<p> An estimated 10-15% of students miss an entire month of school each year. Past research on students who are chronically absent finds that, relative to their peers who consistently attend school, chronically absent students are more likely to experience negative academic outcomes (e.g., grade retention, dropping out), to be under- and unemployed, to be incarcerated, and even to die prematurely. Although there has been a significant amount of quantitative research on patterns of chronic school absenteeism and on the student, family, school, and community factors with which it is correlated, surprisingly little research has examined parents&rsquo;/guardians&rsquo; decisions to keep their children out of school.</p><p> In an effort to address this gap in the literature, the present study interviewed 22 parents/guardians of chronically absent elementary and middle school students to understand their perspectives on chronic absenteeism and to discover what support they felt they need to ensure that their children attended school each day.</p><p> The results of the study reveal that the primary reasons parents/guardians identified for their children&rsquo;s chronic absenteeism include challenges related to the child&rsquo;s mental health, parent activities, interactions with other children at school, and transportation. Factors that parents/guardians identified that would help them to improve their students&rsquo; attendance include increased communication about absenteeism and family issues, expressed compassion and interest in reasons why students are absent, and specific provisions to help children make up missed instruction and school assignments. The study concludes with recommendations for chronic absenteeism policy and practice, and directions for future research.</p><p>

The Higher Education Equal Opportunity Act (Act 101), of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, took effect in July, 1971. The thrust of this legislation was to provide educational opportunities for economically and educationally disadvantaged students. Supportive intervention strategies such as peer counseling and professional counseling are fundamental ingredients of Act 101 programs. No particular peer counselor model is uniformly endorsed as the most effective for assisting Act 101 students. This study was a comparative, qualitative case study of the preservice and inservice training components of peer counseling programs at East Stroudsburg University, University of Pennsylvania, and Widener University. Program directors and counselors completed a questionnaire and participated in an in-depth interview in order to assess the amount of emphasis placed on various themes, skills, and attitudes during peer counseling preservice and inservice programs. The results of the study indicate there is general agreement among directors and counselors, at all three programs, about content and methodologies. It was concluded that a harmoniously blended theoretical model with the Carkhuff model (1967) as a base, is preferred. The Carkhuff model emphasises the core dimensions of helping: (1) empathic understanding; (2) positive regard; (3) genuineness; and (4) concreteness. The counselors have integrated parts of various theories, such as self-actualization theory, values clarification, skills training, and experiential learning. This eclectic approach represents the theoretical orientation preferred by the participants in this study.

Across the country many mentoring programs are developing, which are designed to match interested adults with students who need help with getting through school, making career decisions and coming into young adulthood in the twenty-first century. Since the 1980's a significant number of mentoring programs have been eagerly received by educators, through businesses partnerships. But, there is much disagreement among the supporters of the mentoring movement about exactly what should constitute a mentoring relationship, how early in a student's life mentoring should begin, and whether these relationships can be developed on a large scale. Moreover, mentoring is more than a business partnership project. It is a series of complex relationships that often fail. Given the state of urban families and schools, coupled with the state and federal government's reluctance to fund more educational personnel, it becomes critical to find the best ways to take advantage of the largess of the business community in implementing urban mentoring programs. Therefore the study of an urban mentoring program was essential. This research looked for areas of success for others who wish to initiate urban middle school mentoring programs may be more successful. Within the context of the John W. McCormack Middle School-business partnership quantitative data was collected to discern what constitutes the profile of an ideal mentor for early adolescents. Further, this study identified which factors motivate an urban adolescent to become involved with an adult tutor/mentor. Lastly, the study identified which factors motivate working adults and their tutees to volunteer to work with one another in an urban middle school. This study's quantitative data was collected from participating adults and students. The results were supported by interviews. Furthermore the results confirm what was found in the evaluation reports of Career Beginnings and The Partners in Growth studies. The results of this study are very important because of the recent nationwide emphasis on school-business partnerships that involve using their human resources rather than direct financial philanthropy.

