bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Nature and Effects of Middle School Mathematics Teacher Learning Experiences
Authors: Hill Heather C. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Teachers’ mathematical knowledge has been the subject of recent federal policy, public programs, and scholarly attention. Numerous reports identify a need for improving this knowledge, and total federal spending on content-focused math and science professional development during the period 2002–2007 is estimated to be above $1.2 billion. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study In this study, we investigated the patterns in and the effect of professional development in the area of middle school mathematics. We focus in particular on professional development thought to influence teachers’ mathematical knowledge, and use a measure of such knowledge to gauge potential growth in a sample of teachers included in a national survey. Research Design We surveyed a nationally representative sample of roughly 1000 teachers in both 2005 and 2006 and obtained responses from 461 middle school teachers at both time points. The survey measured their mathematical knowledge for teaching at both time points and also inquired about their professional learning opportunities during the intervening year. Data Collection and Analysis We used survey data both to describe the nature of teachers’ learning opportunities during 2005-2006 and to associate participation in these learning opportunities with teachers’ 2005 knowledge scores as well as other characteristics. We also linked these learning opportunities to observed growth in teacher knowledge. Findings/Results Results indicate that extensive effort and expenditures have not dramatically transformed teacher professional development practices as compared to past descriptions, in that learning opportunities reported by teachers are still typically short and fragmented. However, there are indications that teachers’ mathematical knowledge might have improved somewhat during this time period. Conclusions/Recommendations Results from this study suggest a very mixed picture of the middle school mathematics professional development system. Effects on teacher knowledge are modest, and critics might claim that money would be better spent in hiring or induction programs.
The Situated Dynamics of Purposes of Engagement and Self-Regulation Strategies: A Mixed-Methods Case Study of Writing
Authors: Kaplan Avi , Lichtinger Einat , Margulis Michal 
Published: November 2021

Background Common conceptions of motivation and self-regulation view them as related but distinct entities. Most research on motivation and self-regulation investigates quantitative relations between level (e.g., self-efficacy) or type of motivation (e.g., mastery goals) and level of self-regulation. Purpose Alternatively, the current study proposes that motivation and self-regulation strategies are integrated in purpose-strategies action orientations, which are constructed through a situated and dynamic meaning-making process. Participants and Setting The current study presents a case analysis of one Israeli ninth-grade female student who engaged in a writing task. Research Design The qualitative case study employed mixed-methods data that included traces in the written product, microprocesses observation, stimulated-recall interview, and a general interview. Analysis sought to triangulate findings from the multiple data sources in order to construct the dynamic and situated flow of purpose of engagement and strategies. Findings Triangulation of data from these different sources demonstrated that individual and contextual characteristics interacted to result in a dynamic flow of situated purpose-strategies actions along the student's engagement in the writing task. Conclusions The findings suggest that the situated purpose of engagement should be an integral element in conceptions of self-regulation; that different purposes may call for different types of self-regulation; that conceptualization and investigation of motivation and self-regulation should be domain specific; and that mixed methods, as used in this article, can provide productive tools to assess the dynamic and situated process of self-regulation.
Homework Emotion Management at the Secondary School Level: Antecedents and Homework Completion
Authors: Xu Jianzhong 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context For many children, doing homework becomes an emotionally charged event and one of the most disappointing aspects of school life. It is surprising to note, however, that homework emotion management is noticeably absent from much contemporary homework literature. Purpose The primary propose of the present study was to propose and test empirical models of variables posited to predict homework emotion management at the secondary school level, with the models informed by (a) research and theory on emotion regulation and (b) findings from homework research that alluded to a number of factors that may influence homework emotion management. Another purpose of the present study was to examine whether homework emotion management is related to homework completion, one of the major outcome variables in the homework process. Research Design The study reported here used cross-sectional survey data. The participants were 1,895 students from 111 classes in the southeastern United States, including 1,046 eighth graders from 63 classes and 849 11th graders from 48 classes. Results Results from the multilevel analyses revealed that most of the variance in homework emotion management occurred at the student level, with grade level appearing as the only significant predictor at the class level. At the student level, the variation in homework emotion management was positively associated with teacher feedback, peer-oriented reasons for doing homework, arranging the environment, managing time, and monitoring motivation. Girls reported statistically significant higher scores in managing homework emotion than did boys. Follow-up analyses further revealed that homework emotion management was positively associated with homework completion. Conclusion As most of the variance in homework emotion management occurred at the student level rather than at the class level, homework emotion management was largely a function of individual student characteristics and experiences. The present study further suggests that monitoring motivation and managing time play a predominant role in homework emotion management (compared with other variables included in the present study). Consequently, there is a critical need to conceptualize these variables in the process of emotion regulation in general, and in homework emotion management in particular. In addition, there is a critical need for secondary schools to strategically engage students in the homework process to better manage their emotion while doing homework.
