bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Looking in the Mirror: Helping Adolescents Talk More Reflectively during Portfolio Presentations
Authors: Fredrick Tim 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Portfolio assessment is a popular form of authentic assessment, but often portfolios become simply folders full of papers rather than student reflections on their work. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The author conducted a study aiming to help the ninth-grade students in his English language arts classroom be more reflective about their reading and writing portfolios. Research Design This study was conducted as a teacher research study in two parts. The first part studied the effect on the reflectiveness of students when using a 10-minute one-on-one presentation with the teacher instead of a cover letter. From the data received from these first-semester presentations, the teacher-researcher categorized the students’ statements into reflective and nonreflective categories. In the second part of the study, the teacher used these categories to teach students to speak more reflectively during their second-semester presentations. Conclusions/Recommendations The author found that students can be taught to be more reflective about their work and that this newfound reflectiveness helps students take more control in their literacy education.
Toward Democratic Discourse: Scaffolding Student-Led Discussions in the Social Studies
Authors: Flynn Nora K. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Discussion in classrooms has been cited as an activity integral to active participation in a democracy. Much research into classroom practice reveals that recitation, not discussion, is the most common form of classroom discourse. How teachers conceive of discussion, what they actually do when they attempt discussion with students, and how they are taught to implement discussions are all inquiries that uncover the actual workings of discussion within classrooms. This article addresses students’ experiences in discussion and how one teacher scaffolds instruction in discussion in order to achieve a more democratic discourse in her classroom. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article traces one teacher's research into what students experience during class discussions and how their responses led her to inquire into her own practice of implementing discussion-based activities in a content-area course. She seeks a more “democratic” classroom in which genuine discussion among equal peers is possible because the skills underlying discussion are taught. Scaffolding the teaching of discussion skills throughout a year of a world studies class allowed for students to take a more active and engaged role in discussion and expand their vision of active participation and a “good” discussion while grounding their discussion in historical content. Setting A public selective enrollment secondary school in Chicago was the site of this action research. Population/Participants/Subjects Eighty-eight students enrolled in ninth-grade Honors World Studies took part in this study. Research Design This study uses action research, or teacher inquiry into classroom practices and instructional responses to findings. Its data are qualitative in nature. Data Collection and Analysis Data were collected in the form of student reflections after discussions with peers, teacher observations during student-led discussions, and student–teacher debriefings after discussion activities.
What Happens When Eighth Graders Become the Teachers?
Authors: Stecz Stephanie 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Significant research has been done on the cognitive and academic outcomes of older-younger and peer-peer student relationships. Whether in a one-on-one setting or a setting in which responsibility for teaching is shared among members of a collaborative group, well-planned, well-organized, and well-executed student-student interactions have repeatedly shown positive evidence of student progress and learning This action research project differentiates itself from previous research in several ways because it focuses on motivational and attitudinal outcomes when every student in a classroom of eighth graders serves as a teacher of “new-to-everyone” content for three classes of younger students. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The research question I asked was: What happens when my eighth-grade students teach younger students about Japan? My purpose was to find out if and how teaching younger students affected eighth graders in my K-8 inner city public school. I was also interested in whether and how the project affected the school community. Setting The research took place in a K-8 inner city Chicago public school. Population/Participants/Subjects The participants were 27 eighth-grade students, and a second-grade, a third-grade, and a fourth-grade class of approximately 25 students each. Approximately 96% of participating students were African American, and 4% were Hispanic. Intervention/Program/Practice The project consisted of a 10-week period during which my eighth-grade class was split into three groups that developed and taught lessons about Japan to classes of younger students. Research Design This was an action research project that I did in my classroom while teaching full time.