During the past two decades women have entered the workforce in record numbers; they currently comprise nearly 48% of the workforce. Although their presence has been felt in occupations that have been traditionally held by men, their numbers remain concentrated in occupations that have been traditionally held by females. Using a grounded theory approach, this qualitative research looked at women's career decision-making to see to what extent marriage and family issues played a role in their career decisions. Although previous research has focused on such factors as personal characteristics and parent-child relationships as they relate to women's choices of traditional or nontraditional occupations, few studies have explored the relationship of women's career choices and potential marriage and family. Through a comparison of women who are currently working in traditional occupations with women who are working in nontraditional fields, this study explored women's perceptions of balancing future marriage and family roles; the role that sequencing plays in future role balancing; and the impact of women's concerns about future role balancing on their choices of traditional or nontraditional careers. Ten college graduates who chose traditional occupations and ten graduates who chose nontraditional occupations were interviewed. The tape recorded interviews were transcribed, marked, labeled, and grouped in categories. Passages within each category were then reviewed to synthesize the material. The final part of the process involved a review of the interview material in order to identify new learning regarding the impact of potential marriage and family on women's career decisions. The themes identified through the interviews are consistent with the summary of major barriers to and facilitators of women's career choices that are identified by Betz (1994). Those participants who chose to major in fields that are nontraditional for women indicated that they chose those fields based on their skills and interests and believed that they could "fit" family into their careers. All of the participants discussed the need for flexibility of schedules to accommodate roles associated with marriage and family.

The fields of multicultural counseling and education have given increased emphasis to the relationship between minority students and academic performance in our classrooms. The literature on minority students' achievement has shown that public education in this country experiences criticism and controversy and fails to meet the educational expectations and demands of minority students, particularly those of Hispanic heritage. In addition, Hispanic students are affected by their high dropout rates and academic underachievement. In search for solutions and strategies, social scientists, educators and multicultural school counselors have identified minority students in our classroom as a vital part for teachers development. This study explored Puerto Rican first generation students' perceptions of their guidance counseling services and their opportunity to achieve a post-secondary education. The study explored how those perceptions enhance the educational and learning process. By using a phenomenological survey, data was gathered from 60 Puerto Rican first generation students. A triangulation strategy was used, as well as factor analysis and cluster methods for the data analysis, in search for patterns, categories and themes among participants' responses. There were four major findings in this study. It was found that these students want to be more aware of their guidance counseling services. It was found that the participants' perceptions in regards to their parents assistance with their school matters were important to them. It was also found that their perceptions in regards to their teachers' advising is a vital factor for their academic performance. Finally it was also found that these students believed that an academic after school program can benefit them with their academics and personal matters and furthermore it serves as an important liaison between students $\leftrightarrow$ teachers $\leftrightarrow$ counselors $\leftrightarrow$ principals and parents.

School violence has encouraged the introduction of peer mediation programs in spite of the absence of reliable research and program evaluation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of peer mediation programs in 44 Massachusetts secondary public schools, describing the objectives, evidence, and conditions that fostered or hindered program success. The research questions that guided this study asked 132 respondents to indicate the objectives of peer mediation programs, evidence of success, and conditions within the schools that helped or hindered success. Of 42 objectives, only peaceful resolution of conflict was reported by a majority of the schools. Four others--learning alternative ways of dealing with violence; improving the climate in school and classroom; reducing the number of fights before becoming serious; and teaching students to talk out problems were reported by 41% of the respondents. From the seven most common examples of evidence demonstrating success, a decrease in violence and suspensions was reported by the largest percentage of respondents (38%). Major hindrances to mediation included adult intervention in mediation, lack of administrative funding, and scheduling conflicts. No single condition that either helped or hindered program success emerged in the study. The most common supportive condition was administrative and faculty support, and the most common hindrance was scheduling conflicts. Other hindrances were a lack of a full-time coordinator, and lack of administrative and faculty support. Respondents provided few examples of evidence or conditions to support their claims of success or lack of success. Results indicate that peer mediation was successful in most of the 44 schools in the study, and that every school program was unique. Still, improvements, such as effective program evaluation; greater funding; support for staff training from the state and universities; and closer scrutiny of developments in the field, are necessary. The rise in school violence throughout the nation is forcing educators to respond with programs, such as peer mediation. The blueprint for successful peer mediation programs needs to be designed by each school. Planned properly, facilitated effectively and evaluated appropriately, peer mediation can contribute to the realization of safe learning environments for students.