Homeless Education and Social Capital: An Examination of School and Community Leaders
Authors: Miller Peter M. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This study contributes to the literature on the schooling of homeless and highly mobile students. Although previous work has detailed the demographics of homelessness, the effects of homelessness on academic progress, and particular legal issues in homeless education, this research focused on how individual and institutional relationships influence homeless education. Purpose/Objectives The purpose of the study was to develop deeper understanding of how schools and shelters helped create educational social capital for students and families who were experiencing homelessness. The guiding research questions for the study were: (1) How do school and shelter leaders perceive social capital as influencing the education of students who are homeless? and (2) How do school and shelter leaders’ relational networks influence the education of students who are homeless? Setting Data were collected from three homeless shelters and three public schools that are located in a large city in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Participants A total of 31 interviews were conducted with shelter-based administrators, case workers, and child development specialists, and school-based principals and central office administrators. Research Design A qualitative collective case study research design was employed. Findings Homeless students and families appeared to have insufficient stores of productive social capital, and although schools and homeless shelters provided them with some important relationships and resources, school and shelter leaders’ own shortages of bridging social capital limited the extent to which efficient educative active could occur. Conclusions/Recommendations Based on the findings, it is suggested that schools and shelters prioritize social capital development and improve interorganizational networking. Specifically, purposeful efforts should be made to develop school-shelter-family networks that are heterogeneous in composition.
Student Interpretations of a School Closure: Implications for Student Voice in Equity-Based School Reform
Authors: Kirshner Ben , Pozzoboni Kristen M. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context School closure is becoming an increasingly common policy response to underperforming urban schools. Districts typically justify closure decisions by pointing to schools’ low performance on measures required by No Child Left Behind. Closures disproportionately fall on schools with high percentages of poor and working-class students of color. Few studies have examined how students interpret or respond to school closures. Purpose Our purpose was to document narratives articulated by students about the closure of their high school. Doing so is important because students, particularly students of color from low-income families, are often left out of policy decisions that affect their lives. Population/Participants Research participants were recruited from the population of youth who had attended the closed school and who remained in the district during the subsequent year. Twenty-three percent of students at the school were African American, 75% were Latino, and 2% were White. Over 90% of students were eligible for free and reduced lunch. A total of 106 students responded to surveys and peer interviews, and 12 youth who had dropped out of school participated in focus groups. Research Design This was a youth participatory action research (YPAR) study, designed collaboratively by former Jefferson students, university researchers, and adult community members. Data sources included open-ended surveys, peer interviews, focus groups, and field notes describing public events and YPAR meetings. Findings Our data show that most respondents did not agree with the decision to close their school. Student disagreement surfaced two counternarratives. First, students critiqued the way the decision was made—they felt excluded from the decision-making process that led to closure. Second, they critiqued the rationale for the decision, which suggested that students needed to be rescued from a failing school. Students articulated features of Jefferson that they valued, such as trusting relationships with adults, connection to place, and sense of belonging, which they felt were discounted by the decision. Conclusions/Recommendations Evidence from this study lends support to developmental and political justifications for robust youth participation in equity-based school reform. By developmental justification, we mean evidence that young people were ready to participate, which counters discourses about youth as immature or unprepared. By political justification, we mean evidence that youth articulated interests that were discounted in the decision-making process and that challenged normative assumptions about school quality. In our conclusion, we point to examples of expanded roles that students could play in decision-making processes.