Beyond the Bake Sale: A Community-Based Relational Approach to Parent Engagement in Schools
Authors: Warren Mark R. , Hong Soo , Rubin Carolyn Leung , Sychitkokhong Phitsamay UY 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Parent involvement in education is widely recognized as important, yet it remains weak in many communities. One important reason for this weakness is that urban schools have grown increasingly isolated from the families and communities they serve. Many of the same neighborhoods with families who are disconnected from public schools, however, often contain strong community-based organizations (CBOs) with deep roots in the lives of families. Many CBOs are beginning to collaborate with public schools, and these collaborations might potentially offer effective strategies to engage families more broadly and deeply in schools. Purpose This article presents a community-based relational approach to fostering parent engagement in schools. We investigated the efforts of CBOs to engage parents in schools in low-income urban communities. We argue that when CBOs are authentically rooted in community life, they can bring to schools a better understanding of the culture and assets of families, as well as resources that schools may lack. As go-betweens, they can build relational bridges between educators and parents and act as catalysts for change. Research Design Using case study methodology, we studied three notable school-community collaborations: the Logan Square Neighborhood Association in Chicago, Illinois; the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Los Angeles, California; and the Quitman Street Community School in Newark, New Jersey. Each case represents one of three types of collaboration identified in previous research: community service, community development and community organizing. Findings Although differences in context mattered, we found three common dimensions of parent engagement work across the cases. The three core elements of this community-based relational approach are (1) an emphasis on relationship building among parents and between parents and educators, (2) a focus on the leadership development of parents, and (3) an effort to bridge the gap in culture and power between parents and educators. We contrast this community-based approach with more traditional, school-centric, and individualistic approaches to parent involvement. Conclusions There are a number of lessons from this study for educators interested in broadening and deepening parent participation in schools. First, educators can benefit from taking a patient approach, building relationships over time. Second, schools may not be able to do parent engagement work alone; they can profit from the social capital expertise of community-based organizations. Finally, educators would benefit from understanding that communities bring different needs, aspirations, and desires to their children's education. If educators collaborate with community partners and help to develop parent leadership, they can form initiatives that meet the interests, values, and capacities of any particular school community.
Teaching Practice: A Cross-Professional Perspective
Authors: Grossman Pam , Compton Christa , Igra Danielle , Ronfeldt Matthew , Shahan Emily , Williamson Peter W. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This study investigates how people are prepared for professional practice in the clergy, teaching, and clinical psychology. The work is located within research on professional education, and research on the teaching and learning of practice. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of the study is to develop a framework to describe and analyze the teaching of practice in professional education programs, specifically preparation for relational practices. Setting The research took place in eight professional education programs located in seminaries, schools of professional psychology, and universities across the country. Population/Participants/Subjects Our research participants include faculty members, students, and administrators at each of these eight programs. Research Design This research is a comparative case study of professional education across three different professions—the clergy, clinical psychology, and teaching. Our data include qualitative case studies of eight preparation programs: two teacher education programs, three seminaries, and three clinical psychology programs. Data Collection and Analysis For each institution, we conducted site visits that included interviews with administrators, faculty, and staff; observations of multiple classes and field-work; and focus groups with students who were either at the midpoint or at the end of their programs. Conclusions/Recommendations We have identified three key concepts for understanding the pedagogies of practice in professional education: representations, decomposition, and approximations of practice. Representations of practice comprise the different ways that practice is represented in professional education and what these various representations make visible to novices. Decomposition of practice involves breaking down practice into its constituent parts for the purposes of teaching and learning. Approximations of practice refer to opportunities to engage in practices that are more or less proximal to the practices of a profession. In this article, we define and provide examples of the representation, decomposition, and approximation of practice from our study of professional education in the clergy, clinical psychology, and teaching. We conclude that, in the program we studied, prospective teachers have fewer opportunities to engage in approximations that focus on contingent, interactive practice than do novices in the other two professions we studied.
Social Stratification in Higher Education
Authors: Grodsky Eric , Jackson Erika 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Over the past half century, scholars in a variety of fields have contributed to our understanding of the relationship between higher education and social stratification. We review this literature, highlighting complementarities and inconsistencies. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study We situate our review of the literature on inequality and higher education in the context of a behavioral model of postsecondary participation that takes into account the actions of both students and institutions. Conclusions/Recommendations We recommend that researchers continue to engage in cross-disciplinary dialogues around challenges in postsecondary research and policy, advocate for an increase in the use of experimental designs, and encourage the development of linkages across administrative data sets. We also recommend that future research improve the alignment among behavioral theories, proposed interventions, study design, and analytic techniques.
