning over time. The paper also considers the fit (or misfit) between conventional approaches to teacher preparation, induction and professional development and the challenges of learning to teach in reform-minded ways and offers examples of promising programs and practices at each of these stages. The paper is organized around three questions: (a) What are the central tasks of teacher preparation, new teacher induction, and early professional development? (b) How well do conventional arrangements address these central tasks? (c) What are some promising programs and practices at each stage in the learning to teach continuum that promote standards-based teaching and enable teachers to become active participants in school reform?
Toward a Theory of Teacher Community
Authors: Grossman Pamela , Wineburg Samuel , Woolworth Stephen
Published: February 2022

The authors use their experience with a professional development project to propose a model of teacher community in the workplace. They describe a project that brought together 22 English and social studies teachers (and a special education and ESL teacher) from an urban high school over a period of 2 10 2 years. The teachers met twice monthly to read together in the fields of history and English and to create an interdisciplinary curriculum. This detailed account of the first 18 months of the project offers new definitions of professional community and its development and illuminates the challenges involved in community formation. One of these challenges is the need to negotiate the “essential tension of teacher community” or the tension between professional development geared to learning new pedagogical practices and that devoted to deepening teachers’ subject matter knowledge in the disciplines of instruction. The authors—who deliberately built this tension into the project—claim that these two facets of professional development must both be respected in any successful attempt to create and sustain intellectual community in the workplace. The authors describe the challenges of maintaining diverse perspectives within a social group and how familiar fault lines—both in society and in school—threaten the pursuit of community. The article includes a model of the markers of community formation as manifested in participants’ speech and action and concludes with a discussion of why we should care about professional communities for teachers.
When State Policies Meet Local District Contexts: Standards-Based Professional Development as a Means to Individual Agency and Collective Ownership
Authors: Dutro Elizabeth , Fisk Maria Chesley , Koch Richard , Roop Laura J. , Wixson Karen
Published: February 2022

This article focuses on how a statewide reform initiative, when envisioned as a professional development opportunity, impacted teachers’ capacities to become change agents in their classrooms and districts and how individual district contexts shaped the development of those capacities. The interview and artifact data used for this study were gathered from teachers and administrators in four demonstration districts that were involved in a standards-based professional development initiative within the federally funded Michigan English Language Arts Framework (MELAF) project. These data reveal that teachers experienced changes in their personal literacy practices and views of themselves as learners and felt an increased ability to evince change in a variety of educational contexts, including their classrooms, buildings, and districts. Across these changes in teachers’ practices, district patterns emerged that spoke to the individual districts’ capacities to support teacher growth and foster reform. These differences suggest that the changes that took place were a function of many factors, including the size and structure of the district, the district's readiness for change, and the source of language arts leadership within the district. One implication of these results is that the particular histories and competing forces that operate for both individuals and districts shape the implementation of new policy.
Assessment as Inquiry
Authors: Delandshere Ginette
Published: February 2022

For more than 10 years now, arguments have been constructed regarding the need for new forms of educational assessment, and for a paradigm shift with a focus on supporting learning rather than on sorting and selecting students. The call for change in assessment follows an almost unanimous recognition of the limitations of current measurement theory and practice. The conceptions of learning represented by theories of learning and cognition appear strikingly different from those implied in current educational assessment and measurement practices. Indeed, most educational measurement specialists are still working from century-old understandings and behaviorist perspectives. Although the call for change is clear, the proposals and recommendations being put forward have limitations of their own and are unlikely to yield the kinds of fundamental changes envisioned by researchers. These limitations lie either in the focus of the work, in the lack of a clear articulation of the theories and concepts, in the nature of the assumptions made about learning (many of which remain implicit and unchanged), in the exclusion of certain conceptions of learning, or in some combination of these problems. This article explores the possibility of using inquiry as a way to understand, and hence to assess, learning. After an initial review of the assessment literature in which the need for change has been asserted and analysis of the theoretical and epistemological foundations that seem to undergird these writings, the focus shifts to the meaning of learning, knowing, and teaching implied in this literature and to the limitations of its recommendations. Later sections consider notions of learning that seem to be excluded from current assessment practices and begin to uncover similarities between learning, knowing, and inquiring that could make inquiry an appropriate metaphor for what we currently know as educational assessment. Finally, there is discussion of important issues that would need to be considered in an inquiry framework for assessment.
Developing Communities of Instructional Practice
Authors: Supovitz Jonathan A.
Published: February 2022

