research article middle school

What do you think? Leave a respectful comment.

Kelly Field, The Hechinger Report Kelly Field, The Hechinger Report

• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/what-science-tells-us-about-improving-middle-school

What science tells us about improving middle school

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In a middle school hallway in Charlottesville, Virginia, a pair of sixth grade girls sat shoulder to shoulder on a lime green settee, creating comic strips that chronicled a year of pandemic schooling.

Using a computer program called Pixton, they built cartoon panels, one of a girl waving goodbye to her teacher, clueless that it would be months before they were back in the classroom, another of two friends standing 6 feet apart from one another, looking sad.

“We have to social distance,” one of the girls, Ashlee, said. Then, as if remembering, she scooted a few inches away from her friend, Anna.

In classrooms off the hallway, clusters of kids from grades six to eight worked on wood carvings, scrapbooks, paintings and podcasts, while their teachers stood by to answer questions or offer suggestions. For two hours, the students roamed freely among rooms named for their purpose — the maker space, the study, the hub — pausing for a 15-minute “brain break” at the midway point of the session.

Welcome to Community Lab School, a tiny public charter that is trying to transform the way middle schoolers are taught in the Albemarle School District — and eventually the nation.

Here, learning is project-based, multi-grade and interdisciplinary. There are no stand-alone subjects, other than math; even in that subject, students are grouped not by grade, but by their areas of strength and weakness. In the mornings, students work independently on their projects; in the afternoons, they practice math skills and take electives.

“Our day revolves around giving students choice,” said Stephanie Passman, the head teacher. “We want kids to feel a sense of agency and that this is a place where their ideas will be heard.”

Anna (left) and Ashlee (right), sixth graders at Community Lab School, create comics depicting their Covid year. Photo by Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report

As a laboratory for the Albemarle district, Community Lab School is charged with testing new approaches to middle school that could be scaled to the district’s five comprehensive middle schools. The school has been held up as a national model by researchers at MIT and the University of Virginia, which is studying how to better align middle school with the developmental needs of adolescents.

Over the last 20 years, scientists have learned a lot about how the adolescent brain works and what motivates middle schoolers. Yet a lot of their findings aren’t making it into classroom practice. That’s partly because teacher prep programs haven’t kept pace with the research, and partly because overburdened teachers don’t have the time to study and implement it.

Today, some 70 years after reformers launched a movement to make the middle grades more responsive to the needs of early adolescents, too many middle schools continue to operate like mini high schools, on a “cells and bells” model, said Chad Ratliff, the principal of Community Lab School.

“Traditional middle schools are very authoritarian, controlling environments,” Ratliff said. “A bell rings, and you have three minutes to shuffle to the next thing.”

For many early adolescents — and not a few of their teachers — middle school isn’t about choice and agency, “it’s about surviving,” said Melissa Wantz, a former educator from California, with more than 20 years’ experience.

Now, as schools nationwide emerge from a pandemic that upended educational norms, and caused rates of depression and anxiety to increase among teenagers , reformers hope educators will use this moment to remake middle school, turning it into a place where early adolescents not only survive, but thrive.

“This is an opportunity to think about what we want middle school to look like, rather than just going back to the status quo,” said Nancy L. Deutsche, the director of Youth-Nex: The UVA Center to Promote Effective Youth Development.

The adolescent brain

Scientists have long known that the human brain develops more rapidly between birth and the age of 3 than at any other time in life. But recent advances in brain imaging have revealed that a second spurt occurs during early adolescence, a phase generally defined as spanning ages 11 to 14 .

Though the brain’s physical structures are fully developed by age 6, the connections among them take longer to form. Early adolescence is when much of this wiring takes place. The middle school years are also what scientists call a “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, when the brain is primed to learn from social cues.

While the plasticity of the teenage brain makes it vulnerable to addiction, it also makes it resilient, capable of overcoming childhood trauma and adversity, according to a report recently published by the National Academies of Science. This makes early adolescence “a window of opportunity,” a chance to set students on a solid path for the remainder of their education, said Ronald Dahl, director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley.

Meanwhile, new findings in developmental psychology are shedding a fresh light on what motivates middle schoolers.

READ MORE: Four new studies bolster the case for project-based learning

Adolescents, everyone knows, crave connections to their peers and independence from their parents. But they also care deeply about what adults think. They want to be taken seriously and feel their opinions count. And though they’re often seen as selfish, middle schoolers are driven to contribute to the common good, psychologists say.

“They’re paying attention to the social world and one way to learn about the social world is to do things for others,” said Andrew Fuligni, a professor-in-residence in UCLA’s psychology department. “It’s one way you figure out your role in it.”

So, what does this evolving understanding of early adolescence say about how middle schools should be designed?

First, it suggests that schools should “capitalize on kids’ interest in their peers” through peer-assisted and cooperative learning , said Elise Capella, an associate professor of applied psychology and vice dean of research at New York University. “Activating positive peer influence is really important,” she said.

Experts say students should also be given “voice and choice” — allowed to pick projects and partners, when appropriate.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included such practices as interdisciplinary team teaching and cooperative learning. Kids often learn better when they work together, researchers said. Photo by Nichole Dobo/The Hechinger Report

“Kids have deeper cognitive conversations when they’re with their friends than when they’re not,” said Lydia Denworth, a science writer who wrote a book on friendship, in a recent radio interview .

Schools should also take advantage of the “sensitive period” for social and emotional learning, setting aside time to teach students the skills and mindsets that will help them succeed in high school and beyond, researchers say .

Yet many schools are doing the opposite of what the research recommends. Though many teachers make use of group learning, they often avoid grouping friends together, fearing they’ll goof off, Denworth said. And middle schools often spend less time on social and emotional learning than elementary schools , sometimes seeing it as a distraction from academics .

Meanwhile, many middle schools have abolished recess, according to Phyllis Fagell, author of the book “ Middle School Matters ”, leaving students with little unstructured time to work on social skills.

“When you think about the science of adolescence, the traditional model of middle school runs exactly counter to what students at that age really need,” said Ratliff.

A developmental “mismatch”

The notion that middle schools are misaligned with the needs and drives of early adolescents is hardly a new one. Efforts to reimagine education for grades six to eight dates back to the 1960s, when an education professor, William Alexander , called for replacing junior highs with middle schools that would cater to the age group.

Alexander’s “Middle School Movement” gained steam in the 1980s, when Jacquelynne Eccles, a research scientist, posited that declines in academic achievement and engagement in middle school were the result of a mismatch between adolescents and their schools — a poor “ stage-environment fit. ”

Propelled by Eccles’ theory, reformers coalesced around a “middle school concept” that included interdisciplinary team teaching, cooperative learning, block scheduling and advisory programs.

But while a number of schools adopted at least some of the proposed reforms, many did so only superficially. By the late ‘90s, policymakers’ attention had shifted to early childhood education and the transition to college, leaving middle school as “the proverbial middle child — the neglected, forgotten middle child,” said Fagell.

For many students, the transition from elementary to middle school is a jarring one, Fagell said. Sixth graders go from having one teacher and a single set of classmates to seven or eight teachers and a shifting set of peers.

“At the very point where they most need a sense of belonging, that is exactly when we take them out of school, put them on a bus, and send them to a massive feeder school,” said Fagell.

And at a time when their circadian rhythms are shifting to later sleep and wake times, sixth graders often have to start school earlier than they did in elementary school.

No wonder test scores and engagement slump.

READ MORE: Later school start time gave small boost to grades but big boost to sleep, new study finds

In an effort to recapture some of the “community” feel of an elementary school, many schools have created “advisory” programs, in which students start their day with a homeroom teacher and small group of peers.

Some schools are trying a “teams” approach, dividing grades into smaller groups that work with their own group of instructors. And some are doing away with departmentalization altogether.

At White Oak Middle School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, roughly a third of sixth graders spend half their day with one teacher, who covers four subjects. Peter Crable, the school’s assistant principal until recently, said the approach deepens relationships among students and between students and teachers.

“It can be a lot to ask kids to navigate different dynamics from one class to the next,” said Crable, who is currently a principal intern in another school. When their classmates are held constant, “students have each other’s backs more,” he said.

A study of the program now being used at White Oak, dubbed “Project Success,” found that it had a positive effect on literacy and eliminated the achievement gap between poorer students and their better-off peers.

But scaling the program up has proven difficult, in part because it goes against so many established norms. Most middle school teachers were trained as content-area specialists and see themselves in that role. It can take a dramatic mind shift — and hours of planning — for teachers to adjust to teaching multiple subjects.

Robert Dodd, who came up with Project Success when he was principal of Argyle Middle School, also in Silver Spring, said he’d hoped to expand it district-wide. So far, though, only White Oak has embraced it. (Dodd is now principal of the district’s Walt Whitman High School.)

“Large school systems have a way of snuffing out innovation,” he said.

Even Argyle Middle, where the program started, has pressed pause on Project Success.

“Teachers felt like it was elementary school,” said James Allrich, the school’s current principal. “I found myself forcing them to do it, and it doesn’t work if it’s forced.”

Restoring recess, and other pandemic-era innovations

But Argyle is continuing to experiment, in other ways. This fall, when students were studying online, the district instituted an hour-and-a-half “wellness break” in the middle of the day. Allrich kept it when 300 of the students returned in the spring, rotating them between lunch, recess and “choice time” every 30 minutes.

During one sixth grade recess at the end of the school year, clusters of students played basketball and soccer, while one girl sat quietly under a tree, gazing at a cicada that had landed on her hand. Only three students were scrolling on their phones.

Sixth graders at Argyle Middle, in Silver Spring, Maryland, play basketball during recess. Photo by Kelly Field for the Hechinger Report

“I thought when we got back, students would be all over their cellphones,” said Allrich, over the loud hum of cicadas. “But we see little of that. Kids really want to engage each other in person.”

Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College who has found a relationship between the decline of free play and the rise of mental illness in children and teens, wishes more middle schools would bring back recess.

“You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” he said.

Allrich said he plans to continue recess in the fall, when all 1,000 students are back in person, but acknowledges the scheduling will be tricky.

READ MORE:   How four middle schoolers are navigating the pandemic

Denise Pope, the co-founder of Challenge Success, a school reform nonprofit, hopes schools will stick with some of the other changes they made to their schedules during the pandemic, including later start times. “Don’t go back to the old normal,” Pope implored educators during a recent conference . “The old normal wasn’t healthy.”

Prior to the pandemic, barely a fifth of middle schools followed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. (Community Lab School started at 10 during the shutdown, but plans to return to a 9:30 a.m. start.)

But if the pandemic ushered in some potentially positive changes to middle schools, it also disrupted some of the key developmental milestones of early adolescence, such as autonomy-building and exploring the world. Stuck at home with their parents and cut off from their peers, teens suffered increased rates of anxiety and depression.

When students return to middle schools en masse this fall, they may need help processing the stress and trauma of the prior year and a half, said author Fagell, who is a counselor in a private school in Washington, D.C.

Fagell suggests schools survey students to find out what they need, or try the “iceberg exercise,” in which they are asked what others don’t see about them, what they keep submerged.

“We’re going to have to dive beneath the surface,” she said.

Deutsche, of Youth-Nex in Virginia, said teachers will play a key role in “helping students trust the world again.”

“Relationships with teachers will be even more important,” she said.

Fortunately, there are more evidence-based social-emotional programs for middle schoolers than there used to be, according to Justina Schlund, senior director of Content and Field Learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. A growing number of states are adopting Pre-K through12 social and emotional learning standards or guidelines and many districts and schools are implementing social and emotional learning throughout all grades, she said.

For many middle school students, a return to in-person schooling means a return to a routine that allows no time for play. But, according to researchers, free time is essential to students’ mental health in early adolescence. “You don’t suddenly outgrow the need for play when you’re 11 years old,” says Peter Gray, a research professor at Boston College. Photo by Amadou Diallo for The Hechinger Report

At Community Lab School, middle school students typically score above average on measures of emotional well-being and belonging, according to Shereen El Mallah, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who tracks the school’s outcomes. Though the Community Lab students experienced an increase in perceived stress during the pandemic, they generally fared better than their peers at demographically similar schools, she said.

Anna and Ashlee, the sixth graders on the settee, said the school’s close-knit community and project-based approach set it apart.

“We’re still learning as much as anyone else, they just make it fun, rather than making us read from textbooks all the time,” Ashlee said.

This story about early adolescents was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter .

Kelly Field is a journalist based in Boston who has also reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Support Provided By: Learn more

Educate your inbox

Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.

As millions of students return to the classroom, parents remain divided on mask mandates

Nation Aug 10

Hundreds of scientific articles. Written for kids. Approved by scientists. Free.

Can shipwrecks help protect ocean creatures?

• →a surprising refuge for marine life
• Biodiversity and Conservation , Pollution , Water Resources
• Coral , Fish , Fisheries , Marine Protected Area , Overfishing , Sustainability
• Middle school

Does education affect how long we live?

• →every additional year in school helps you live longer
• Health and Medicine , Social Science
• Inequality , Teen health

How safe is vaping?

• →all available evidence points to negative health impacts
• Health and Medicine
• Cancer , Genetics , Teen health
• Lower high school , Middle school

How well can apes remember their friends?

• →long-term social memory very similar to humans
• Animal behavior , Evolution , Extinction , Neuroscience , Veterinary medicine

How do parasites affect mouse behavior?

• →parasites can control the brain
• Animal behavior , Disease control , Genetics , Immunity , Parasite , Veterinary medicine

What is even more important than being right?

• →being aware that you might be wrong
• Social Science
• Cognition , COVID-19 , Disease control , Psychology , Vaccine

How does the brain adapt to blindness?

• →better detection of moving objects in a noisy environment
• Disability , Neuroscience

How can air travel produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions?

• →9 possible scenarios for reducing GHG emissions
• Energy and Climate , Pollution
• Aviation , Climate change , Greenhouse gas emissions

Search or Filter Articles:

Search articles, reading level.