Reverence in Classroom Teaching
Authors: Garrison Jim , Rud A. G. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Our article develops insights from Paul Woodruff's book, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2001), to discuss reverence in teaching. We show how reverence is both a cardinal and a forgotten virtue by situating it within the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics, which involves traits of character as embodied predispositions to act in certain ways in concrete contexts. Virtue ethics sometimes conflicts with abstract, rule-governed ethics, much as the ethics of care does. Virtue ethics appeals to emotional conviction in ways that rule-governed ethics does not. This article looks specifically at the emotions of shame and respect that are associated with reverence for the high ideals that may bind together an otherwise diverse, even diverging, schooling community. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this article is to understand spiritual dimensions of teaching by elucidating the cardinal and forgotten virtue of reverence. Reverence has a power beyond a typical understanding of it as something religious. The article shows reverence in a wider context that does not diminish its spiritual connotations, but rather shows its importance and relevance to teaching in today's classrooms. The study considers how the virtue of reverence is supported by appropriate classroom ritual and ceremony and discusses several examples of reverence and irreverence in classroom teaching. Research Design Philosophical analysis combined with qualitative case study analyses as illustrations. Conclusions/Recommendations To be reverent is to realize that we as humans are limited and imperfect, and the proper reaction to this state is humility, awe, and wonder. In subsequent articles, we will examine reverence in educational leadership and in a school's community. Our goal in this article and those to follow is to restore reverence to its rightful place in the ordinary daily activities of teachers in relation to administrators, students, and parents in school and in the community.
The Persistence of Presentism
Authors: Hargreaves Andy , Shirley Dennis 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This study draws on the voluminous research on teachers’ workplace orientations and especially on Dan Lortie's documentation of conservatism, individualism, and presentism among teachers. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study investigated a school reform network of over 300 secondary schools entitled Raising Achievement Transforming Learning (RATL) to explore the role of the network's interventions in increasing or diminishing presentism. Setting England. Population/Participants/Subjects Quantitative performance data were analyzed for all 300 schools. Site visits were made to 10 RATL schools in which educational administrators and teachers were interviewed individually and in focus groups. Additional phone interviews were conducted with administrators in 14 RATL schools. Intervention/Program/Practice RATL provided a combination of interventions and supports for schools in the network, including data analysis and capacity enhancement; partnering mentor schools with low-performing schools; regional conferences; a Web portal for schools in the project; and a menu of short-, medium-, and long-term strategies for change. Research Design Qualitative interviews and focus groups of educators in RATL schools, along with secondary analysis of pupil performance data. Conclusions/Recommendations In Dan Lortie's seminal research on teachers’ workplace orientations, he identified “presentism,” or short-term thinking, with conservatism and individualism. This research indicates that in the RATL project, individualism among teachers diminished, but this did not diminish either conservatism or presentism. The research identifies three kinds of presentism—endemic, adaptive, and addictive—that have amplified educational conservatism while altering its nature to fit the current culture and political economy of fast capitalism.
An Exploration in Mindfulness: Classroom of Detectives
Authors: Reid Elizabeth , Miller Lisa 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This exploratory feasibility study assesses a mindfulness program in a fifth-grade classroom. The research discussed herein was built on a previous study targeted at a specific population of children within the classroom and assessed the benefits of teaching mindfulness meditation to 7- and 8-year-old children who met criteria for generalized anxiety disorder. Purpose/Focus of Study The primary aim of this exploratory study was to investigate the feasibility of a mindfulness training workbook written for young children. The mindfulness workbook uses a fictional character in a storybook format. The goal was to help children understand and access their own mindfulness within the classroom setting without instruction by teachers and without using meditation techniques. Setting The study was conducted in a school-based setting. Participants Participants were 24 children of low socioeconomic status (SES) from urban areas in Fairfield County, Connecticut, who attended a summer program. The subjects described were of a nonclinical population, and all were rising fifth graders. Research Design The predominantly qualitative study was rooted in an action research design method, which allowed for program adjustments to be made as needed. Findings The mindfulness program was feasible, and overall improvements in attention were evident. Conclusions The children who needed the most help at the onset of the program showed the greatest improvement by the end.