Attitudes and Affect: Daily Emotions and Their Association with the Commitment and Burnout of Beginning Teachers
Authors: Jones Nathan , Youngs Peter 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The increasing number of districts implementing mentoring and induction programs suggests that policymakers are aware of the need to increase the support available to new teachers. The argument underlying many of these programs is based, at least partly, on assumptions about beginning teachers’ emotional responses to their work. Yet while considerable research has studied the effects of induction programs, few researchers have rigorously collected data on how beginning teachers’ affective experiences seem to impact their career plans. Purpose of the Study We tested a framework developed in the organizational behavior literature known as affective events theory (AET), which proposes that emotional responses to work, coupled with abstract beliefs about one's job, can influence overall judgments about job satisfaction. Specifically, we drew on research from education and organizational behavior to test whether mean levels of positive affect, negative affect, skill, and fatigue are associated with intentions to remain in teaching (i.e., commitment to one's teaching assignment), commitment to one's school, and levels of burnout. Research Design Sources of data in this study include survey data collected at two time points (fall 2007 and spring 2008) from 42 beginning general and special education teachers in three districts in Michigan and Indiana, as well as data collected using the experience sampling method (ESM), a time sampling method for gaining information about individuals’ immediate experiences. The inclusion of both data sources allowed us to capitalize on the richness of the ESM data—which accounts for variation in teachers’ momentary affective states—while also supporting the data with more traditional survey measures. Conclusions/Recommendations We found that mean levels of positive affect and skill are positively associated with commitment, even when controlling for prior commitment. Similarly, negative affect and tiredness seem to be predictive of teacher burnout. These results suggest that, by taking account of teachers’ emotional reactions to their work (in addition to features of their work environments), researchers, policymakers, and district administrators will be better positioned to support special and general educators during their early years of teaching.
“As Nature Has Formed Them”: The History and Current Status of Racial Difference Research
Authors: Skiba Russell 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Research in the latter half of the 20th century purporting to show significant racial differences in intelligence and social behavior appears to pit civil rights concerns against the freedom of scientific inquiry. The core hypotheses and presumptions of recent research on racial difference are not new, however, but spring from a two-century-old program of research that has sought to demonstrate racial differences in socially valued traits. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this review was to explore the history of racial difference research in order to (1) elucidate the central themes of that research and (2) explore the reasons for the persistence of those themes into modern racial difference research. Research Design The investigation is a historical analysis of research on racial differences from the late 18th century to the present. Conclusions/Recommendations Both the methodologies and the willingness to express the core hypotheses of a fixed differential between races on socially important characteristics have changed over time, yet adherence to a set of core research questions has remained relatively unchanged across generations of researchers. Although the consistent conflation of its political and scientific aims has, to some extent, compromised the scientific status of racial difference research, consistent links to social and economic policy have also ensured its intergenerational reproduction. Convergent shifts across a number of disciplines suggest that a Kuhnian-type paradigm shift may be under way that will redefine both the strategies and the types of questions that may characterize future research in the areas of race, ethnicity, and culture.
Students’ Sense of Belonging in Technical/Vocational Schools versus Academic Schools: The Mediating Role of Faculty Trust in Students
Authors: Van Houtte Mieke , Van Maele Dimitri 
Published: November 2021

Background Since the late 1960s, research has demonstrated repeatedly that students in lower tracks achieve less as they develop an antischool culture to overcome the status deprivation resulting from being in a lower track. In quantitative large-scale research, this anti-school culture is usually assessed using poor academic attitudes or study disengagement because antischool norms disengage students from the learning process. The extent to which students in different tracks feel embedded in their school communities—their sense of school belonging—has rarely been examined, although academic engagement and sense of belonging are related to each other and to achievement. Objective This article examines students’ sense of belonging in secondary schools that offer different tracks, and the role played by the faculty's trust in the students. Participants The study is based on data from 3,475 students and 754 teachers in 28 technical/vocational schools and 3,376 students and 461 teachers in 22 academic schools in Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. Research Design Use is made of (stepwise) multilevel analyses (HLM6). Results The analyses show that students in technical/vocational schools have a significant lower sense of belonging than students in academic schools. This association disappears if we take into account faculty trust in students. The association between school type and perceived teacher support, a subdimension of the sense of belonging, is not mediated by faculty trust, but is due to the lower GPA of students in technical/vocational schools. Conclusions The results indicate that teachers play a crucial role in the divergent nature of students’ social integration across different types of schools. In terms of strengthening students’ connectedness to a technical/vocational school environment, our results indicate that strengthening teachers’ level of trust in students could be crucial.