• Elementary school (29)
• Lower high school (249)
• Middle school (194)
• Upper high school (95)

Scientific Topic

• Biodiversity and Conservation (86)
• Biology (72)
• Chemistry (13)
• Energy and Climate (58)
• Food and Agriculture (26)
• Health and Medicine (84)
• Paleoscience (18)
• Physical Science (18)
• Pollution (32)
• Social Science (59)
• Technology (23)
• Water Resources (49)
• All NGSS standards 2-LS4  (2) 3-5-ETS1  (3) 3-LS2  (1) 3-LS3  (2) 3-LS4  (3) 4-ESS3  (3) 4-LS1  (3) 4-PS3  (1) 4-PS4  (1) 5-ESS1  (1) 5-ESS3  (2) 5-PS1  (1) HS-ESS1  (3) HS-ESS2  (19) HS-ESS3  (82) HS-ESS4  (1) HS-ETS1  (12) HS-LS1  (74) HS-LS2  (84) HS-LS3  (29) HS-LS4  (48) HS-PS1  (5) HS-PS2  (2) HS-PS3  (5) HS-PS4  (3) MS-ESS1  (5) MS-ESS2  (14) MS-ESS3  (79) MS-ETS1  (6) MS-LS1  (69) MS-LS2  (77) MS-LS3  (16) MS-LS4  (25) MS-PS1  (3) MS-PS2  (1) MS-PS3  (4) MS-PS4  (3)
• All AP Environmental Science topics 1. The Living World: Ecosystems  (69) 2. The Living World: Biodiversity  (71) 3. Populations  (145) 4. Earth Systems and Resources  (30) 5. Land and Water Use  (67) 6. Energy Resources and Consumption  (18) 7. Atmospheric Pollution  (12) 8. Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution  (46) 9. Global Change  (99)
• All IB Biology topics 01. Cell biology  (2) 02. Molecular biology  (38) 03. Genetics  (44) 04. Ecology  (29) 05. Evolution and biodiversity  (34) 06. Human physiology  (69) 07. Nucleic acids  (5) 08. Metabolism, cell respiration and photosynthesis  (9) 09. Plant biology  (7) 10. Genetics and evolution  (12) 11. Animal physiology  (60) A. Neurobiology and behaviour  (46) B. Biotechnology and bioinformatics  (59) C. Ecology and conservation  (6) D. Human physiology  (13)
• All Scientific Methods Agricultural yield data  (6) Bacterial culture  (1) Case study  (47) Cell culture  (5) Chromatography  (2) Climate scenarios  (25) Community jury  (1) Controlled blinded study  (2) Correlational study  (1) CRISPR  (1) CT  (1) Data extrapolation  (45) Data reconstruction  (19) Data validation  (36) DNA sequencing  (37) ELISA  (6) Experiment  (140) Expert committee  (1) Field study  (43) Fluorescence imaging  (11) Gene editing  (11) GIS  (3) GPS tracking  (12) High resolution filming  (1) Life cycle assessment  (2) Mark-release-recapture  (2) Mass spectrometry  (11) Meta-analysis  (4) Microscopy  (22) Observation  (48) Onsite study  (1) PCR (Polymerase chain reaction)  (16) Policy analysis  (23) Proxy data  (22) Radiocarbon dating  (2) Remote sensing  (1) Representative sampling  (89) Risk analysis  (9) Scientific modeling  (119) Spectroscopy  (1) Survey research  (28) Systematic review  (22) Tomography scans  (2) Tree core sampling  (4) X-ray scanner  (2)
• All Scientific Figures Bar graph  (109) Box and whisker plot  (7) Data table  (28) Dendrogram  (1) Flow chart  (5) Histogram  (8) Line graph  (26) Map  (106) Microscopy image  (32) Pictograph  (88) Pie chart  (11) Scatter plot  (27) Time series graph  (36) Venn diagram  (4)
• Research Location Africa  (40) Antarctica  (2) Asia  (35) Australia  (16) Europe  (79) North America  (157) Ocean  (40) South America  (18) Space  (5)
• All Scientist Affiliations Aarhus University  (1) Adam Mickiewicz University  (1) Aix-Marseille University  (1) Amherst College  (1) Arizona State University  (5) Baylor University  (1) Boston University  (1) Brigham Young University  (1) Brown University  (1) California Institute of Technology  (3) California State University  (1) Cardiff University  (2) CDC  (3) Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles  (1) Centre for Communicable Diseases Bangladesh  (1) China Agricultural University  (1) Chinese Academy of Sciences  (1) City University of New York  (1) Clemson University  (2) Colorado State University  (4) Columbia University  (1) Complutense University  (1) Cornell University  (7) CSIRO  (1) Duke University  (7) Emory University  (1) ETH Zurich  (2) Five Gyres Institute  (1) Forest Research Institute of Baden-Wuerttemberg  (1) George Washington University  (2) Georgetown University  (2) Georgia Institute of Technology  (1) Harvard University  (11) Hebrew University of Jerusalem  (1) Hokkaido University  (1) IFPRI  (1) Imperial College London  (8) Indian Institute of Technology  (1) INRS  (3) Iowa State University  (3) IRSTEA  (1) ISAC  (1) Johannes Kepler University  (2) Johns Hopkins University  (5) Katholieke Universiteit Leuven  (1) King's College London  (1) Kyoto University  (1) Lancaster University  (2) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory  (2) Lehigh University  (1) Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research  (2) Leipzig University  (1) London School of Economics  (1) LSHTM  (5) LSTM  (1) Marine Biological Association UK  (1) Max Planck Institute  (4) McGill University  (3) Merrimack College  (1) Met Office UK  (1) Missouri University of Science and Technology  (1) MIT  (4) Monash University  (1) Murdoch Children's Research Institute  (2) Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio  (1) Myongji University  (1) Nanjing University  (1) Nanyang Technological University  (1) NASA  (6) National Autonomous University of Mexico  (1) National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases  (1) National University of Ireland  (1) Natural Resources Canada  (2) New York University Abu Dhabi  (1) NOAA  (8) North Carolina State University  (1) Northeastern University  (2) Northwestern University  (1) Norwegian Institute for Nature Research  (1) Norwegian University of Science and Technology  (2) Oregon State University  (1) Oswaldo Cruz Foundation  (1) PATH  (1) Peking University School of Public Health  (1) Pennsylvania State University  (4) Pepperdine University  (1) Princeton University  (2) Purdue University  (1) Queen Mary University of London  (2) Queensland University of Technology  (1) RMIT University  (1) Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research  (1) RPI  (1) RTI International  (1) Rutgers University  (1) San Diego State University  (1) Seattle Pacific University  (1) Stanford University  (8) Stockholm University  (2) Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences  (1) Tampere University  (1) Technical University of Denmark  (1) Texas A&M University  (3) The Francis Crick Institute  (1) Trent University  (1) Tulane University  (2) UC Berkeley  (10) UC Davis  (4) UC Irvine  (2) UC Los Angeles  (6) UC Riverside  (2) UC San Diego  (2) UC Santa Barbara  (1) UC Santa Cruz  (2) UKCEH  (1) United Nations Children’s Fund  (1) Universidad Nacional de Colombia  (1) Universit of Minnessotta  (1) Universität of Osnabrück  (1) University of Alaska  (1) University of Alberta  (1) University of Arizona  (1) University of Arkansas  (2) University of Auckland  (1) University of Bern  (1) University of Birmingham  (2) University of Bologna  (1) University of Bristol  (1) University of British Columbia  (4) University of Cambridge  (3) University of Cape Town  (1) University of Central Florida  (2) University of Chicago  (2) University of Cincinnati  (1) University of Connecticut  (1) University of Copenhagen  (1) University of Dar es Salaam  (1) University of East Anglia  (1) University of Edinburgh  (1) University of Exeter  (1) University of Florida  (5) University of Georgia  (1) University of Groningen  (1) University of Hawaii  (1) University of Helsinki  (2) University of Houston  (2) University of Illinois  (1) University of Konstanz  (1) University of Lausanne  (1) University of Leeds  (1) University of Liverpool  (1) University of London  (2) University of Maine  (1) University of Manitoba  (1) University of Maryland  (1) University of Miami  (1) University of Michigan  (2) University of Minnesota  (2) University of Missouri  (1) University of Montreal  (2) University of Nebraska  (1) University of New England Australia  (2) University of North Carolina  (2) University of Northern Colorado  (1) University of Oklahoma  (1) University of Otago  (1) University of Oviedo  (1) University of Oxford  (3) University of Patras  (1) University of Pennsylvania  (2) University of Pittsburgh  (1) University of Plymouth  (7) University of Potsdam  (1) University of Queensland  (1) University of Reading  (1) University of Rochester  (1) University of Sassari  (1) University of South Carolina  (1) University of South Florida  (1) University of Southern California  (2) University of Southern Denmark  (1) University of Southern Mississippi  (1) University of St Andrews  (1) University of Strathclyde  (1) University of Texas  (9) University of the Witwatersrand  (2) University of Tokyo  (1) University of Toulouse  (3) University of Tübingen  (2) University of Vienna  (1) University of Virginia  (2) University of Warwick  (1) University of Washington  (10) University of Western Australia  (3) University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee  (1) University of York  (1) University of Zurich  (3) Uppsala University  (1) USDA  (1) USDA-ARS  (2) UT Austin  (1) Utah State University  (1) Utrecht University  (1) Virginia Commonwealth University  (1) Virginia Tech  (1) Wageningen University  (2) Washington University  (1) Weill Cornell Medicine  (1) West Virginia University  (1) Wildlife Conservation Society  (1) Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution  (1) World Bank  (1) World Health Organization  (1) Yale University  (5)
• All Additional Languages Afrikaans  (1) Arabic  (5) Bengali  (1) Bulgarian  (37) Burmese  (1) Chinese  (4) Danish  (1) Dutch  (3) French  (17) German  (4) Greek  (1) Hindi  (1) Italian  (1) Korean  (1) Lao  (1) Mongolian  (1) Portuguese  (2) Russian  (2) Spanish  (53) Swedish  (1) Vietnamese  (4)

Search by Research Location:

Popular Articles

How do bumble bees play?

How does fear speech spread on social media?

How does dark energy affect galaxies?

Why do measles survivors get sicker?

Article collections.

Myth-Busting Scientific Articles

Socially Important Scientific Research in 2024 Election Year

6 Articles About Dinosaurs & Fossils

Gross and Disgusting Science Articles Collection

Popular lesson ideas.

Original Hands-On Lessons & Activities

Graphing Activities & Analyzing Scientific Data for Students

Ask-A-Scientist Podcast E8: Dr. Jen Stern, space scientist at NASA

SJK Academy: Research Recap Video Tutorials

Learn more about us.

Most scientific research is conducted and reported in specialized scientific journals in a language accessible only to adult scientists. Kids have the right to understand the world they are inheriting from us! That’s why we exists. Teachers can access classroom-ready resources to align with educational standards and spark curiosity in scientific inquiry. Science Journals for Kids equips teachers with grade level adapted science articles and supplementary materials for free . We are grateful to share our collection of science articles, podcasts , and video resources with teachers all around the world!

Funding support by:

Disclaimer: Funders play no role in article selection and writing.

Featured by:

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Sustainability
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Two studies reveal benefits of mindfulness for middle school students

Press contact :.

Previous image Next image

Two new studies from MIT suggest that mindfulness — the practice of focusing one’s awareness on the present moment — can enhance academic performance and mental health in middle schoolers. The researchers found that more mindfulness correlates with better academic performance, fewer suspensions from school, and less stress.

“By definition, mindfulness is the ability to focus attention on the present moment, as opposed to being distracted by external things or internal thoughts. If you’re focused on the teacher in front of you, or the homework in front of you, that should be good for learning,” says John Gabrieli, the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

The researchers also showed, for the first time, that mindfulness training can alter brain activity in students. Sixth-graders who received mindfulness training not only reported feeling less stressed, but their brain scans revealed reduced activation of the amygdala, a brain region that processes fear and other emotions, when they viewed images of fearful faces.

Together, the findings suggest that offering mindfulness training in schools could benefit many students, says Gabrieli, who is the senior author of both studies. 

“We think there is a reasonable possibility that mindfulness training would be beneficial for children as part of the daily curriculum in their classroom,” he says. “What’s also appealing about mindfulness is that there are pretty well-established ways of teaching it.”

In the moment

Both studies were performed at charter schools in Boston. In one of the papers, which appears today in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience , the MIT team studied about 100 sixth-graders. Half of the students received mindfulness training every day for eight weeks, while the other half took a coding class. The mindfulness curriculum, created by the nonprofit program Calmer Choice , was designed to encourage students to pay attention to their breath, and to focus on the present moment rather than thoughts of the past or the future.

Students who received the mindfulness training reported that their stress levels went down after the training, while the students in the control group did not. Students in the mindfulness training group also reported fewer negative feelings, such as sadness or anger, after the training.

About 40 of the students also participated in brain imaging studies before and after the training. The researchers measured activity in the amygdala as the students looked at pictures of faces expressing different emotions.

At the beginning of the study, before any training, students who reported higher stress levels showed more amygdala activity when they saw fearful faces. This is consistent with previous research showing that the amygdala can be overactive in people who experience more stress, leading them to have stronger negative reactions to adverse events.

“There’s a lot of evidence that an overly strong amygdala response to negative things is associated with high stress in early childhood and risk for depression,” Gabrieli says.

After the mindfulness training, students showed a smaller amygdala response when they saw the fearful faces, consistent with their reports that they felt less stressed. This suggests that mindfulness training could potentially help prevent or mitigate mood disorders linked with higher stress levels, the researchers say.

Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, says that the findings suggest there could be great benefit to implementing mindfulness training in middle schools.