Many reforms today—including the small schools movement, efforts to build small learning communities, and teacher teaming structures—are based on the theory that organizing schools into smaller educational environments will help to build more collaborative and collegial communities of teachers, providing them with the autonomy and motivation to make better curricular and pedagogical decisions in the interests of their students and therefore improving student learning. Using multiple sources of data from a 4-year evaluation of a team-based schooling initiative in a medium-sized urban district, this study tests many of the assumptions underlying this theory. The results suggest that although these types of organizational reforms may succeed in improving the culture within which teachers teach, they alone are unlikely to improve instruction and student learning. The communities that develop are often not communities engaged in instructional improvement. For teacher communities to focus on instructional improvement, the author argues that communities need organizational structures, cultures of instructional exploration, and ongoing professional learning opportunities to support sustained inquiries into improving teaching and learning.
Integrating Digital Tools into a Culturally Diverse Curriculum: An Assessment Model for the Pacesetter Program
Authors: Hill Clifford
Published: February 2022

This article reports on a research project in which a digitally based assessment model is being developed for the Pacesetter Program. This program, established by the College Board to prepare culturally diverse students for higher education, is built around a curriculum that reflects not only the world that these students come from but also the rapidly evolving technological society that they are expected to participate in. The assessment model is being developed for an English language arts course, in which students work with culturally diverse material in three domains: print literacy, film literacy, and media literacy. At the heart of the model are three tasks: a planning task that requires students to focus on factual content, an interpretation task that requires them to make sense of that content, and an application task that requires them to deal with the content in a broader context. The students use digital tools to carry out these three tasks: For example, they use a graphic organizer in the planning task to gather information that will be useful as they perform the higher level tasks that follow. As an illustration of how this model works, the article presents an assessment activity built around the ways in which the media have presented the results of Census 2000 with respect to cultural diversity.
Parents and the Politics of Homework: Some Historical Perspectives
Authors: Gill Brian P. , Schlossman Steven L.
Published: February 2022

Homework has been a topic of considerable controversy in 20th century American education, largely because it is a linchpin in the relationship between home and school. This essay examines parent opinions on homework between 1900 and 1960 in order to integrate parents’ elusive voices into the history of American education, and to shed new light on modern-day controversies regarding the school-family interface. The underlying question we explore is whether, in educational policymaking, the family ought to march to the beat of the school, or the school ought to march to the beat of the family? We conclude that if parents want homework, and if homework keeps parents in touch with the program of the school, then it is the abolition of homework -not its presence - that most threatens parents’ interests.
Preparing Teachers for Diverse Classrooms: Creating Public and Private Spaces to Explore Culture through Poetry Writing
Authors: Rosaen Cheryl L.
Published: February 2022

Teachers and teacher educators are faced with an urgent responsibility to transform curriculum, teaching, and assessment practices to support the learning of an increasingly diverse cultural and linguistic student population who come to school with a range of experiences and abilities. This article relates my efforts as a teacher educator to transform my own curriculum, teaching and assessment practices to better prepare beginning teachers for diverse classrooms. The article presents research findings from a study of one of the pedagogical approaches taken in a literacy methods course. I used poetry as a site for teacher candidates to explore aspects of their own culture and share their knowledge with one another. I also wanted them to consider ways in which poetry can be explored by making connections with their personal lives and other texts they have read or have written to support meaningful learning. I describe teacher candidates’ perceptions of the poetry writing activity and their learning in four areas: curriculum, pedagogy, multicultural competence, and social justice. I conclude with a discussion of insights gained and future directions for further course and program development.
Race and Ethnicity in the Teacher Education Curriculum
Authors: Trent William
Published: February 2022