The purpose of the study was twofold: to explore how school counselors and athletic educators experienced implementing the 2010 Massachusetts Anti-bullying law and to explore how participants experienced using the Sharevision structured group reflection process as the format for group discussions. The Sharevision structured group reflection process provided the safety and support school counselors and athletic educators said they needed. Participants eagerly shared their experiences with one another. They used the Sharevision process to discuss the list of participant generated questions they posed during the individual interviews. They exchanged ideas and were able to generate new ways to respond to anti-LGBTQ bullying and gender-based harassment as a result of their reflective group discussions. The participants said that the Sharevision meetings relieved stress, were productive and inspired them to continue working together to take action on their ideas. After the study was over, members of the group met over the summer with the GSA Advisor to continue to work together. They designed and then co-facilitated their fall orientations for incoming students, athletes and parents proactively promoting diversity, their GSA and a positive LGBTQ school climate.

The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the behavioral outcomes of two group approaches to helping wives of alcoholic men. Both were psychoeducational approaches combining didactic teaching and group counseling techniques. Both approaches were aimed at the ultimate goal of facilitating more effective coping by the wives despite their husbands' active alcoholism and its consequences. Both approaches were expected to result in decreased use of negative coping behaviors ("survival behaviors") and both were expected to facilitate entry into and involvement with Al-Anon. One group, Group A, received a program based on a family-systems perspective of family alcoholism using adapted techniques from Berenson, Wegscheider, and Borwick; Al-Anon was mentioned but not actively encouraged. A second group, Group B, received an identical format of six, two-hour sessions. However, the second group received a more person-focused approach with a more conventional program stressing the disease concept of alcoholism and Al-Anon concepts. Al-Anon attendance was directly encouraged in the latter group but not in the former. The "Spouse Survival Behavior Scale" which was developed by this investigator was administered to both groups at the first and again at the last session. Group A wives reported decreased use of "survival behaviors": group means for the scale as a whole and for two of six sub-scales significantly decreased. However, none of the wives reported attending Al-Anon on one month and and two month follow-up calls. Group B wives did not significantly decrease their self-reported use of "survival behaviors" when comparison of pretest and posttest group means were subjected to a t-test. However, analysis of adjunctive qualitative data raised the possibility that Group B wives were using less denial as a defense and had emotionally detached to a greater degree than Group A wives. One month and two month follow-up telephone call data on Al-Anon attendance revealed that 2 of the group B wives had also been regularly attending Al-Anon. Differences in gain scores between Group A and Group B were not shown to be statistically significant when examined at the level of the whole test. However, changes in one sub-scale (Cluster V: Blaming/Punishing) showed significantly less self-reported use of behaviors in this category by Group A as compared with Group B who increased their use of these behaviors. The latter was the only statistically significant finding of this study which supported one of the research hypotheses.

What techniques can be used by the elementary school principal to help teachers to understand children better and to gain practical working knowledge of guidance practices, so that they may more adequately help individuals make more satisfactory life adjustments?

Individuals with emotional or behavioral disorders (E/BD) characteristically have experienced the least favorable outcomes of any group of individuals with disabilities. Learning disabilities frequently co-exist with E/BD and result in problems mastering academic content (Coleman & Vaughn, 2000). As a result of their academic difficulties, many students with E/BD do not finish high school. In fact, research shows that more than 50 percent of students with E/BD drop out (Chesapeake Institute, 1994, Rylance, 1997; U.S. Department of Education, 1998). This dissertation presents a student perspective on how well current practice allows for successful transitions for students with emotional or behavioral disorders from high school programs to post-high school educational and career opportunities. This study obtained the student point of view of program activities that they consider most important to high school completion and post-high school educational and employment opportunities. A phenomenological approach is used to investigate the research question related to program features leading to positive outcomes for students with emotional or behavioral disorders. The major source of data is semi-structured interviews of former students of E/BD programs. Phenomenological, qualitative research methods were used to examine student perceptions of E/BD program effectiveness with a focus on current services and program activities. The study found that those participants who graduated from a program and successfully entered college or the workforce have a strong sense of the intrinsic value of academics, strong pro-social skills and have been exposed to relevant career development programs. The findings identify program features that affect the quality of services and activities as perceived by the former students themselves. The use of an individual-interview process that focuses on the perceptions of students assumes that in order to be effective, interventions must respond to the perceived needs of the students. Programs that fail to foster such satisfaction may be inadequate, given the field's expressed ambition that students have access to an appropriate program tailored to their unique needs. The results have both practice and policy implications for program design that will result in improved outcomes for students with emotional or behavioral disorders.