“This is really one of the very first rigorous studies with children of that age to demonstrate behavioral and neural benefits of a simple mindfulness training,” says Davidson, who was not involved in the study.

Evaluating mindfulness

In the other paper, which appeared in the journal Mind, Brain, and Education in June, the researchers did not perform any mindfulness training but used a questionnaire to evaluate mindfulness in more than 2,000 students in grades 5-8. The questionnaire was based on the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, which is often used in mindfulness studies on adults. Participants are asked to rate how strongly they agree with statements such as “I rush through activities without being really attentive to them.”

The researchers compared the questionnaire results with students’ grades, their scores on statewide standardized tests, their attendance rates, and the number of times they had been suspended from school. Students who showed more mindfulness tended to have better grades and test scores, as well as fewer absences and suspensions.

“People had not asked that question in any quantitative sense at all, as to whether a more mindful child is more likely to fare better in school,” Gabrieli says. “This is the first paper that says there is a relationship between the two.”

The researchers now plan to do a full school-year study, with a larger group of students across many schools, to examine the longer-term effects of mindfulness training. Shorter programs like the two-month training used in the Behavioral Neuroscience study would most likely not have a lasting impact, Gabrieli says.

“Mindfulness is like going to the gym. If you go for a month, that’s good, but if you stop going, the effects won’t last,” he says. “It’s a form of mental exercise that needs to be sustained.”

The research was funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the Poitras Center for Psychiatric Disorders Research at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico. Camila Caballero ’13, now a graduate student at Yale University, is the lead author of the Mind, Brain, and Education study. Caballero and MIT postdoc Clemens Bauer are lead authors of the Behavioral Neuroscience study. Additional collaborators were from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Transforming Education, Boston Collegiate Charter School, and Calmer Choice.

Share this news article on:

Related links.

• Paper: "Mindfulness training reduces stress and amygdala reactivity to fearful faces in middle-school children"
• Paper: “Greater mindfulness is associated with better academic achievement in middle school”
• John Gabrieli
• McGovern Institute
• Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Related Topics

• Brain and cognitive sciences
• Neuroscience
• Mental health

Related Articles

Back-and-forth exchanges boost children’s brain response to language

Socioeconomic background linked to reading improvement

Distinctive brain pattern may underlie dyslexia

Previous item Next item

More MIT News

3 Questions: The past, present, and future of sustainability science

Read full story →

Startup’s displays engineer light to generate immersive experiences without the headsets

3 Questions: What does innovation look like in the field of substance use disorder?

Celebrating student entrepreneurship at delta v’s 2024 Demo Day

MIT welcomes nine MLK Scholars for 2024-25

Meet the 2024 tenured professors in the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Recommended Articles
• Author Biographies
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

Advancing middle grade research on critical pedagogy: research synthesis.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. scope of the literature review.

• How do teachers across content areas use and promote critical and culturally responsive teaching practices?
• What strategies and classroom practices do teachers implement that examine and challenge power relations and center culturally and linguistically diverse students?
• What is the impact of classroom implementation of critical pedagogies on young adolescent learning?
• How do educators and researchers expand the concept of critical pedagogies to include antiracist and anticolonial teaching practices for action?

2.2. Study Selection

• Critical pedagogies AND middle school or junior high or 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, AND teaching strategies or teaching methods or teaching approaches or classroom techniques;
• Antiracist teaching AND middle school or junior high or 6th, 7th, and 8th grades;
• Antiracism or anti-racism or antiracist or antiracist AND middle school or junior high or 6th, 7th, and 8th grades AND education or school or learning or teaching or classroom or education system (later added AND education to further narrow results);
• Culturally responsive teaching or culturally relevant pedagogy or culturally responsive instruction or culturally inclusive AND middle school or junior high or 6th, 7th, and 8th grades or young adolescents;
• Anticolonial or anti-colonial or decolonial AND middle school or junior high or 6th, 7th, and 8th grades or young adolescents AND education or school or learning or teaching or classroom or education system;
• Critical literacy or social justice AND teaching strategies or teaching methods or teaching approaches or classroom techniques AND middle school or junior high or 6th or 7th or 8th.

3.1. Diverse Instructional Practices

3.2. culturally responsive pedagogies, 3.3. decolonial and antiracist strategies, 4. discussion, 5. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

• Nanjundaswamy, C.; Baskaran, S.; Leela, M.H. Digital Pedagogy for Sustainable Learning. Shanlax Int. J. Educ. 2021 , 9 , 80. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Luke, A. Critical Literacy, Schooling, and Social Justice ; Routledge: New York, NY, USA, 2018. [ Google Scholar ]
• Collins, P.H. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory ; Duke University Press: New York, NY, USA, 2019; p. 41. [ Google Scholar ]
• Middle Level Teacher Preparation Standards with Rubrics and Supporting Explanations ; Association for Middle Level Education: New York, NY, USA, 2012. Available online: http://www.amle.org/AboutAMLE/ProfessionalPreparation/AMLEStandards.aspx (accessed on 1 December 2023).
• Grant, M.J.; Booth, A. A Typology of Reviews; An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies. Health Inf. Libr. J. 2009 , 26 , 91–108. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ] [ PubMed ]
• Aksakalli, A. The Effects of Science Teaching Based on Critical Pedagogy Principles on the Classroom Climate. Sci. Educ. Int. 2018 , 29 , 250–260. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Arphattananon, T. Breaking the Mold of Liberal Multicultural Education in Thailand through Social Studies Lessons. Clear. House J. Educ. Strateg. Issues Ideas 2021 , 94 , 53–62. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ruppert, N.; Coleman, B.; Pinter, H.; Johnson, D.; Rector, M.; Diaz, C. Culturally Sustaining Practices for Middle Level Mathematics Teachers. Educ. Sci. 2022 , 12 , 910. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Walker, A. Transformative Potential of Culturally Responsive Teaching: Examining Preservice Teachers’ Collaboration Practices Centering Refugee Youth. Educ. Sci. 2023 , 13 , 621. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Turner, K.C.N.; Hayes, N.V.; Way, K. Critical Multimodal Hip Hop Production: A Social Justice Approach to African American Language and Literacy Practices. Equity Excell. Educ. 2013 , 46 , 342–354. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Coppola, R.; Woodard, R.; Vaughan, A. And the Students Shall Lead Us: Putting Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy in Conversation with Universal Design for Learning in a Middle-School Spoken Word Poetry Unit. Lit. Res. Theory Method Pract. 2019 , 68 , 226–240. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Arada, K.; Sanchez, A.; Bell, P. Youth as Pattern Makers for Racial Justice: How Speculative Design Pedagogy in Science Can Promote Restorative Futures through Radical Care Practices. J. Learn. Sci. 2023 , 32 , 76–109. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Lensmire, A. Children Teaching Future Teachers: A Civic Literacy Project on the Border Wall during the Trump Regime. J. Curric. Pedagog. 2023 , 20 , 250–272. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Andrews, P.G.; Moulton, M.J.; Hughes, H.E. Integrating Social Justice into Middle Grades Education. Middle Sch. J. 2018 , 49 , 4–15. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gay, G. Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice , 3rd ed.; Teachers College Press: New York, NY, USA, 2018. [ Google Scholar ]
• Aguirre, J.M.; Zavala, M.D.R. Making Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching Explicit: A Lesson Analysis Tool. Pedagog. Int. J. 2013 , 8 , 163–190. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Gunn, A.A. Focus on Middle School: Honoring My Students’ Names! Using Web 2.0 Tools to Create Culturally Responsive Literacy Classrooms. Child. Educ. 2014 , 90 , 150–153. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Casler-Failing, S.L.; Stevenson, A.D.; King Miller, B.A. Integrating Mathematics, Science, and Literacy into a Culturally Responsive STEM After-School Program. Curr. Issues Middle Level Educ. 2021 , 26 , 3. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Balint-Langel, K.; Woods-Groves, S.; Rodgers, D.B.; Rila, A.; Riden, B.S. Using a Computer-Based Strategy to Teach Self-Advocacy Skills to Middle School Students with Disabilities. J. Spec. Educ. Technol. 2019 , 35 , 249–261. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• O’Keefe, S.B.; Medina, C.M. Nine Strategies for Helping Middle School Students Weather the Perfect Storm of Diversity, Disability and Adolescence. Am. Second. Educ. 2016 , 44 , 72–87. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wexler, J. Improving Instruction in Co-Taught Classrooms to Support Reading Comprehension. Interv. Sch. Clin. 2021 , 56 , 195–199. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Krawec, J.; Huang, J. Modifying a Research-Based Problem-Solving Intervention to Improve the Problem-Solving Performance of Fifth and Sixth Graders with and without Learning Disabilities. J. Learn. Disabil. 2017 , 50 , 468–480. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Cuenca-Carlino, Y.; Freen-Green, S.; Stephenson, G.W.; Hauth, C. Self-Regulated Strategy Development Instruction for Teaching Multi-Step Equations to Middle School Students Struggling in Math. J. Spec. Educ. 2016 , 50 , 75–85. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• King-Sears, M.E.; Jenkins, M.C.; Brawand, A. Co-Teaching Perspectives from Middle School Algebra Co-Teachers and Their Students with and without Disabilities. Int. J. Incl. Educ. 2020 , 24 , 427–442. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Swanson, E.; Stevens, E.A.; Wexler, J. Engaging Students with Disabilities in Text-Based Discussions: Guidance for General Education Social Studies Classrooms. TEACHING Except. Child. 2019 , 51 , 305–312. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• DeMink-Carthew, J.; Smith, K.; Burgess, K.; Leonard, S.; Yoon, B.; Andrews, G.; Nagle, J.; Bishop, P. Navigating Common Challenges: Guidance for Educators in Racial Justice Work. Middle Sch. J. 2023 , 54 , 25–36. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Kavanagh, S.S.; Danielson, K.A. Practicing Justice, Justifying Practice: Toward Critical Practice Teacher Education. Am. Educ. Res. J. 2020 , 57 , 69–105. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hagerman, D.; Porath, S. The Possibilities of Teaching for, with, and about Social Justice in a Public Middle School. Middle Sch. J. 2018 , 49 , 26–34. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Hughes, H.E.; Ranschaert, R.; Benson, K.L. Engaged Pedagogies in the Middle Grades: A Case Study of Justice-Oriented Teachers in COVID Times. Middle Sch. J. 2023 , 9 , 4. [ Google Scholar ]
• DeMink-Carthew, J.; Gonell, E. Lessons Learned From Teaching Social Justice Education in Sixth Grade. Middle Sch. J. 2022 , 53 , 5–14. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Vachon, K.J. The Racialization of Self and Others: An Exploration of Criticality in Pre-Service Teacher Self-Reflection. Issues Teach. Educ. 2022 , 31 , 35–56. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brewer, A. Critical Global Literacies: Expanding Our Critical Global View from the Classroom. Engl. J. 2019 , 108 , 100–102. [ Google Scholar ]
• Varghese, M.; Daniels, J.R.; Park, C.C. Structuring Disruption within University-Based Teacher Education Programs: Possibilities and Challenges of Race-Based Caucuses. Teach. Coll. Rec. 2019 , 121 , 1–34. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Kavanagh, S.S. Practicing Social Justice: Towards a Practice-Based Approach to Learning to Teach for Social Justice. In Reflective Theories in Teacher Education Practice: Process, Impact, and Enactment ; Brandenburg, R., Glasswell, K., Jones, M., Ryan, J., Eds.; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2017; pp. 161–175. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brinegar, K.; Caskey, M.M. Developmental Characteristics of Young Adolescents: Research Summary ; Association for Middle Level Education: Columbus, OH, USA, 2022. Available online: https://www.amle.org/developmental-characteristics-of-young-adolescents/ (accessed on 1 December 2023).
• Dominguez, M. Cultivating Epistemic Disobedience: Exploring the Possibilities of a Decolonial Practice-Based Teacher Education. J. Teach. Educ. 2021 , 72 , 551–563. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Ladson-Billings, G. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Am. Educ. Res. J. 1995 , 32 , 465–491. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]
• Paris, D. Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: A Needed Change in Stance, Terminology, and Practice. Educ. Res. 2012 , 41 , 93–97. [ Google Scholar ] [ CrossRef ]

Share and Cite

Walker, A.; Yoon, B.; Pankowski, J. Advancing Middle Grade Research on Critical Pedagogy: Research Synthesis. Educ. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 997. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090997

Walker A, Yoon B, Pankowski J. Advancing Middle Grade Research on Critical Pedagogy: Research Synthesis. Education Sciences . 2024; 14(9):997. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090997

Walker, Amy, Bogum Yoon, and Jennifer Pankowski. 2024. "Advancing Middle Grade Research on Critical Pedagogy: Research Synthesis" Education Sciences 14, no. 9: 997. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090997

Article Metrics

Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

MIDDLE SCHOOL JOURNAL

Middle School Journal, a refereed journal, is an official publication and a Professional Membership benefit of the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE). Published five times per year, the journal offers articles that promote quality middle level education and contribute to an understanding of the educational and developmental needs of youth between the ages of 10 and 15.

Current Issue: Volume 55, Issue 3: Young Adolescent Identity and the ELA Classroom

AMLE Professional Members need to login to access current & back issues.

Did you know that AMLE school membership includes one free print subscription to Middle School Journal ?

PDF Submission Guidelines

Call for Manuscript Submissions Student Submissions Indigenous Youth and Educator Submissions Climate Literacy in the Middle Grades

The 18 Characteristics of Successful Schools

Kathleen Brinegar, EdD, Northern Vermont University, Johnson, VT

Lisa Harrison, PhD, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

Ellis Hurd, EdD, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois

Contact the editors at [email protected]

For permissions requests contact: Taylor & Francis Permissions

Need Access to this Publication?

Privacy overview.