William Trent presents a series of arguments for his proposal that the importance of race and ethnicity in education should become a primary area of study for the prospective teacher. Trent notes recent research showing that blacks and Hispanics are among those groups least well served by schooling in the United States, yet these groups will constitute an ever-increasing proportion of students. The problem is exacerbated, in Trent's view, by the opposite trend in the proportion of minority students who will be teachers, necessitating new understandings and new approaches for majority-population teachers who will be called on to teach increasing numbers of minority youth.
Reconnecting Foundations to the Substance of Teacher Education
Authors: Shulman Lee S.
Published: February 2022

After briefly reviewing the history of the idea of foundations in the education of professionals, Lee Shulman explores a more integrated view of what psychologists and philosophers have to offer teachers in training. He offers an alternative metaphor to foundations that connects foundational disciplinary perspectives to the subject matter that teachers teach.
Designing the New American School
Authors: Strickland Roy
Published: February 2022

This article describes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's New American School Design Project. As the MIT designs show, urban schools can be more than just educational facilities: They can become community centers that combine functions to enhance both the educational experience of students and the life of the neighborhoods that surround them.
Meiklejohn and Maritain: Two Views on the End of Progressive Education
Authors: Thigpen Carol
Published: February 2022

This article examines the critiques of Alexander Meiklejohn and Jacques Maritain, written in 1942 and 1943, on the inadequacies of Dewey's pragmatism and, in particular, its failure as a philosophy of education. Meiklejohn's and Maritain's arguments are compared with those made by Randolph Bourne in 1917 and Harold Rugg in 1932 and then their arguments are explored from the point of view of how each understands curriculum: what it is and why it is taught. The distinction between curriculum as function and curriculum as object is made. Contemporary high school curriculum is briefly observed from these two perspectives. Dewey's pedagogical theory is discussed and a union between Maritain's concept of the curriculum and Dewey's pedagogy is considered as a theoretical model current curriculum reformers should consider to both enliven and enrich the curriculum that students and teachers experience in the classroom.
Teacher Development and Reform in an Inner-city School
Authors: Anyon Jean
Published: February 2022

The teacher development project described in this article reveals ways in which the social consequences of poverty and racial marginalization may be crucial to the out -comes of educational reform in inner-city schools. The study demonstrates that educational reform can be affected by the economic, political, and cultural context of which a school is in large part a product. The author addresses the consequences of this educational embeddedness for school reform, and suggests that in order to create good schools in the inner cities, educational reform must be accompanied by other, more fundamental social changes.
The Ninjas, the X-Men, and the Ladies: Playing with Power and Identity in an Urban Primary School
Authors: Dyson Anne Haas
Published: February 2022

Children in our diverse society are not only learning to read and write texts; (key are learning to read and write human possibilities. They read each other's faces and clothes as closely as they do any storybook, and they write each other's future in the stories they imagine. This article is an analytic narrative about children's use of stories to reveal and transform images of power and of gender in the local culture of an Urban second-grade classroom. It is based on a qualitative study of children's symbolic and social use of superhero stories—popular media stories that vividly reveal societal beliefs about power and gender, which are themselves interwoven in complex ways with rate, class, and physical demeanor. Through the writing and acting of stories, the children let each other witness their imaginations at work and then raise. issues about who plays whom in whose story. The dialogic processes thus enacted allowed rigid images of gender relations and of glorified power to be rendered more complex. There is no simple classroom procedure that will allow children to achieve same sort of critical consciousness and a world of greater imagined possibilities for all. But there are processes, rooted in the social lives and play of childhood, that can help children deal with the contradictory pressures of growing up in a multicultural society where power (i.e., ability to take action and influence that society) is not equitably distributed.
Racial Stratification and Education in the United States: Why Inequality Persists
Authors: Ogbu John U.
Published: February 2022

The primary objective of this article is to explain (1) the persistence of inequality between blacks and whites in spite of the changes that have taken place in the opportunity structure since 1960; and (2) why a gap persists in the school performances of the two racial groups. I argue that inequality persists for two reasons. The first is that changes have occurred mainly in one aspect of racial stratification, barriers in opportunity structure, but not in other domains; moreover, the changes have been uneven in the black community, favoring middle-class blacks. The other reason is that white treatment of blacks has been the target of public policies and intervention efforts but not black responses to racial stratification. I argue that the school-performance gap persists because the forces of racial stratification—white treatment and black responses—that created it continue to some degree. However, before explaining why the inequality and school-performance gap persist, I define what I mean by social stratification and distinguish class from racial stratification. One implication of my distinction, which is reflected in subsequent analysis, is that racial stratification between blacks and whites has not been changed to class stratification. Therefore, it is not meaningful to call any segment of the black population in the United States “underclass.” This article is not about public policy or intervention; however, readers can arrive at their own conclusions about both.
Time for Teachers in School Restructuring
Authors: Cambone Joseph
Published: February 2022