A “More General Crisis”: Hannah Arendt, World-Alienation, and the Challenges of Teaching for the World As It Is
Authors: Levinson Natasha 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This article is part of a special issue on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Hannah Arendt's essay, “The Crisis in Education” and her book The Human Condition. Despite the proliferation of books and articles on Arendt's work since the mid-90s, “The Crisis in Education” does not figure all that much in writing on Arendt. It is important to situate the arguments that Arendt makes rather cryptically in this essay in the broader context of her work. Doing so not only explains the problematic in more detail but also complicates Arendt's exhortation to teachers to take responsibility for the world. How can we expect teachers to do so under the more general conditions of world-alienation to which we are all susceptible and for which we have little in the way of conceptual guidance? Purpose/Focus of Study My article explains the shift in thinking about the purpose of education from being primarily about and for “the world” to being for “life.” Arendt holds progressive educational ideas responsible for this shift, although she concedes that in so doing, the progressives were simply reflecting the “prejudices” of the modern age. My article explains what these prejudices are, how they have contributed to world-alienation, and the difficulties we are likely to encounter if we think that a simple “return” to teaching “content knowledge” rather than “life skills” will solve the problem. Research Design This article is a philosophical analysis. Conclusions/Recommendations If world-alienation is the fundamental problem, then the educational solution would seem to be to make education more worldly. However, my reading of Arendt's critique of the most worldly disciplines—political philosophy, history, economics, and the behavioral sciences—shows that each of these disciplines has contributed to the phenomenon of world-alienation. This suggests that simply returning to an education based on “the disciplines” (or “content knowledge,” in contemporary educational discourse) will not be all that helpful unless the “return” to the disciplines brings the problem of world-alienation to the fore and shows how each of these disciplines has, at times, contributed to this phenomenon.
School Composition and Contextual Effects on Student Outcomes
Authors: Willms J. Douglas 
Published: November 2021

Background Findings from several international studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between literacy skills and socioeconomic status (SES). Research has also shown that schools differ considerably in their student outcomes, even after taking account of students’ ability and family background. The context or learning environment of a school or classroom is an important determinant of the rate at which children learn. The literature has traditionally used school composition, particularly the mean SES of the school, as a proxy for context. Focus of Study This study examines the relationships among school composition, several aspects of school and classroom context, and students’ literacy skills in science. Population The study uses data from the 2006 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) for 57 countries. PISA assesses the knowledge and life skills of 15-year-old youth as they approach the end of their compulsory period of schooling. Research Design Secondary analyses of the data describe the socioeconomic gradient (the relationship between a student outcome and SES) and the school profile (the relationship between average school performance and school composition) using data for the United States as an example. The analyses demonstrate two important relationships between school composition and the socioeconomic gradient and distinguish between two types of segregation, referred to as horizontal and vertical segregation. The analyses discern the extent to which school composition and classroom and school context separately and jointly account for variation in student achievement. Findings The results show that school composition is correlated with several aspects of school and classroom context and that these factors are associated with students’ science literacy. Literacy performance is associated with the extent to which school systems are segregated “horizontally,” based on the distribution among schools of students from differing SES backgrounds, and “vertically,” due mainly to mechanisms that select students into different types of schools. Conclusions An understanding of socioeconomic gradients and school profiles for a school system is critical to discerning whether reform efforts should be directed mainly at improving the performance of particular schools or at striving to alter policies and practices within all schools. Both horizontal and vertical segregation are associated with lower student outcomes; therefore, we require a better understanding of the mechanisms through which students are allocated to schools. When the correlation of school composition with a particular contextual variable is strong, it calls for policies aimed at increasing inclusion or differentially allocating school and classroom resources among schools serving students of differing status.