Breaking News

Crafting The Future: An Inside Look at Marshalls High School in Los Angeles

Inclusive Relationship Meaning: Understanding the Concept

How to Get Out of School Excuses

Best Homeschool Curriculum for Autism: A Comprehensive Guide for Parents and Educators

Exciting Research Topics for Middle Schoolers to Fuel Curiosity

Working on the phonological skills by teaching phonemic awareness to the advanced level

What is the goal when de escalating crisis behavior at school ?

Middle school is a time of burgeoning curiosity and the perfect opportunity for students to engage in research that not only educates them academically but also cultivates skills for the future. By encouraging young learners to explore topics they are passionate about, educators and parents play a pivotal role in their intellectual development and the growth of their intrinsic motivation. This blog post outlines a diverse range of research topics suited to the inquiring minds of middle school students, giving them the freedom to deepen their understanding of various subjects while honing critical thinking and independent study skills.

Uncovering the Mysteries of History

Middle schoolers often find history fascinating, particularly when learning about the past from distinct perspectives. Here are some intriguing historical research topics to consider:

• The Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement: Apart from the well-known leaders, students can explore the contributions of lesser-known figures who played a significant role in the struggle for equality.
• The Impact of Ancient Civilizations on Modern Society: Researching the ways in which the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, or other ancient societies have influenced contemporary culture, politics, and technology offers a broad canvas for exploration.
• Everyday Life in Different Historical Periods: Focusing on the routines, customs, and technologies that shaped people’s daily lives in times gone by can provide valuable insights into societal norms and individual experiences.

Science and the Natural World

The sciences are a playground of wonder, with an infinity of topics waiting to be explored. Here are some research ideas that can nurture a love for discovery and experimentation:

• Climate Change: Effects and Solutions: Investigating the causes and potential solutions to this global challenge can make students aware of their role in protecting the planet.
• The Wonders of the Solar System: Encouraging a study of the planets, their moons, and the vast expanse of space they inhabit can ignite dreams of interstellar exploration.
• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Conservation: Researching the variety of life on Earth and strategies to protect and sustain ecosystems can foster a sense of environmental stewardship.

Literature, Language, and Creative Expression

Language and literature are potent forms of human expression, allowing students to explore complex ideas and emotions. Here are some topics that bridge the gap between art and academia:

• Interpreting Classic Literature for Modern Relevance: Encouraging the study of timeless works can lead to discussions on their contemporary significance and the evolution of societal values.
• The Structure and Evolution of Language: Investigating the origins and changes in language over time can be a rich area of study, especially when paired with the examination of cultural shifts.
• The Intersection of Art and Literature: Exploring how visual arts and writing intersect to convey messages and emotions can be a fertile ground for interdisciplinary research.

Mathematics and Logic Puzzles

The precision and patterns found in mathematics can be both satisfying and thought-provoking. Middle school students often enjoy the thrill of solving problems and unraveling puzzles. Here are some mathematical research topics that can engage students’ analytical minds:

• Famous Mathematical Conjectures: Researching unsolved problems, such as the Goldbach conjecture or the Riemann hypothesis, can introduce students to the excitement of open questions in mathematics.
• The Application of Math in Various Industries: Investigating how mathematical principles underpin fields like music, art, sports, and technology can illuminate the subject’s real-world utility.
• The History of Mathematical Discoveries: Tracing the lineage of mathematical concepts through different cultures and periods can showcase the universality and timelessness of mathematics.

Social Sciences and Human Interaction

Studying human behavior and society can help students develop empathy and a deeper understanding of the world around them. Here are some social science research ideas to explore:

• The Impact of Social Media on Friendships and Relationships: Research could focus on positive and negative effects, trends, and the future of social interaction.
• Cultural Traditions and Their Meanings: Investigating the origins and contemporary significance of customs from various cultures can foster respect for diversity and a global perspective.
• The Psychology of Decision Making: Exploring the factors that influence human choices, from cognitive biases to social pressures, can provide insights into individual and collective behavior.

Technology and Innovation

Middle schoolers are often tech-savvy and interested in the latest gadgets and advancements. Here are some technology and innovation research topics to tap into that curiosity:

• The Impact of Gaming on Society: Research could examine how video games influence education, social issues, or even career choices.
• Emerging Technologies and Their Ethical Implications: Encouraging students to study technologies like artificial intelligence, gene editing, or wearable tech can lead to discussions on the ethical considerations of their use and development.
• Inventions That Changed the World: Chronicling the history and influence of significant inventions, from the wheel to the internet, can provide a lens through which to view human progress.

By providing middle schoolers with the opportunity to conduct meaningful research in a topic of their choosing, we not only deepen their education but also equip them with the skills and passion for a lifetime of learning. This list is just the beginning; the key is to foster curiosity and guide young minds toward engaging, challenging, and diverse research experiences. Through such explorations, we empower the next generation to think critically, communicate effectively, and, most importantly, to nurture their innate curiosity about the world.

Implementing Research Projects in the Classroom

Encouraging middle school students to undertake research projects requires a strategic approach to ensure sustained interest and meaningful outcomes. Here are some methods educators can employ:

• Mentorship and Support: Pairing students with teacher mentors who can guide them through the research process, provide feedback, and encourage critical thinking is essential for a fruitful research experience.
• Cross-Curricular Integration: Linking research topics to content from different subjects helps students appreciate the interconnectedness of knowledge and develop versatile learning skills.
• Use of Technology and Media: Incorporating digital tools for research, presentation, and collaboration can enhance engagement and teach essential 21st-century skills.
• Presentation and Reflection: Allocating time for students to present their findings nurtures communication skills and confidence, while self-reflection activities help them internalize their learning journey.

These strategies can create a robust framework within which students can pursue their curiosities, leading to a more personalized and impactful educational experience.

What is a good topic to research for middle school?

A good topic for middle school research could delve into the Role of Robotics in the Future of Society . Students can explore how robotics may transform jobs, healthcare, and everyday life. They can examine the balance between automation and human work, predict how robots could augment human abilities, and discuss the ethical dimensions of a robotic future. This inquiry not only captivates the imagination but also encourages critical thinking about technology’s impact on tomorrow’s world.

What are the 10 research titles examples?

• The Evolution of Renewable Energy and Its Future Prospects
• Investigating the Effects of Microplastics on Marine Ecosystems
• The Influence of Ancient Civilizations on Modern Democracy
• Understanding Black Holes: Unveiling the Mysteries of the Cosmos
• The Impact of Augmented Reality on Education and Training
• Climate Change and Its Consequences on Coastal Cities
• The Psychological Effects of Social Media on Teenagers
• Genetic Engineering: The Possibilities and Pitfalls
• Smart Cities: How Technology is Shaping Urban Living
• The Role of Nanotechnology in Medicine: Current Applications and Future Potential

Fascinating Facts About Middle School Research Topics

• Interdisciplinary Impact : Research projects in middle school often blend subjects, such as the integration of art and mathematics when exploring patterns and symmetry, which helps students discover the interconnectivity of different fields of knowledge.
• Skill Building : Engaging in research equips middle schoolers with advanced skills in critical thinking, problem-solving, and time management, which are beneficial across their academic journey and beyond.
• Diversity in Content : Middle school research topics are notably diverse, ranging from examining the role of robotics in society to exploring the psychological effects of social media, catering to a wide array of student interests and strengths.
• Tech Savvy Learning : Technology-based research topics, such as the influence of smart cities or the impact of augmented reality in education, are deeply relevant to tech-savvy middle school students, making learning more engaging and relatable.
• Cultural Relevance : Researching topics like cultural traditions and their meanings encourages middle schoolers to develop a global perspective and fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation for the diversity within their own school community and the world at large.

You May Also Like

More From Author

+ There are no comments

Cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

You May Also Like:

• About The Journalist’s Resource
• Follow us on Facebook
• Follow us on Twitter
• Criminal Justice
• Environment
• Politics & Government
• Race & Gender

Expert Commentary

School uniforms: Do they really improve student achievement, behavior?

This updated collection of research looks at how mandatory school uniforms impact student achievement, attendance and behavior as well as the presence of gangs in public schools.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource April 20, 2018

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/education/school-uniforms-research-achievement/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

Decades ago, uniforms were mostly worn by students who went to private or parochial schools. But as local school boards have focused more on improving standardized test scores and campus safety, a growing number have begun requiring school uniforms — typically, a polo shirt of a particular color paired with navy or khaki pants, skirts or shorts. Nearly 22 percent of public schools in the United States required uniforms in 2015-16 — up from almost 12 percent in 1999-2000, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

Proponents argue that students will pay more attention to their classwork if they aren’t preoccupied with fashion, and that they’ll be better behaved. Meanwhile, school administrators say uniforms help eliminate gang-related styles and logos. They also make it easier to spot a stranger on campus.

Despite their reported benefits, mandatory uniforms are controversial because a lot of parents and students don’t like the idea of forcing children to dress alike, which they say suppresses freedom of expression. Some families complain about the financial burden of purchasing uniforms in addition to their kids’ other clothing. Years ago, parents also complained that it was difficult to find uniforms, but that ceased to be an issue after large chain stores like Target and Wal-Mart began selling them.

As public schools debate the merits of uniforms — some school boards have been bouncing the idea around for years — it’s important for journalists to know what the research says on this topic. School officials do not always consult academic research before they put a plan on the table.

To help journalists ground their reporting and fact-check claims, Journalist’s Resource has rounded up several academic studies worth reviewing. Reporters may also want to examine reports on uniform use from the NCES, which collects and reports data related to school uniforms, dress codes and book bags in public schools.

——————————–

 “School Discipline, School Uniforms and Academic Performance” Baumann, Chris; Krskova, Hana. International Journal of Educational Management , 2016. DOI: 10.1108/IJEM-09-2015-0118.

Summary: This study examines test scores and student behavior in the United States, Canada and 37 other countries to determine whether uniforms affect student discipline. The researchers found that the highest-performing students are the most disciplined. In addition, “for countries where students wear school uniforms, our study found that students listen significantly better, there are lower noise levels, and lower teaching waiting times with classes starting on time.”

“Dressed for Success? The Effect of School Uniforms on Student Achievement and Behavior” Gentile, Elizabetta; Imberman, Scott A. Journal of Urban Economics , 2012, Vol. 71. doi: 10.1016/j.jue.2011.10.002.

Abstract: “Uniform use in public schools is rising, but we know little about how they affect students. Using a unique dataset from a large urban school district in the southwest United States, we assess how uniforms affect behavior, achievement and other outcomes. Each school in the district determines adoption independently, providing variation over schools and time. By including student and school fixed-effects we find evidence that uniform adoption improves attendance in secondary grades, while in elementary schools they generate large increases in teacher retention.”

“Uniforms in the Middle School: Student Opinions, Discipline Data, and School Police Data” Sanchez, Jafeth E.; Yoxsimer, Andrew; Hill, George C. Journal of School Violence , 2012. DOI: 10.1080/15388220.2012.706873.

Summary: Researchers asked students at an urban middle school in Nevada what they thought of having to wear uniforms. Their public school had adopted a uniform policy after staff members became frustrated with the earlier dress code policy, which resulted in girls wearing revealing clothing and boys wearing shirts with inappropriate messages and images. The study’s main takeaway: The vast majority of students said they dislike uniforms, although some agreed there were benefits. “For example, in reference to gender, more than expected females than males indicated students treated them better with uniforms. Also, fewer females than males got detention for not wearing a uniform or for wearing a uniform inappropriately.”

“Are School Uniforms a Good Fit? Results from the ECLS-K and the NELS” Yeung, Ryan. Educational Policy , 2009, Vol. 23. doi: 10.1177/0895904808330170.

Abstract: “One of the most common proposals put forth for reform of the American system of education is to require school uniforms. Proponents argue that uniforms can make schools safer and also improve school attendance and increase student achievement. Opponents contend that uniforms have not been proven to work and may be an infringement on the freedom of speech of young people. Within an econometric framework, this study examines the effect of school uniforms on student achievement. It tackles methodological challenges through the use of a value-added functional form and the use of multiple data sets. The results do not suggest any significant association between school uniform policies and achievement. Although the results do not definitely support or reject either side of the uniform argument, they do strongly intimate that uniforms are not the solution to all of American education’s ills.”

“Effects of Student Uniforms on Attendance, Behavior Problems, Substance Use, and Academic Achievement” Brunsma, David L.; Rockquemore, Kerry A. The Journal of Educational Research , 1998, Vol. 92. doi: 10.1080/00220679809597575.

Abstract: “Mandatory uniform policies have been the focus of recent discourse on public school reform. Proponents of such reform measures emphasize the benefits of student uniforms on specific behavioral and academic outcomes. Tenth-grade data from The National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 was used to test empirically the claims made by uniform advocates. The findings indicate that student uniforms have no direct effect on substance use, behavioral problems, or attendance. Contrary to current discourse, the authors found a negative effect of uniforms on student academic achievement. Uniform policies may indirectly affect school environment and student outcomes by providing a visible and public symbol of commitment to school improvement and reform.”

“School Uniforms, Academic Achievement, and Uses of Research” Bodine, Ann. The Journal of Educational Research , 2003, Vol. 97. doi: 10.1080/00220670309597509.

Abstract: “School uniforms are being advocated for a range of social, educational, economic, and familial reasons. In 1998, The Journal of Educational Research (The JER) published an article by D. Brunsma and K. Rockquemore that claims that uniforms correlate negatively with academic achievement, but data presented in this article actually show positive correlation between uniforms and achievement for the total sample, and for all but 1 school sector. Examination of structure of argument reveals that the erroneous claim results from misleading use of sector analysis. Simultaneous with The JER article, and on the basis of the same National Education Longitudinal Study: 1988 database, an Educational Testing Service article reported that no correlation exists between uniforms and achievement. The two articles are contrasted in this study. The effect of new communication technology in amplifying political uses of academic research is discussed.”

“Public School Uniforms: Effect on Perceptions of Gang Presence, School Climate, and Student Self-Perceptions” Wade, Kathleen Kiley; Stafford, Mary E. Education and Urban Society , 2003, Vol. 35. doi: 10.1177/0013124503255002.