This article asserts that time for teachers is not an easily defined commodity. It cannot readily be constructed and scheduled for them by reformers or administrators. There are many kinds of time for teachers, each constructed by teachers themselves, shaped to serve different needs, and tightly interrelated with other types of time. Drawing on theoretical writings about time and reports from schools that are trying to restructure, this article delineates these different kinds of time for teachers, and explores their interrelationship. It argues that a multitude of school reforms are bound to wither if they ignore the multiple constructs, boundaries, rhythm, and patterns of time for teachers.
Affirmative Action and Beyond: A Case for a Backward-Looking Gender- and Race-Based Policy
Authors: Feinberg Walter
Published: February 2022

This article defends race- and gender-based affirmative action against recent attacks by liberals and conservatives. It argues that a need-based approach is not an adequate substitute for the present practice. It makes this argument by demonstrating that there are three independent moral foundations for a race and gender approach to affirmative action and that these are not adequately met by the need-based alternative.
Rich Culture, Poor Markets: Why Do Latino Parents Forgo Preschooling?
Authors: Fuller Bruce , Eggers-Piérola Costanza , Holloway Susan D. , Liang Xiaoyan , Rambaud Marylee F.
Published: February 2022

Debates rage in the K-12 sector over the probable effects of school-choice programs—often with scarce evidence of their institutional dynamics and local effects. Meanwhile, the preschool sector has become a lively and sizable mixed market of public and private organizations, financed by parental fees and over $6 billion in public funds each year. The sector offers an intriguing setting for studying the long-term access and equity effects that result from liberalized market conditions. This article focuses on the considerably lower proportion of Latino parents who select a formal preschool or child-care center for their three- to five-year-old youngsters. We empirically focus on the influence of ethnicity, maternal education, family structure, and preliteracy practices on parents’ propensity to select preschools and center-based programs. After controlling for the effects of maternal employment and household income, we find that children—across all ethnic groups—are less likely to enter preschools when they are younger (age three, not four-five years), when a father or a nonpatent adult resides in the household, when the mother has low school attainment, and when children's books are less evident in the household. Latino families are distinguished, in part, by these family characteristics; in addition, the negative relationship between Latino status and nonselection of a preschool persists after accounting for these effects. We then report initial qualitative evidence, revealing clear cultural conflicts that may discourage Latinos’ use of preschools. We discuss the importance of understanding how ethnic variation in family structure and cultural preferences regarding child rearing interact with secular conceptions of liberalized markets.
Networks and Reform in American Education
Authors: Lieberman Ann , Grolnick Maureen
Published: February 2022

Educational reform networks are becoming increasingly important as alternative forms of teacher and school development in this time of unprecedented reform of schools. These networks appear to be a way of engaging school-based educators in better directing their own learning; allowing them to sidestep the limitations of institutional roles, hierarchies, and geographic locations; and encouraging them to work with many different kinds of people.

In a study of sixteen educational reform networks, we found that they shared organizational themes relating to: (1) purposes and direction; (2) building collaboration, consensus, and commitment; (3) activities and relationships as important building blocks; (4) leadership as cross-cultural brokering and facilitating; and (5) dealing with the funding problem.