Negotiating Cross-Class Identities While Living a Curriculum of Moral Education
Authors: Cutri Ramona M. , Manning Jill , Weight Cecilia S. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context A person's socioeconomic class is not a stagnant category based on her income level, but is rather an ongoing lived identity that includes a dynamic process of political struggle. In our self-study, we unpack both our poverty and upper-middle-class experiences and in so doing examine our intergenerational cross-class identity as a site of personal and political struggle. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of the Study This self-study of practice explores how we three mothers who are also educators negotiate our cross-class identities while living a curriculum of moral education with our children who are growing up upper middle class. Research Design The qualitative methodology of self-study of practice was employed, and narrative methods were used to gather and analyze data. Findings/Results The qualities of intimacy and altruism emerge from our stories as ways to foster cross-class identities that encourage awareness of inequities and promote learning oriented toward social justice. Conclusions/Recommendations The approaches and strategies of living a moral education curriculum chronicled in our stories offer a developmentally sensitive model of moral education that could, with modification, inform approaches to educating critical class-conscious educators. The narratives highlight opportunities for researchers and educators to move across cultures and illustrate how tensions between cultures can be held open for meaning making rather than assuming that people only have one class identity. Future research is called for to further explore the impact of race on practices of moral education and how the types of relationships necessary for moral authority can be fostered within the confines of academia.
Teachers’ Education and Outcomes: Mapping the Research Terrain
Authors: Cochran-Smith Marilyn , Cannady Matthew , Mceachern Kirstin P. , Mitchell Kara , Piazza Peter , Power Christine , Ryan Amy 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Questions about teacher quality, including how teachers ought to be educated and licensed, rank near the top of the educational agenda in the United States. These controversies persist because of lack of consensus about what “teacher quality” means, conflicting claims about the empirical evidence, and public skepticism about the need for formal teacher preparation. Because there has been relatively little research on the outcomes of preparation programs and pathways and because researchers work from diverging paradigms, there are few clear conclusions in this area. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual analysis of empirical research on teachers’ education and outcomes that is linked to the political controversies and policy debates that shape it. Using the concept of research “genres,” the article addresses two questions: (1) How have researchers conceptualized and studied the connections between teachers’ education and its outcomes, consequences, or results? (2) What are the policy controversies and larger social and political factors that have shaped these genres? Research Design This review focuses on research conducted in the United States since 1998 and published by peer-reviewed journals or centers with peer review procedures. The review includes only empirical research that explicitly examines connections between particular aspects of teachers’ education (e.g., certification status, academic background, pathways into teaching, program mission/curriculum, transitions to teaching, life experiences) and specific posteducation outcomes (e.g., teacher preparedness, beliefs, practice, retention, student achievement). Findings/Results The review reveals that there are six distinguishable genres that examine connections between teachers’ education and posteducation outcomes: teacher certification and its correlates, teachers’ educational backgrounds and the teacher workforce, entry pathways into teaching and their consequences, teacher preparation programs and their graduates, teacher preparation and learning to teach in the early career years, and teachers’ life experiences and beliefs/practices. The article analyzes and critiques each genre, including its contributions/limitations and the controversies it addresses. Conclusions/Recommendations The review concludes that there continue to be relatively few studies that connect aspects of teachers’ education to outcomes; some genres focus primarily on outcomes related to student achievement, whereas others focus primarily on outcomes related to teacher learning. These genres have grown up relatively separately from one another. The review recommends that all six research genres ought to be taken into account by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners in order to have a rich understandings of teachers’ education and outcomes.