Abstract: “This study attempts to clarify the relationships between public school uniforms and some of their intended results: student self-worth and student and staff perceptions of gang presence and school climate. The instruments used in the study included a questionnaire on gang presence and identity, the National Association of School Principals Comprehensive Assessment of School Environments, and the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Children. Participants consisted of 415 urban public middle school students and 83 teachers. Findings indicate that, although perceptions did not vary for students across uniform policy, teachers from schools with uniform policies perceived lower levels of gang presence. Although the effect size was small, students from schools without uniforms reported higher self-perception scores than students from schools with uniform policies. Student and teacher perceptions of school climate did not vary across uniform policy.”

“The Effect of Uniforms on Nonuniform Apparel Expenditures” Norum, Pamela S.; Weagley, Robert O.; Norton, Marjorie J. Family & Consumer Sciences , 1998. doi: 10.1177/1077727X980263001.

Abstract: “The uniform industry has grown steadily the past 20 years with increased attention from employers trying to create a professional image among workers as well as school administrators considering uniforms to curtail school violence. Although an important part of human dress for centuries, uniforms have received little attention from researchers of the clothing market. This study examines the impact of uniform purchases on household expenditures for selected nonuniform apparel subcategories based on an economic model of conditional demand. Expenditure equations are estimated using the 1990-1991 Consumer Expenditure Survey. The results suggest that, on average, consumers do not substitute uniforms for other apparel purchases. Rather, uniforms and nonuniform apparel appear to be complements in consumers’ purchases, resulting in greater household expenditures on nonuniform apparel. These results are a first step in understanding the economic effect that uniform purchases, mandated by employers, schools, or others, have on household clothing expenditures.”

Looking for more research on student achievement? Check out our write-ups on how teacher salaries , school vouchers and school shootings impact learning.   

About The Author

Denise-Marie Ordway

Warning: The NCBI web site requires JavaScript to function. more...

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it's official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• Browse Titles

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

National Research Council (US) Panel to Review the Status of Basic Research on School-Age Children; Collins WA, editor. Development During Middle Childhood: The Years From Six to Twelve. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1984.

Development During Middle Childhood: The Years From Six to Twelve.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

Chapter 7 School And Children: The Middle Childhood Years

Edgar G. Epps and Sylvia F. Smith

This chapter is primarily concerned with the effects of schools and schooling on children ages 6-12. However, because formal schooling in the United States and many other nations frequently begins between ages 4 and 5, some of the research and theory reviewed encompasses this earlier period as well.

Throughout the world the most widely recognized function of elementary schools is to provide opportunities for children to acquire at least basic competencies in reading, writing, and computation. Less frequently discussed by educators, but of equal importance, is the fact that schools serve other less obvious societal functions, including (1) providing custodial care while parents work or pursue personal interests; (2) delaying children's entrance into the work force; (3) encouraging the development of social competencies; and (4) sorting and selecting for the purpose of impeding or maintaining established social roles, organizations, and institutions (Goodlad, 1973). Thus, the schooling process has a significant impact on the development of children both academically and societally.

The effects of schooling on children may not be obvious in societies in which the vast majority attend school. However, in countries in which smaller proportions of the population attend school, the effects are striking (Stevenson et al., 1978). World Bank (1980) records indicate that 64 percent of the children ages 6-11 in developing countries attended school in 1977, compared with 94 percent of the same-age children in developed countries. Substantial differences in literacy and other cognitive skills appear when persons who have attended at least elementary school are compared with those who have not been exposed to formal education (Sharp et al., 1979; Stevenson et al. 1978). In developing nations a major concern is expanding access to formal education to reach a larger proportion of school-age children.

In cross-national comparisons of science achievement, secondary-level American students do not perform as well as students from Japan, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, and the Federal Republic of Germany. However, data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (Walberg, 1981) indicate that American 10-year-olds are achieving at approximately the average level for developed nations (although still far behind Japan). There is some evidence that parental expectations may account for the achievement advantages of Japanese students (Hess et al., 1980).

During these important middle childhood years, children are thought to be functioning developmentally at what Piaget termed the concrete and formal operational stages (see Fischer and Bullock, in this volume). During this phase, basic literacy as well as computational and conceptual skills are acquired. Children also develop relatively permanent attitudes about schools and learning, including study habits. A child's academic and social self-concepts develop incrementally with age (Benham et al., 1980), and the pressures of peer influence begin to emerge during the early school years (Hartup, in this volume; Minuchin and Shapiro, 1983).

Although varying in content and purpose across countries, the most universally recognized function of schools is to impart knowledge and skills that will enable the learner to participate successfully in the society's institutions. At this level schools are concerned with the development of reading, writing, speaking, and computational skills. In most instances teachers instruct children in groups at a given age or grade level, using a specified set of instructional materials, and the academic outcomes of this overt function are assigned highest priority.

With regard to socialization, schools by virtue of their structure also facilitate normative outcomes (Dreeben, 1968; Jackson, 1968). Dreeben contends that schools provide children with the psychological capacities needed for participation in societal institutions by fostering independence, achievement, universalisms, and specificity. Bowles (1975) sees the school's function as more allocative and argues that its main purpose is to perpetuate society's economic and class structures. These themes recur throughout this chapter.

Schooling occurs in the context of the society at large; therefore, its academic and normative functions are not independent of other societal institutions. The interaction between the home or family and the school is the most obvious example of social-system interaction, especially because for children of this age much of the parents' monitoring and control functions is taken over by the school during the main part of the day, and even before and after school in some areas.

This chapter discusses the school environment, the cognitive and affective effects of schooling, both manifest and latent, and schools and children in the context of family influence (socioeconomic background, home background, and the like). Issues related to school desegregation and bilingualism are also discussed. Wherever possible, we point out methodological weaknesses in the existing research and list issues for future investigation. We do not cover the literature on teaching methods in any detail, although instructional approaches that appear to be important conceptually and methodologically (e.g., Barr and Dreeben, 1983; Bloom, 1976) are discussed. And an issue of great current interest, mainstreaming of handicapped children, is not discussed (see Heller et al., 1982, and Johnson et al., 1983).

• The School Environment

In this section we briefly discuss issues related to children's lives in the context of the school, especially school climate and teacher expectations, from a number of research perspectives.

Input-Output Analysis

The work of Coleman et al. (1966) and Jencks et al. (1972), which are examples of input-output formulations, have generally been interpreted to mean that differences in school environments are minimal at best and largely ineffective in influencing outcomes. These conclusions are based primarily on research with secondary school students. Other studies of the same genre suggest that elementary schools do have differential effects on student outcomes (Brookover et al., 1979; Edmonds, 1979; Entwisle and Hayduk, 1982; Murnane, 1975; Rutter, 1983; Rutter et al., 1979; Summers and Wolfe, 1977).

Alternative interpretations have been suggested. For example, Heyns (1978) and McPartland and Karweit (1979) suggested that the findings on school environments can be interpreted to mean that school environments provide similar educational experiences for all students and that schools are for the most part equally effective in influencing most learning outcomes.

At any rate, school effects at the elementary level have been studied much less than those at the secondary level, although the organization and locations of the two levels of schools differ in the extreme. In contrast to secondary schools, in elementary schools children often remain in one classroom with one teacher for most of the day. And in the United States, elementary schools are most often neighborhood schools, a circumstance that, for middle-class white students, leads to a high degree of concordance between home and school environments—perhaps potentiating effects of both. For lower-class and minority students, however, there is frequently a lack of congruence between home and school environments (see the section below on race and ethnicity).

Social-System Variables

From another perspective the school can be seen as a ''cultural system of social relationships among family, teachers, students and peers'' (Anderson, 1982:382). Studies with this focus examine how the various components in the "cultural system" of school interact to influence both cognitive and normative outcomes. Focal variables include ability grouping, classroom organization, and teacher-student relationships.

The effect of ability grouping on achievement remains debatable. While some studies report that no significant relationship exists, Brookover et al. (1979), Edmonds and Fredericksen (1978), McDill and Rigsby (1973), Sörensen (1970), and Weber (1971) indicate that the more homogeneous the group the higher the achievement.

Barr and Dreeben (1983) studied the ways teachers organized first-grade classrooms for reading instruction. They found that the number of instructional groups and the size of the groups were determined by such characteristics as class size and number of low-aptitude students in a classroom. Barr and Dreeben also observed that teachers moved children from group to group during the school year largely on the basis of how well they performed. The primary determinant of an individual's group placement was aptitude (reading readiness in this study). The average aptitude of the instructional group was a major determinant of how much material was covered in reading texts and ultimately how much the children learned.

Beckerman and Good (1981) found that the ratio of high- to low-aptitude students in a classroom affected the achievement of both. High- and low-aptitude third- and fourth-graders had greater achievement gains in classrooms in which more than one-third were high aptitude. Barr and Dreeben (1983) contend, however, that the number of low-aptitude students in a classroom is more important than the proportion. Studies by Eder (1981), Leiter (1983), and Rowan and Miracle (1983) also indicate that grouping strategies and the distribution of abilities have profound effects on student achievement. This topic deserves much more attention.

The degree and type of teacher-student interaction and the extent to which students interact in school activities and share in the decision-making process are related to positive effects. Despite these findings, Goodlad (1983) noted that "above the primary level, students experience few classroom activities that involve their own goal setting, problem solving, collaborative learning, autonomous thinking, creativity, and the like" (p. 305). This absence of student-initiated learning tasks may provide one explanation for Harter's (1981) finding that children's mastery motivation declines from grade 3 to grade 9.

Milieu Variables

Other research indicates that strong relationships, both positive and negative, apparently exist between the values and beliefs of various groups within a school and its climate and between values and student outcomes. Teacher commitment to and emphasis on students' academic achievement, rewards and praise, clear goal definition, peer norms, and group cooperation influence both school climate and student outcomes (Brookover et al., 1979; Edmonds, 1979; Rutter et al., 1979). Teacher characteristics (McDill and Rigsby, 1973; Rutter et al., 1979), teacher morale (Brookover and Lezotte, 1979; Ellett et al., 1977), student body characteristics (Brookover et al., 1979; Rutter et al., 1979), and student morale (Edmonds, 1979) are likely to act individually and in combination.

While research denies significant relationships between teacher characteristics, such as teacher preparation or salary and student outcomes, positive correlations have been noted between school climate as perceived by elementary children (Ellett et al., 1977) and student attendance and achievement at both the elementary and secondary levels. Likewise, Brookover et al. (1979) and Edmonds (1979) found positive relationships between student morale and achievement and between student morale and academic self-concept. Brookover et al. (1979) also reported that such student characteristics as race and socioeconomic status account for a smaller proportion of the variance in achievement than is accounted for by climate variables.

The Ecological Perspective

Ecological studies combine ecological elements from the input-output economists with social-system, culture, and milieu variables. Effects of both school (its physical characteristics) and schooling (the process) are at issue in such investigations.

In general, studies investigating the effect of ecological variables on student outcomes have produced low or inconsistent correlations. Rutter et al. (1979) reported a positive relationship between decoration and care of the building and student achievement, but no relationship was found between the age of the building and achievement.

Findings with respect to effects of class and school size are mixed. As expected, small schools have been found to have better student behavior (Anderson, 1982). Although contrary to McDill and Rigsby (1973) and Rutter et al. (1979), Anderson (1982) reported that neither class nor school size affected learning outcomes. This could be due to a lack of agreement over the definitions of size terms (e.g., what constitutes small or large) and inconsistencies in measurement. Glass and Smith (1978), from a statistical research synthesis of a large number of studies, concluded that differences in achievement are greatest in a range of class sizes between 10 and 20. Glass et al. (1982) reviewed and critiqued the literature on class size and provided recommendations for research and policy.

Other important considerations include investigating the possibility of threshold effects for specific subgroups of students (e.g., those of lower ability) and possible connections between class size and instructional methods. Rutter (1983) and Summers and Wolfe (1977) contend that it is likely that less-able students will benefit from significant reductions (classes consisting of fewer than 20 pupils) in class size. Further investigation into effective ways of making such changes without detrimentally affecting average and above-average students is needed.

Teacher Behaviors And Expectations

Teacher behaviors and expectations, although not always systematically included, can be classified under the ecological approach. Although this research has a number of conceptual and methodological weaknesses, this continues to be an important line of investigation. During the 1960s and early 1970s, studies focusing on the influences of teacher behaviors and expectations on children's academic achievement and self-concept began to take shape. Studies such as those undertaken by Leacock (1969), Rist (1970), and Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) suggested that teacher expectations can strongly influence both the cognitive and the affective development of children. On the basis of observing a single classroom of black children, Rist noted that by the eighth day of kindergarten the teacher had assigned the children to tables that reflected social-class groupings. These groupings persisted into second grade, and throughout this period teachers tended to favor the more advantaged children.

Much of the early expectancy research is thought to be flawed (see, for example, Elashoff and Snow, 1971), and a number of later studies have focused on whether teachers behave differently toward high-and low-achieving students (e.g., Brophy and Good, 1974). Although differential behavior is often observed, its precise relationship to student achievement remains unclear.

With a sample of 17,163 students representing 38 schools ranging in grade levels from elementary through high school, Goodlad et al. (1979) found that positive teacher behavior, such as praise, guidance, and encouragement, were strongest in the elementary years. By the senior year of high school, these encouraging behaviors declined as much as 50 percent in comparison to the early elementary school years (Benham et al., 1980).

Entwisle and Hayduk (1982) examined teacher, student, and parent expectations in three elementary schools (one middle-class and two lower-class schools). Their results raise many questions that should lead to further research. For example, they found that initial expectations of lower-class children were higher than those of middle-class children and that lower-class parents as well had overoptimistic expectations for their children's performance. There was a striking mismatch between lower-class parents' and children's expectations and the children's performance as assessed by teachers' marks. Furthermore, both parents and children in the middle-class school were more likely to change their expectations on the basis of feedback in the form of children's marks than were parents and children in the lower-class schools. The authors noted that far too little attention has been paid to what actually happens when marks are assigned. How do parents and children react? What is the effect on subsequent expectations and behaviors?