Regardless of their differences, the sixteen networks we studied appear to have in common agendas more often challenging than prescriptive; learning that is more indirect than direct; formats more collaborative than individualistic; work that is intentionally more integrated than fragmented; leadership more facilitative than directive; thinking that encourages more multiple perspectives; values that are both context-specific and generalized; and structures more movement-like than organization- like.
Mathematics Instruction in Combination and Single-Grade Classes: An Exploratory Investigation
Authors: Mason Dewayne A. , Good Thomas L.
Published: February 2022

Combination classes (also termed split or multigrade classes) are a form of classroom grouping that typically occurs when school enrollments are imbalanced or inadequate, resulting in teachers’ managing students from two or more grades for most or all of the school day. These expediently formed classes, embedded within a graded system of schooling, therefore differ significantly from multiage or nongraded classes, formed deliberately because of pedagogical or philosophical interests in team teaching, flexible grouping, individualized instruction, continuous progress curriculum, and the elimination of all vestiges of gradedness. This exploratory study compared the curriculum, instructional strategies, and organizational formats used by six combination class teachers for mathematics with those used by eighteen single-grade teachers (six who used traditional whole-class teaching and twelve who used two within-class ability groups). Results showed that the instruction, classroom organization, and curriculum content and materials of combination class teachers differed in significant ways from those of both traditional whole-class and within-class ability-grouped (two-group) single-grade teachers. Observers’ ratings and low-inference measures indicated that combination classes included fewer instances of peer cooperation, innovative curriculum, and individualized instruction. Furthermore, teacher-directed and independent-group variables (e.g., meaningful presentations, use of manipulatives, higher-level thinking emphasis) varied significantly among these three grouping formats.
Educational Psychology Meets the Christian Right: Differing Views of Children, Schooling, Teaching, and Learning
Authors: Berliner David C.
Published: February 2022

Among the most unrelenting contemporary critics of public schools are members of the Christian Right, some of whom seek the destruction of public education. The theories of child rearing espoused by the Christian Right are analyzed in this article. They emphasize physical punishment, the breaking of children's will, and obedience to authority. Such theories cannot be supported by modern psychology. Furthermore, these child-rearing practices are totally incompatible with the constructivist models of learning that form the basis for the educational reforms undertaken by science, mathematics, and social studies educators. The school curriculum used in many fundamentalist Christian schools was also analyzed and found to be limited, biased, and sometimes untrue. The arguments made against outcomes based education and whole language programs were found to be confused and chaotic. The antagonism of the Christian Right to these programs is based on a fear of losing control over their children's thinking, rather than any compelling empirical data. It is concluded that many among the Christian Right are unable to engage in politics that make a common school possible. They may be unable to compromise and live with educational decisions reflecting a pluralistic democracy keeping separate church and state.
Parent Involvement Contracts in California's Charter Schools: Strategy for Educational Improvement or Method of Exclusion?
Authors: Becker Henry J. , Nakagawa Kathryn , Corwin Ronald G.
Published: February 2022

Many deregulated public charter schools in California and other states are emphasizing parent involvement in the process of reform. Some even seem to be working from a communitarian model, trying to build an integral school community in which parents play numerous roles in the ongoing events of the school and classroom day. In order to build this parent involvement, California charter schools are also experimenting with a variety of mechanisms for encouraging parent involvement, including having parents sign agreements or “contracts” promising a certain amount or type of involvement. But to what extent are the initiators of these charter schools using parent involvement and parent contracts to restrict enrollment to children whose parents demonstrate the desired commitments and willingness to meet school expectations? In order to explore this question, this article reports on (1) analyses of data from a survey of California's charter schools and comparison schools in the same communities and (2) an examination of parent contracts in use at the charter schools. We find that charter schools do have greater levels of parent involvement, but that this involvement may be due to selectivity in the kinds of families participating in charter schools.
High School Graduation Requirements: Effects on Dropping Out and Student Achievement
Authors: Hoffer Thomas B.
Published: February 2022

Several state and local authorities have recently enacted legislation requiring high school students to complete at least three years of mathematics in order to graduate. This study examines effects of these policies on three types of outcomes: the kinds of mathematics courses students complete during high school, high school dropout rates, and mathematics achievement test score gains during high school. Two additional questions related to achievement are also addressed: whether requiring more courses affects the association of student socioeconomic status (SES) with test scores and dropping out, and whether requiring more courses reduces the effects of completing additional math courses on achievement. Results from an analysis of the nationally representative National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) data give little support for the notion that requiring more mathematic courses is generally beneficial or harmful. No effects are found on either the probability of dropping out or achievement gains, and the effects of SES are not reduced in the schools requiring three math courses. The three-course requirement does lead to higher rates of course completions in geometry and algebra 2, but the higher require -ments apparently dilute the effectiveness of completing the additional courses. The results thus give little credence to efforts to improve achievement outcomes by simply raising the number of math courses students must complete in order to graduate from high school.
Making Schools Safe for Uncertainty: Teams, Teaching, and School Reform
Authors: Friedman Victor J.
Published: February 2022

