No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

During the 2005-2006 school year, 967 students returned from incarceration and were assigned to RETI-WRAP (Re-Entry Transition Initiative-Welcome Return Assessment Process), a ten-day transition program operated by the School District of Philadelphia designed to review, evaluate, and make recommendations for appropriate school placement upon their return to the public school system. The current study employed a retrospective analysis of archival data from the ’05-’06 school year in order to identify those variables that predict successful transition (active in school or graduated). The data included demographic information (e.g., gender, grade, high school credits, and race), educational placement (e.g., regular or special education), severity of crime and reading and math scores as determined by standardized testing conducted by RETI-WRAP personnel. Eight variables were used to determine the prevalence, relationships, and predictive power of demographic, academic, and crime-related variables. Frequency distributions, Pearson correlations, Phi coefficients, and discriminant function analysis were conducted to examine prevalence, associations between variables, and predictions to successful re-entry. A significant Wilks’ Lamba of .945 was obtained for the sole discriminant function. Three variables emerged as significant predictors of successful re-entry: the number of credits obtained, the severity of the crime committed, and the age of the student. Younger students with more credits who committed less severe crimes were more likely to have achieved a successful transition. The amount of variance (5%) explained by the statistical model was limited by the imbalanced nature of the sample, in that few students (21.9%) experienced a successful transition. The current study highlighted the dynamics and overall profile of one of the most challenging and vulnerable populations in the public school system. By using database decision- making and providing a comprehensive framework to understand the characteristics of students who transition successfully, policy makers are in a better position to identify an optimal placement match based on empirical findings, thus decreasing the number of students who drop out of school or who remain involved with the juvenile justice system. / School Psychology

The purpose of this study was to provide insight on whether providing a single sex educational environment to inner-city African-American students helped to improve students' achievement and school engagement. A purposive sample of all students in grades three through six enrolled in single sex classrooms in a public school in a large urban city was included in this research. Comparison groups were selected from a neighboring public schools, ensuring the most consistency across demographic variables. Students completed two surveys: the School Engagement Survey (Fitt & DuCette, 2001) and the Estes Attitude Scale - Revised (Estes, Estes, Richards & Roetiger, 1981). Also, achievement data for these students were collected via a state sponsored school district data warehousing system. Students were also asked to participate in same sex, same grade focus groups. Ten teachers of these students were asked to participate in individual interviews. Results indicated that students in single-sex classes had statistically higher means than students in coeducational settings on the School Engagement Survey sections of Positive Self Perception, Positive Teacher Belief, and Positive School Environment. Also, students in coeducational settings had statistically higher means on the Estes Attitudes Scales for the subject of mathematics. Students who were enrolled in single-sex classes for more than one year had higher scores on standardized mathematics tests. Although single-sex and coeducational students start at approximately the same level for both reading and math, the single-sex students consistently score higher than their coeducational counterparts. Additionally, the results showed no significant gender differences on any of the measures of attitudes or achievement. Teachers did not drastically change their instructional approach after being assigned to a single-sex classroom but they did change their approach to behavior management. Teachers do not participate in quality, ongoing professional development to support their practice as teachers of a single-sex class. Both boys and girls seem to enjoy the attention they receive in single-sex classes. Boys and girls also expressed a feeling of comfort in the single-sex setting. Boys and girls alike expressed enjoyment of all school subjects including mathematics and science. Girls and younger boys perceived themselves as being much more academically successful in the single-sex classroom. Boys in grades five and six perceived themselves as failing academically and they blame the bad behavior exhibited in their all boys' classes. / Educational Psychology

Delivering high preference reinforcers in an organization-wide behavior change program is optimal, but may prove difficult. Depending upon the number of employees participating in the program, there may be many high-preference stimuli; these may make it difficult for managers to track and deliver all of the high preference stimuli. The current investigation examined a systematically thinning high preference delivery model using a modified progressive ratio procedure. Mean responding during the first baseline phase was used to determine response requirements for earning stimuli during intervention phases. During each session in the intervention phases each occurrence of a participant completing the mean number of responses found in baseline resulted in a decreasing opportunity to earn $3 worth of a preferred stimulus (and a corresponding increasing chance of earning a low-preference stimulus). By averaging the percentages reached in all intervention sessions a breaking percentage was calculated for each participant. Results indicated that across five participants the mean breaking percentage was 78.24%. The range of percentages reached during individual intervention sessions was 8% to 100%. The number of stimuli required to account for high preferences in the participant group, as well as separate groups of 5, 10, 25, and 40 participants, suggest that the obtained mean breaking percentage would not maintain responding. From the current data set, the random delivery of high-preference stimuli to a group is not recommended. / Educational Psychology

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation is an exploration of the construction of indicators that point toward positive peacebuilding in education. A conceptual framework that allows for such integration is that of basic psychological needs. When basic psychological needs are satisfied in a constructive manner, human beings are expected to experience optimal developmental outcomes, including greater potential for caring, pro-social behavior. The first section of the dissertation employs data on students' experiences in school from the 1997/98 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey. Organizing the HBSC data according to a framework of basic psychological needs, this analysis examines the extent of need satisfaction in schools, cross-nationally, as well as the association of basic need fulfillment with outcomes such as school satisfaction, eudaimonic functioning, and bullying. The analysis suggests that changes in basic need satisfaction are associated with positive peacebuilding. The second section of the dissertation explores the construction of indicators for peacebuilding in a nonformal education project sponsored by Catholic Relief Services in Montenegro. Based upon qualitative fieldwork conducted in Montenegro in September of 2002, this section focuses on questions of the meaning of peacebuilding in that context and the use of a basic needs framework to interpret students' growth as “agents of peace.” The challenges of constructing indicators collaboratively with the staff of a development agency are also discussed. As a whole, this study raises critical questions about the nature and use of indicators and the challenge of “retrofitting” data onto a framework of basic psychological needs. The study suggests avenues for further research and implications for the construction of educational indicators based on a framework of psychological needs in both formal and nonformal learning environments. Such indicators could contribute to the goal of building a culture of peace, the author argues, by more clearly connecting students' experiences with the goals of nurturing optimally-functioning and non-violent human beings.

The reality of students' affective experiences in the peer conference phase of process writing has been underresearched and real student voices are missing from the literature. Adolescent girls' development of self--actually a corporation of selves--and identity is a site of struggle within oppressive dominant discourses, often resulting in girls' disappearing into a gender-stereotyped loss of that self/selves and identity. In this study, a series of four interviews with five pairs of "disappeared" eighth grade girls provides the voices of adolescent girls discussing their experiences with and affective responses to peer conferencing. A modified form of Brown (1988) and Brown and Gilligan's (1990) model for reading/listening for care and justice perspectives was used to guide interpretations of the interviews. These "disappeared" girls talk of intricate, interior negotiations around offering suggestions to peers about their writing, revealing a balancing or blending of care and justice concerns. This blending indicates their capacity to interrelate broadly across the human spectrum of response, from independence to connection. These voices also give evidence that peer conferencing offers opportunities for girls to rehearse and express resistance to dominant discourses as they struggle to establish their selves and to hold on to their selves in the writing.