Research on social climate and teacher behavior suffers from many problems, especially a failure to conceptualize variables in terms of testable theory. Anderson (1982) made a number of recommendations with which we concur: more longitudinal research, improved statistical analysis, a focus on variables that are causally relevant to outcomes, and consideration of multiple outcomes and their interrelationships, since nonacademic outcomes may be important in mediating the outcome of achievement. In general, a diversity of research methods is called for. The use of in-depth observation, for example, could compensate for the fragmentary evidence on school climate typically yielded by surveys. Experimental methods, when feasible, are of course optimal. As Rutter et al. (1979:180) noted, "The only way to be sure that school practices actually influence children's behavior and attainments is to alter those practices and then determine if this results in changes in the children's progress."

• Effects Of Schooling

Research on the effects of schooling has been approached from several distinct perspectives that overlap those identified in the previous section on school environment. Because subtle differences in conceptualization are important, a few of the predominant perspectives are mentioned for the sake of clarity.

Research on school production focuses on the relationship between the workings of schools and individual learning (Barr and Dreeben, 1983). More specifically, an attempt is made to identify what in the organization of schools leads to increments in individual learning outcomes. Such analyses generally reflect an economist's formulation of productivity. Formulations predicated on this theoretical approach suffer several limitations, including disagreement among researchers on whether the productive unit is the educational organization or the individual and at what level in the organization production takes place. Other conceptual weaknesses in this approach include (1) confusion over who or what the productive unit is; (2) failure to explain details of the schooling process and, as a result, failure to show how various parts of the school as an organization are integrated; (3) little if any integration of the processes that may occur at different levels (district, school, classroom, or individual); and (4) perhaps most important, failure to take into consideration characteristics of the learner.

The study of individual status attainment represents a second approach to research on the effects of schooling, very similar to school production studies but with some subtle differences (Barr and Dreeben, 1983). Research in this tradition focuses on educational attainment as the penultimate, or often ultimate, endogenous variable. Because researchers on social mobility became involved in studies of educational attainment indirectly, only recently has attention been given to students' earlier histories of attainment. As noted in the section on input-output analysis earlier, there are serious problems in trying to apply findings from this body of research to children ages 6-12.

Research classified under the process-product heading is concerned with instructional effectiveness. Studies are typically focused on identifying teaching behaviors and activities that increase learning outcomes. Brophy and Evertson (1974), Dunkin and Biddle (1974), Gage (1972, 1978), and Rosenshine (1971) are major contributors to this approach. The process variables include teaching behaviors, activities, and such characteristics as teacher explanation, demonstration, maintaining order, housekeeping, planning, and years of experience as well as classroom and pupil contextual variables. As mentioned, the findings from such studies are largely inconclusive or ungeneralizable. This is due to (1) the inclusion of an extensive number and range of teacher behaviors; (2) little agreement on which teacher behaviors are important; (3) failure to conceptualize adequately the instructional process and, therefore, how these variables operate to affect learning; (4) the overly simplistic univariate analysis of the relationship between these teaching variables and educational outcomes; and (5) failure to consider children's characteristics and initiatory behavior in the process.

Recently researchers have attempted to deal with some of the inadequacies of this research by developing more sophisticated conceptual formulations, in which learning outcomes are purported to be influenced by intervening student characteristics, environmental variables, and instructional time. In his theory of educational productivity, Walberg (1981) specified the following variables: student ability and motivation, home environment and age, quality of instruction, quantity of instruction, and class environment. Formulations of this type are significant because they acknowledge that events occur simultaneously within the classroom that might influence learning outcomes, thus permitting us to study the possible interactive and mediating effects. The work of Bloom (1976), Carroll (1963), Fisher et al. (1978), and Wiley and Harnischfeger (1974) also bears on instructional time schemes as a significant variable.

Although most research on the effects of schooling has been confined to academic outcomes, some researchers have explored the influence of process variables on self-esteem and locus of control (Marjoribanks, 1979; Weiss, 1969) or academic expectations for the self (Entwisle and Hayduk, 1982). These efforts have tried to analyze and explain the development of self-esteem and locus of control considered as both an antecedent and a consequence of cognitive school outcomes.

Achievement

During middle childhood, children's ability to use images, symbols, concepts, and rules increases, as does their vocabulary. Middle childhood covers most of what q termed the stage of concrete operations and the beginning of the stage of formal operations. It is a period when the child is expected to acquire a wide range of academic skills and to develop the ability to solve increasingly complex problems. Fischer and Bullock (in this volume) note that "competence is not a fixed characteristic of the child but an emergent characteristic of the child in a specific context." It is evident that the environment significantly affects cognitive development; however, there is a paucity of information on how the environmental context interacts with individual child characteristics to either facilitate or constrain development. Fischer and Bullock recommend an investigation into the collaboration between the child and the environment; we concur.

Children's preschool experiences in the home, nursery school, and playground provide them, to some extent, with the cognitive and social skills required for success in school. Children from different social-class and ethnic backgrounds typically differ in the degree to which their preschool experiences prepare them for schoolwork. We discuss some of these differences in greater detail later. Here we note that early school ability (e.g., reading readiness), which is highly predictive of later school achievement, is strongly related to family background characteristics. As Barr and Dreeben (1983) noted, reading readiness determines reading group placement, and group placement determines pace of instruction and, therefore, reading achievement. Reading achievement in first grade is highly predictive of reading achievement in second grade ( r = .84).

For children in traditionally organized classrooms, achievement is remarkably stable during the school years. This is partly attributable to the high correlation between school achievement and general intelligence, which is usually between .50 and .60 (Lavin, 1965). Cognitive competencies assessed by intelligence tests overlap with the competencies measured by achievement tests. Bloom (1976) estimated that about 75 percent of subsequent achievement is accounted for by general intelligence. Achievement measures are usually highly correlated with one another. For example, reading comprehension correlates about .70 with tests of language skills and literature. Within domains, test scores are even more highly correlated (e.g., .80 for prior and subsequent tests of the same type). In summarizing results of longitudinal studies, Bloom reported that measures of achievement after grade 3 yield a median correlation with achievement at grade 12 of .70. Maruyama et al. (1981) reported correlations of .75 to .79 for verbal achievement between ages 12 and 15 and of .67 to .72 for verbal achievement between ages 9 and 12. In traditional instruction the best predictor of achievement at the end of the school year is achievement at the beginning of the year. A typical correlation is .80.

Bloom (1976) reported that studies using high-quality instruction (tutoring, mastery learning) have been able to substantially reduce the correlation between prior and later achievement in specific subjects. Anania (1981) reported a correlation of only .11 between prior achievement and final achievement in a course under tutorial conditions of instruction. More typical are the results reported by Froemel (1980). For students undergoing conventional instruction, the correlation between general intelligence and later achievement in a course was .45. For students in a mastery learning class, the correlation between measures of intelligence and measures of achievement at the beginning of the study was .46; after 3 months the correlation fell to .21; and after 6 months it was .11. Similar, though not always as dramatic, patterns of results have been consistent in studies of students from elementary grades through college (Bloom, 1976).

The stability described above is based on the persisting effects of individual differences on achievement. Rutter (1983) contended that individual differences in academic achievement cannot be reduced without impairing the most advantaged pupils but did not provide any empirical support for this assertion. Bloom (1976), however, cited the results of research indicating that by using mastery learning techniques the achievement levels of the slowest pupils can be improved without impairing the progress of the more able students.

The stability between earlier and later achievement is not inevitable but is a pattern that, according to Bloom, is associated with schooling as it is traditionally organized. While Bloom and his associates have focused on tutoring and mastery learning, perhaps other organized instructional approaches could also reduce this stability substantially, especially computer-assisted or other individualized modes of instruction. Subsequent research in this area is warranted.

School-Related Affect

There has been a proliferation of research on general self-esteem and academic self-concept during the past two decades. Yet numerous methodological and conceptual problems continue to perplex researchers (see reviews by Wylie, 1974, 1979). There is little agreement on the meaning of the terms self-esteem and self-concept , and there is a paucity of knowledge about how a child's self-image changes during the middle childhood years (Markus and Nurius, in this volume). There is also a need to understand the dimensions or domains of self-concept (e.g., physical self, academic self, social self). Finally, the tendency to rely almost exclusively on self-report measures of self-evaluation is a major weakness of research in this area.

Self-esteem and academic self-concept are both positively correlated with academic achievement (Dolan, 1978; Hare, 1980; Maruyama et al., 1981; Purkey, 1970). However, there is little direct evidence that either self-esteem or academic self-concept has a direct causal influence on achievement. After reviewing research on primary-grade children and older students, Scheirer and Kraut (1979) concluded that the evidence does not support the view that positive changes in self-concept result in improved achievement. Rather, it is more likely that positive change in academic self-concept is an outcome of improved achievement (e.g., Kifer, 1975). Entwisle and Hayduk (1982), however, found this relationship to be reversed in the first grade, i.e., before children have much experience in school.

Educational and psychological researchers have shown considerable interest in the relationship of locus of control to achievement. For example,

Findley and Cooper (1983), from a synthesis of 98 such studies involving students ranging from first grade through college, concluded that more internal beliefs are associated with higher academic achievement but at a modest level ( r = .18). The strength of the association was greatest at junior high school age ( r = .35), was somewhat lower at grades 4 through 6 ( r = .24), and weakest at the primary level (for grades 1-3, r = .04). These results are consistent with those of other reviews (e.g., Walden and Ramey, 1983). Walden and Ramey also reported that an experimental group of socially disadvantaged children who had participated in a 5-year preschool educational day care program had perceptions of control over academic successes equal to those of the middle-class comparison group and, like the middle-class children, scored relatively low on perceptions of control over general outcomes. Control beliefs predicted achievement for the experimental and middle-class comparision children but were unrelated to achievement for the socially disadvantaged children who had not had the benefits of preschool intervention. The small sample ( N = 65) and the typically low reliability of locus of control measures at this age lead us to view these results as suggestive only.

Stipek and Weisz (1981) argued that new measures of children's perceptions of locus of control are needed that would yield subscores for different reinforcement domains. They also recommend studies of developmental changes in locus of control, including information on when children develop beliefs regarding locus of control in achievement situations, how this developmental process is affected by school experiences, and how attributions of failure affect mastery motivation. Harter (1978) suggested that failure perceived to be caused by a lack of competence could lead to anxiety, which interferes with subsequent performance.

Hatter and Connell (in press) report the development of several instruments that address some of the concerns expressed by Stipek and Weisz. Among these are a perceived competence scale (Harter, 1982) that measures self-perceptions in the cognitive, social, and physical domains and a perceived control scale that assesses the extent to which children attribute their successes and failures to "unknown" causes or to internal or external causes. These instruments have been administered to hundreds of students in grades 3 through 9, and early analyses are beginning to shed light on developmental patterns. Harter (1981) also developed a scale that assesses intrinsic versus extrinsic mastery motivation in the classroom. Instruments for use with first and second graders are still badly needed, however, in part because these earliest years may be just the time when relationships among locus of control, academic expectations, and attributions are being worked out.

Miller (1982), in a review of studies of children in grades K-3, found that self-esteem declines between kindergarten and the third grade. When Miller interviewed subjects in December of first grade and reinterviewed the same children 1 year later ( N = 94) on measures of self-concept of attainment, children who were immature overused the very top self-ranking and showed little stability over the 1-year period. At the second interview, fewer children were immature, and there was a significant decline in self-esteem. Whether the reported decline in self-esteem was due to developmental changes in cognition, as Miller suggested, or to negative experiences in school is equivocal. (See Markus and Nurius, in this volume, for a more detailed discussion of the development of self-evaluation and self-regulation.)

Teacher behaviors may be related to changes in self-esteem (Anderson, 1982; Goodlad et al., 1979; McDill and Rigsby, 1973; Miller, 1982), although the identification of the specific behaviors and how they produce positive or negative changes remains murky.

Anxiety in school settings, a concern of researchers since the 1950s (Sarason et al., 1960), also may contribute to changes in children's self-esteem. For students at all grade levels through college, high anxiety is almost always associated with impairment in cognitive functioning (Gaudry and Speilberger, 1971). Anxious students apparently spend part of the total task time on irrelevant behaviors, which result in performance decrements. There is little consensus on the origins of school-related anxiety (e.g., the extent to which anxiety is developed at home before the child enters school), but there is general agreement that school learning and evaluation processes affect the level and stability of children's school-related anxiety. More research in naturalistic settings is needed to determine the aspects of the teaching/learning/evaluation process that increase or reduce anxiety.

Harter and Connell (in press) contend that children's understanding of the contingencies that govern success and failure is critical. Children in grades 3 to 9 who attribute control to "unknown" sources tend to have lower levels of achievement than children who accept personal responsibility for their successes and failures (Connell, 1980). Harter and Connell identified a predictive sequence that flows from perceived control to actual achievement to competence evaluation to competence affect—and then to motivation to engage in further mastery attempts.

Social Roles

The role of the schools in preparing children to function appropriately as adults is an active area of research, mainly at the secondary level. To participate effectively in school and in societal institutions, children must learn (i.e., be socialized), to be independent achievers, to accept universal standards, and to function well as group members (Dreeben, 1968).