In recent years, “teams” have been increasingly advocated as a means of empowering teachers, improving instruction, and introducing educational change—particularly within the context of the current school reform movement. Nevertheless, few advocates have inquired seriously into the team concept and exactly how it fits with school practice. This lack of conceptualization is particularly serious in light of the failure of the initial team-teaching movement of the 1960s, which has been attributed to a lack of fit between the team concept and the role of the teacher, the organizational structure, and the cultural norms of contemporary schooling. This article examines the relationship between the team concept and school practice on the basis of a case study of a team that designed, developed, and implemented an innovative vocational education program within a secondary school. It argues that the team approach makes sense only if it is accompanied by a shift in thinking about teaching and school practice. This shift involves regarding teams as the primary unit of teaching practice and as a means of linking instructional and structural change within schools. Ultimately a team approach introduces greater uncertainty into teaching and school practice while at the same time providing a means for engaging uncertainty and generating learning.
“It Wasn't a Good Part of History”: National Identity and Students' Explanations of Historical Significance
Authors: Barton Keith C. , Levstik Linda S.
Published: February 2022

In this study, we investigated middle graders' understanding of significance in U.S. history through open-ended interviews with forty-eight students in grades five through eight. Students pointed to steadily expanding lights and opportunities as a central theme in U.S. history, but they also had difficulty incorporating some historical patterns and events into their image of progress. This study suggests that students need experience with the complexities of the past within a context that provides some framework for making critical sense out of both legitimating stories and alternative, vernacular histories.
Charter Schools: Accomplishments and Dilemmas
Authors: Manno Bruno V. , Finn Chester E. , Bierlein Louann A. , Vanourek Gregg
Published: February 2022

Charter schools are (mostly) independent public schools of choice accountable for the results of student achievement. They have accomplished a great deal since the first one was opened in Minnesota in 1991, though they confront a number of dilemmas as the charter movement moves toward maturity. This article presents results from “Charter Schools in Action,” a two-year research project suported by the Pew Charitable Trusts. It describes the Hudson project, discusses the charter notion and those individuals and groups who start charter schools, and provides an overview of some accomplishments achieved and dilemmas confronted by the charter schoools the authors came to know. The authors conclude that charter schools are a promising and valuable market-based strategy for changing today's education system and may well be the most vibrant force in American education.
A Mathematician Looks at National Standards
Authors: Roitman Judith
Published: February 2022

The purpose of this article is to present one mathematician's view of the NCTM standards documents. There is a brief discussion of the history of the standards and a brief presentation of philosophical and personal context. The bulk of the article discusses specific notions, examples, concepts, phrases, and uses/misuses of the standards. An attempt is made throughout to differentiate among what the standards say, what people think they say, and what teachers do in the classroom under the influence of what they think the standards say.
Are the NCTM Standards Suitable for Systemic Adoption?
Authors: Haimo Deborah Tefper
Published: February 2022

The fundamental characteristic of mathematics is its abstraction. Its idealizations have been found to give surprisingly accurate descriptions of phenomena in the real world. Thus mathematics is endowed with incredible power to serve a broad range of diverse areas. The same mathematical tools, differently interpreted, can be applied to seemingly unrelated subjects to solve problems in a great variety of disciplines. Any educational program must address these important features of mathematics in a balanced way. One of the serious problems with the NCTM standards is that the essence of the subject is lost. Problems are viewed as relevant and interesting to students only if they are related to familiar daily experiences. Unless they are tied in with theory, however, isolated problems may well fragment the discipline. The power of mathematics vanishes when nothing occurs to show that the concrete is an illustration of the abstract. We have a magnificent opportunity to enlighten our students, leading them to the realization that mathematics is an intrinsically beautiful and exciting discipline in its own right. Its structure gives us substantial flexibility for teaching. We may use either the applications to develop the abstraction or, conversely, start with the abstraction as a lead to application. By turning at various times in either direction, we can provide great mathematical enrichment for our students.