While instruction takes place in groups, rewards are allocated on the basis of individual competition. Children enter school with different capacities and with different levels of preparation for the school experience. Social class and ethnic differences in values and linguistic styles may be reflected in children's behaviors and attitudes and in the way teachers respond to them (Leacock, 1982). Children from middle-class families typically exhibit values and behaviors that are relatively consistent with the norms of the school. Children from working-class backgrounds, especially if they are members of a racial or ethnic minority group, frequently display behaviors and values that are in conflict with those of the school. These initial differences in school ''survival'' skills are thought to be translated into instructional group placement differences, which lead to differences in reading achievement. Since reading achievement is reflected in nearly all school subjects, this early placement has a lasting effect on achievement and subsequent attitudes toward school and educational attainment. Grouping in the primary grades and tracking in the intermediate grades and secondary school result in children being identified as academic winners or losers. These (unofficial) designations are associated with rates of staying in or dropping out of school, enrollment in academic or low-level classes, and going to college or entering the world of work. One might say that the process begins in the home, but it is institutionalized in the school (Rutter, 1983).

The opposing view emphasizes allocation. As Bowles and Gintis (1976) pointed out, children's experiences of segregation by group or track (or school) and of differential rewards in an educational setting with a meritocratic reward system could allocate them by preparing them to accept the reality of an adult work world characterized by hierarchical segmentation and unequal rewards. The outcome of school socialization in this view is a cohort of workers who believe that their place in society, either high or low, is deserved and is a function of their own abilities and efforts. In other words, one of the normative outcomes of schooling, resulting from a process that begins in elementary school, could be internalization of the meritocratic myth. The debate between these views continues.

The school's reinforcement of traditional societal roles may also occur in the different experiences of male and female pupils. Small-scale studies suggest that boys receive more attention, both positive and negative, from teachers than girls (Brophy and Good, 1974), that teachers react differently to black and white boys and girls (Grant, 1981), and that black teachers differ less in their treatment of girls and boys than do white teachers (Simpson and Erickson, 1983). Dweck et al. (1978) reported that teachers criticize boys more than girls, that criticism of boys is directed toward conduct and neatness, and that teachers are six times more likely to attribute academic failure to a lack of motivation or effort for boys than for girls. This pattern of differential feedback may help explain sex differences in achievement expectations. These results have not been supported by recent studies (for a comprehensive review, see Meece et al., 1982). There is a clear need for additional research on how classroom experiences affect girls' achievement expectations.

The role models provided by elementary school personnel may contribute to the reinforcement of traditional gender role expectations. Most elementary school teachers are women, but most administrators are men. Thus, there is a sex-ranked hierarchy among school personnel that may reinforce traditional notions of male superiority. Research is needed on the effects of different types of leadership roles held by women on girls' achievement expectations. For example, how does it make a difference in girls' expectations of achievement if the principal is a woman rather than a man? Another interesting research question is the nature of the interaction between maternal work roles, school leadership patterns, and girls' achievement expectations. The role of peers in maintaining or changing stereotypes should also be explored.

• Social Background And Schooling

This section discusses the effects of socioeconomic status, home environment, and race and ethnicity on educational outcomes for children. The discussion includes the interface between families and schools.

Unfortunately, most of the literature treats the learner conceptually as contributing little if anything to the schooling process. As a result, what is covered focuses largely on how families and schools influence the learner. Although our stated purpose is to uncover effects, further investigation is needed into the nature of the learner as producer and beneficiary of learning.

Family Influence And Educational Outcomes

In the past several decades, researchers have studied questions related to the relationship of family life to educational outcomes. These investigations have focused primarily on the effects of parental involvement, socioeconomic status, and home environment on children's cognitive and affective functioning.

Socioeconomic Status And Achievement

One of the most frequently studied aspects of the relationship between family and school as socializing environments is the effect of family background on school achievement. In most of this research the measure of family background is occupation, education, or income of the head of household, both parents, or some combination of these. The consistent finding is that the higher the family's social status, the more likely the child is to have high scores on achievement tests. Correlations between measures of socioeconomic status and standardized achievement test scores for individuals average between .20 and .25, while correlations based on aggregated scores (e.g., school or class means) average between .70 and .80 (Hess, 1970; White, 1982). In multivariate analyses, social class has been found to be primarily implicated through its relationship to ability as measured by intelligence tests (e.g., Maruyama et al., 1981). Socioeconomic status is associated with school grades in much the same fashion: the higher the status, the higher the grades.

These relationships vary in strength for different populations and for different types of tests. For example, the relationship of father's occupation to achievement is typically weaker for minority group students than for whites (DeBord et al., 1977; Epps, 1969). Interestingly, the correlation of socioeconomic status and achievement has been found to be consistent among developed countries; results similar to those in the United States have been found in England, France, Germany, and other European nations and in Japan and Israel. However, in developing nations, such as Uganda, the advantage of socioeconomic status does not appear to exist (Heyneman, 1976).

Correlational data, however, cannot speak to the processes by which families inculcate differential preparation or motivation for school learning or performance. What are the specific characteristics of the home environment that are associated with achievement?

Home Environment

Studies of home environments typically yield average correlations with intelligence for individuals of about .55 (Bloom, 1976; White, 1982). Even when students live in comparable neighborhoods and do not differ on traditional measures of socioeconomic status, home environment variables still explain a significant amount of achievement variance (Levine et al., 1972). (See Maccoby, in this volume, for a discussion of family interaction patterns.) Dave (1963) examined the relationship between the family environment and academic achievement of children at age 11. He identified six process variables as characterizing the educational "press" of the family environment: (1) achievement press, (2) language models, (3) academic guidance, (4) activeness of the family, (5) intellectuality in the home, (6) work habits of the family. These indicators have now been widely used in this country, in Trinidad (Dyer, 1967), and in Dublin (Kellaghan, 1977) to assess the degree of parental influence on academic achievement of children ages 8 and 11, respectively (Marjoribanks, 1979). The press variables accounted for much of the variance in achievement in academic subject areas and to a lesser degree were positively associated with measures of intelligence.

R. Clark (1982) used a case study approach to distinguish between surface structure of families (traditional socioeconomic indicators such as income, occupation, and education as well as family intactness and ethnicity) and internal structure of families (personality characteristics, communication patterns, and learning opportunity structures). Three types of home activities seemed especially relevant for school achievement: (1) explicit literacy-nurturing activities, which include studying, reading, writing, topical dialogues, and explicit social etiquette practices; (2) cultural literacy-enhancing activities that serve leisure needs, e.g., watching television, word games, and hobbies; and (3) home and personal health maintenance activities, e.g., chores, caring for children and other household members, and attending to one's own personal upkeep and well-being. Other important aspects of supportive family systems include interactive communication systems that provide opportunities for direct instruction, feedback opportunities, and reinforcement opportunities. If this type of qualitative research can be replicated, an explanation may be closer of why some families provide better support for school achievement than others.

There is some disagreement over the extent and direction of the interactive influences of home environment variables and individual child characteristics on achievement outcomes. How much influence does a child's intellect itself have on the nature of the home environment? Mercy and Steelman (1982) suggested that it is possible that bright children select intellectually stimulating activities or encourage their parents to provide such experiences. It is also possible that parents' aspirations for their child, parental concern for academic achievement, and other achievement "press" variables are based on parents' perceptions of their child's ability or potential. It is unlikely that the home environment effect represents a one-way flow from parent to child. The interactive approach seems to be more plausible and is consistent with the thrust of current research efforts, as detailed throughout this volume. Continued investigation following interactive formulations and using improved methodologies appears warranted in this area.

Maternal Influence

Among the maternal socialization variables, maternal educational background is thought to be the strongest predictor of achievement (Hess and Shipman, 1967; Laosa, 1982), and, of the many effects, the impact on linguistic development appears to be the greatest (Carew, 1980; Clarke-Stewart, 1973; Slaughter, 1983).

Hess et al. (1980) reported that maternal behaviors such as reading to children and providing them with opportunities for verbal expression are positively related to early reading skills (e.g., letter recognition at age 5). Using a measure of maternal press for achievement that attempts to assess the mother's efforts to motivate her child to achieve in school, they found that both the mother's pressure to achieve and her tendency to request verbal statements from her child are significantly and positively related to 5-year-olds' letter recognition scores. A measure of the verbal environment of the home correlated at a significant level with IQ at age 6.

The early work of Brophy (1970), Hess and Shipman (1965, 1967), and Stodolsky (1965) conceptualized the influence of maternal behaviors as representative of cognitive and affective structures that evoke certain intellectual and affective processes. These behaviors are thought to serve as models that strongly influence children's acquisition of specific cognitive and affective modes, which affect their subsequent learning and affective responses. Hess and Shipman stated (1967:58-60) that:

The mother's strategies are likely to have consequences for the child's ability to grasp a concept or learn a lesson in any specific teaching situation. The mother's strategies also have consequences for the cognitive structures (preferred response patterns) that emerge in the child and for his eventual educability in more formal, institutional instruction.... The styles of learning established at home interfere with subsequent learning and teaching processes in school.... This view ... suggests that the role of the school in disadvantaged areas is not only to fill in deficits of language and specific cognitive skills but also to resocialize the child into more adaptable styles of learning.

In direct contradiction to Clark's argument in Dark Ghetto (1965), which held teachers responsible for underachievement, Hess and Shipman placed the burden of academic deprivation on maternal socialization. This position has critical implications for determining educational policy. One interpretation is that this deprivationist rationale relieves schools of the responsibility for change (Slaughter, 1983). Unfortunately, the deprivationist position is thought to have resulted in many minority and lower-status students being labeled uneducable (Baratz and Baratz, 1970; Leacock, 1982; Rist, 1973; Tulkin, 1972).

Parental Involvement

There is general agreement that children of parents who are more involved in their children's education adapt better to the demands of school than do the children of less-in-involved parents. However, as Epstein and Becker (1982) pointed out, not all forms of parental involvement are equally effective or equally welcomed by school personnel. Participation in PTA councils and as classroom volunteers typically involve relatively few parents, but nearly all parents can be involved in educational activities at home: "Of all types of parent involvement, supervision of learning activities at home may be the most educationally significant" (Epstein and Becker, 1982:111). And there is some evidence that intervention programs based on the principle of parental involvement, either as home educators of their own children or as teacher aides or tutors, have been relatively successful (Bronfenbrenner, 1974).

In an effort to assess the impact of a number of home background variables on the reading ability of 7- and 8-year-olds, Hewison and Tizard (1980) and Tizard et al. (1982) found a strong effect for parental assistance with reading. Children of parents who regularly heard their children read aloud ("coaching") had higher reading achievement scores than children whose parents did not listen to their oral reading on a regular basis.

Child-parent centers that stress parental involvement have been particularly effective in enhancing the achievement of low-income inner-city minority children (Fuerst, 1977). Combining a warm, supportive home atmosphere with a warm, supportive schooling setting was found to enhance the achievement of children in Project Head Start (Shipman et al., 1976). Comer (1980) also stressed the importance of parental involvement in contributing to effective student outcomes.

What of the interface between home and school? It is not clear that being active in school affairs has positive achievement outcomes for children unless parents are also providing the type of home environment that enhances achievement. Lightfoot (1979) pointed out that mothers and teachers may compete with each other in their efforts to influence children's development. If race and social-status differences are involved, these conflicts may take on chauvinistic characteristics. Lightfoot suggested that in cases in which parents and teachers, despite their differences, work cooperatively on behalf of the children, a creative tension may develop that will enhance their growth. Promising work on how teachers involve parents in the educational process is currently under way at Johns Hopkins University (Epstein and Becker, 1982), but the issue of how different types of parental involvement affect children's adaptation to school is one that requires additional research.

Family And School Authority Patterns

Educational researchers have devoted considerable attention to studies of person-environment interactions or interactions of aptitude (trait) and treatment (e.g., Corno et al., 1981; Janicki and Peterson, 1981). While few consistent interaction effects have been reported (see Cronbach and Snow, 1977), the search for better statistical analysis strategies (Hedges, 1981) and better conceptual strategies continues. Epstein (1983) pointed out that, while psychologists have focused on person-environment interaction effects, sociologists and political scientists have studied environment-environment interaction effects. She advocates a merging of the two approaches into a person-environment-environment model: "Is there one best organization for educating, or do different approaches optimize development on particular outcomes for different students?" (p. 105).

Epstein's model was applied to a study of the relationship of family and school authority structures (two environments) to junior high and high school students' satisfaction with school (the students varied on measures of independence and locus of control). The two environments could be congruent or incongruent with each other, and each environment could be congruent or incongruent with a particular student's background. The results indicate that "school environments were especially important for students from families that do not emphasize participation in decisions at home" (p. 121). This was especially true for students who were initially high in independence and internal control orientation. Although the students in Epstein's study were beyond the elementary school level, it is reasonable to assume that the patterns exhibited by these students developed during the early school years. Additional research on the relationship of family decision-making structures and school decision-making structures in the early grades may help us understand how student characteristics, home environment, and school environment affect student adjustment to school.

Family Variables And Student Personality Dimensions

Investigations into the relationship and influences of the family on learning outcomes have not been confined to the cognitive-intellectual domain. Some research has focused on structural differences in childhood experiences that result in different achievement values, aspirations, and motivations. Conceptually, the achievement values here are much like the attitudes of "modernism" discussed by Inkeles (1968), self-direction versus conformity as identified by Kohn (1969), and three achievement values identified by Strodtbeck (1958): (1) a belief that the world is orderly and amenable to rational mastery, (2) a willingness to leave home to make one's way in life, and (3) a preference for individual rather than collective credit for work accomplished. Strodtbeck found that these values were a function of the balance of power between fathers, mothers, and sons within the family (mothers' dominance of their sons rather than father dominance).

Major gaps in this research exist. One issue is whether it is valid to apply an Anglo-American definition of achievement motivation on the basis of individualistic achievement efforts to those racial or ethnic groups that may place greater emphasis on group or family expressions of achievement and approval (e.g., Ramirez and Price-Williams, 1976). Laosa (1977) also pointed out that ethnic groups differ in the attributes that define optimal development or social competence in childhood.

The evidence on the issue is somewhat inconsistent. Ruhland and Feld (1977) found that black and white working-class children did not differ in autonomous achievement motivation, which is presumably learned at home prior to school age; however, white students scored significantly higher than blacks on social comparison motivation, which is acquired during the elementary school years. (Autonomous standards define excellence in relation to one's own past performance; social comparison standards are based on comparisons of one's own performance and that of others.) In contrast, a study (Moore, 1981) of black children adopted by black families and white families, found that black children adopted by white families were significantly more likely than black children adopted by black families to have high autonomous achievement motivation scores. The two groups did not differ on social comparison motivation scores.

The differences may be attributable to the fact that the children in Moore's study were all living in middle-class families, while the children in the Ruhland and Feld study attended working-class schools. Moore's results call into question Banks and McQuater's (1976) contention that the roots of low achievement motivation among blacks are not located in family and early socialization experiences.

One key intervening factor may be different determinants of locus of control in the home and at school. Neither the role of the family nor the role of teachers in determining locus of control has received sufficient research attention. Buriel (1981) found for grade-school Chicano children (but not for Anglo children) a positive relationship between students' perceptions of teachers' controlling behavior and internal control for success and a positive relationship between students' perceptions of teachers' supporting behavior and internal control for failure. Anglo and Chicano students were not different in levels of internal locus of control. Similarly,

Holliday (1984) compared 44 black 9- and 10-year-olds on mother's reports of children's competencies at home and in the neighborhood and teacher's reports of school competencies. The two sets of competencies were not related at a statistically significant level. Neither school self-esteem (Coopersmith scale) nor locus of control (Bialer-Cromwell scale) were significantly related to either set of competencies. Only teacher-reported competencies were significantly related to school grades and achievement test scores.

Holliday reported that teachers, in rating black students, tended to assign higher ratings to social activity than to academic activity. She suggested that teacher expectations may contribute to learned helplessness patterns in black children's academic behavior, similar to patterns of learned helplessness described by Dweck et al. (1978) for girls. Evidence from several studies suggests that black students are less accurate than whites in estimating their own achievement levels (Brookover et al., 1979; Busk et al., 1973; Massey et al., 1975), although Entwisle and Hayduk (1982) did not observe this in their sample in which children of the two races were of comparable socioeconomic level. The type of teacher feedback may also contribute to the development of patterns among minority students that cause them to be slower than whites in developing a logical approach to the inference of ability from outcome and effort cues.

Research on the relationship of home environment to social affect has concentrated on children ages 11-12, although one study of 8-year-olds in Dublin is reported (Kellaghan, 1977). There is a need to study younger children in order to study developmental patterns. If the methodology could be developed, it would be of interest to know what type of achievement values, children bring from home upon entry in school. It would then be possible to determine how home-produced achievement values are enhanced or discouraged by the schooling process. Student achievement values measured at entry into the ninth grade change very little by graduation from high school. It thus appears that high schools have little impact on students' values. Is this also true for elementary schools? Additional work is needed on the effects of various educational practices on parents' and students' expectations and the relationship of these to achievement and affective outcomes. The work of Entwisle and Hayduk (1978, 1982) is a good beginning and should stimulate additional research.

Race And Ethnicity

Since the publication of Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman et al., 1966), the racial and ethnic compositions of schools have been important variables both empirically and conceptually. Most studies find that achievement varies negatively with the percentage of minority students in the school population. To a large extent, this is attributable to the fact that minority students are likely to come from poverty-level homes with all of the stresses typically associated with poverty (see Maccoby, in this volume). However, Ogbu (1978) noted that low achievement is not found among all racial minorities in American schools. For example, Asian-American students' achievement is usually higher than that of Anglo-Americans. According to Ogbu (1978), immigrant minorities (Chinese, Filipinos, and Japanese) do not exhibit the patterns of school failure found among castelike minorities (blacks, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans); Coleman et al. (1966) also reported this finding.

Comparative research in six countries confirms the general pattern: immigrant minorities did relatively well in school; nonimmigrant minorities experienced a high proportion of school failure. Ogbu (1983) suggested that the differences in minority-group performance in schools are attributable to differences in perceptions of schooling in relation to the opportunity structure, on one hand, and cultural inversion, on the other. The argument for perception of opportunity structure is more plausible for secondary school students than for elementary pupils, who are less likely to have well-formed ideas about societal barriers to social mobility. However, perceptions of the opportunity structure may influence how parents motivate their children for school achievement. Cultural inversion may result in linguistic, cognitive, and behavioral styles that conflict with the expectations of school staff.

Slaughter (1969, 1977) examined the relationship between selected home background variables and achievement development for a sample of Head Start children followed from nursery school through grade 6. Perhaps more important, she studied the interactions of parent, teacher, and student perceptions of children's abilities and potential for development. While Slaughter found several maternal socialization variables to be related to children's preschool IQ scores and reading-readiness scores, by grade 4 nearly all of these were nonsignificant. Slaughter (1977:128) concluded that "for this population the schooling experience is discontinuous with early childhood development." She also reported (1983:26) that "regardless of teacher feedback differentiating mother and child perceptions of the child's achievement effort and performance between grades kindergarten through 5, the school's own criteria of academic success indicated no differences among the children: academic performances were almost uniformly substandard." There is a strong indication that neither children nor mothers were aware that the children's performance was substandard. This pattern of inaccurate feedback has been reported by others (e.g., Massey et al., 1975).

Some researchers contend that there are ethnic differences in "theories of success" that prepare children to develop different sets of competencies (Ogbu, 1981). While social status as traditionally measured probably mediates these ethnic differences, it is likely that some ethnic ''survivals'' remain even when social status is controlled. Ogbu contends that the study of "native theory of success" provides important clues about what instrumental competencies people stress and what kinds of adults they want their children to be. It will also provide information on people's notions about how to succeed and about what constitutes a successful person.

In a provocative article entitled "Afro-American Cognitive Style: A Variable in School Success?" Barbara J. Shade (1982:238) wrote:

A review of the literature suggests that successful functioning within the current school context requires the cognitive strategies that are described as sequential, analytical, or object-oriented. An examination of the culture or lifestyle and world view of Afro-Americans, however, portrays strategies designed to foster survival and therefore tends to be rather universalistic, intuitive, and more than that, very person-oriented. It is postulated that an enhanced ability in social cognition may work to the detriment of the individuals within an object-oriented setting such as the school. To verify these assumptions requires strong and methodologically rigorous empirical studies.

These concerns about culturally different socialization goals and culturally specific cognitive styles require empirical verification, but in the meantime they should serve as cautions to theorists and researchers involved with universal developmental schema and stages. An early approach to studying the educational implications of cultural differences in learning patterns has not been followed up (see Lesser et al., 1967; Stodolsky and Lesser, 1967), and new investigations of this type may prove fruitful.

Research based on the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP), a long-term research and development project designed to improve the school performance of educationally at-risk Hawaiian children, indicates that the performance of poor and minority children could be greatly enhanced if the home competence/school incompetence paradox could be resolved. These researchers contend that nonmainstream children develop school-relevant cognitive strategies in the home environment before they enroll in school, but the school environment provides different types of cues for generating the use of these strategies. The children therefore exhibit a widespread inconsistency in the use of school-successful cognitive strategies. The KEEP reading program improved the reading achievement of Hawaiian children by providing "a bridging experience which encouraged and taught the children to perform at school at a level consistent with their home performance" (Gallimore and Au, 1979:34). While the specific elements of the KEEP program may not generalize to other ethnic groups, the process by which the program was developed should prove useful (Tharp and Gallimore, 1982).

The basic assumption of the KEEP project is a two-cultural model. For the Hawaiian children, there is a highly organized culture of the home, the community, and the child. The school culture and the child/home/community culture do not interact advantageously for effective teaching and learning. This circumstance is found among other poor minority-group children when they encounter the culture of the school. To develop school programs that capitalize on the child's cultural learning, a careful knowledge of both cultures is required. In the KEEP project this involved several years of ethnographic and sociolinguistic research with Hawaiian adults and children to acquire knowledge of the children's culture. To acquire knowledge of the school culture the researchers created and operated a school in which intensive observations could be made. Only after several years of multidisciplinary research and repeated efforts at educational innovation was an effective mix of cultural accommodations developed.

There is a need for additional work on the interface of family and school environments in the education process. How can education programs be designed so as to take advantage of the cultural values of students while still achieving the goals of literacy and computational competency as well as preparing young people for successful lives as adults? Slaughter (1981) discussed three societal changes that have educational implications for the 1980s: the movement of mothers into the labor force, the quest for high-quality day care, and the increase in the number of dependent families. Research on how schools can best serve children encountering these new circumstances is needed. More qualitative studies of family life and school life are needed.

• School Desegregation

The research generated by legal efforts to desegregate public schools has typically focused on three questions: (1) Do minority children have higher achievement in integrated schools than in segregated schools? (2) Do children's racial attitudes become more positive after desegregation? (3) Does the self-esteem of minority students improve following desegregation? Reviewers of this research (e.g., St. John, 1975; Stephan, 1978) have concluded that most of the studies have been so poorly designed that it is nearly impossible to draw reliable inferences from them. The results of the research have been inconsistent, contradictory, and frequently null. Given the wide range of settings and conditions under which desegregation has occurred, it should not be surprising that it is difficult to assess the effect of desegregation as a "treatment." Despite the weak methodology and the differences in samples and measures used, a few generalizations are possible about the effects of desegregation on majority and minority children.

Racial Attitudes And Peer Relationships

Several reviews of the research (Cohen, 1975; St. John, 1975; McConahay, 1978) on racial attitudes have found that there are few true experiments, relatively few well-designed quasi experiments and longitudinal studies, and too much reliance on cross-sectional samples and correlational techniques. Nevertheless, there is general agreement that the existing research provides strong support for the "contact hypothesis." Allport (1954) contended that contact between groups will result in improved intergroup relations only if the contact occurs in a setting that provides equal status for minority- and majority-group members as well as strong institutional support for positive intergroup interaction. The likelihood of positive intergroup relations is improved when there is cooperative interaction involving the achievement of shared goals. While few school settings incorporate all of the conditions that foster equal-status interaction, results are most positive for schools that provide approximations of these conditions. Gerard et al. (1975) found that very little positive change in elementary school children's sociometric choices occurred during 4-6 years of desegregation, but this can be explained by the fact that few classrooms approximated the equal-status conditions advocated by Allport. These authors found teacher and student prejudice to be positively correlated. It is not likely that prejudiced teachers would establish equal-status situations in their classrooms. One would therefore not expect contact to foster positive interracial attitudes and behaviors under their leadership. It was noted by Gerard et al. (1975), however, that a favorable social climate in the classroom appeared to have a positive influence on the well-being of the higher-achieving minority children.

There is a need for additional research on school practices that improve racial attitudes and behaviors. Slavin and Madden (1979) found that having high school students of different races work together had positive effects but that few effects were found for teacher workshops or the use of multiethnic texts. Studies of this type at the elementary level would add considerably to our knowledge in this area. Schofield (1979), in an observational study of an integrated junior high school, found evidence that tracking students into different classrooms on the basis of ability or prior achievement resulted in resegregation and that resegregation leads to reduced cross-racial social interaction. Studies of the effects of ability grouping on interracial contacts and attitudes at the elementary school level would help clarify the effects of such school practices on children's attitudes and behaviors. There is promising work on team learning (Slavin and DeVries, 1979) and cooperative learning strategies (Johnson and Johnson, 1979).

Several additional issues need to be clarified by further research. We know little about gender and age differences in response to desegregation. One study (St. John and Lewis, 1975) suggested that black girls lose popularity after desegregation but that white girls and boys of both races do not suffer such declines. Other research (Schofield and McGivern, 1978) found that black boys and white girls were more positive about the experience of desegregation than either white boys or black girls. While it is generally accepted that results are more favorable if desegregation takes place early in the school years, Scott and McPartland (1982) found age to be positively related to racial tolerance. The nature of contextual and developmental effects on changes in racial attitudes awaits future research.

Self-Esteem, Academic Self-Concept, And Racial Self-Identity

Efforts to determine the impact of school desegregation on the self-image and motivation of black children have been hampered by the use of many different self-esteem measures and by differences in the conditions under which desegregation has taken place. In addition, many studies are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal and attempt to assess effects after relatively short periods of time. To add to the confusion, there is little agreement on the meaning of such terms as self-image, self-concept , and self-esteem (for a detailed discussion of such issues, see Markus and Nurius, in this volume). In this chapter, self-esteem refers to global self-evaluation; academic self-concept refers to self-evaluation with regard to schoolwork; and racial self-identity refers to racial self-evaluation.

Several comprehensive reviews of research on the impact of desegregation on self-esteem have been published (Epps, 1975, 1978, 1981; St. John, 1975; Stephan, 1978; Weinberg, 1977). The results have been mixed. Some studies have found black student self-esteem to be enhanced by desegregation, others have found it to be reduced, and still others have found no effects. Several recent studies (Cicirelli, 1977; Hare, 1977, 1980; Hunt and Hunt, 1977) indicated that the self-esteem of black students in desegregated schools is equal to or higher than that of white students. However, some research (e.g., Hunt and Hunt, 1977) found black students' self-esteem to be higher in segregated schools than in desegregated schools, and a longitudinal study by Gerard and Miller (1975) found that both before and after desegregation black and Mexican-American children scored significantly lower on self-attitudes than Anglo children. Changes in self-esteem following desegregation seem to be relatively modest, and there is little support for the contention that desegregation enhances minority self-esteem. Most studies report minority students scoring equal to whites in self-esteem.

Work on academic self-concept is also hampered by the limitations of the assessment instruments. The most frequently used measure is some variation of Brookover et al.'s (1962) self-concept of academic ability scale. This measure asks students to rate themselves on ability and grades compared with others in their classrooms or schools. Several general self-esteem scales include a school subscale (e.g., Coopersmith, 1967; Hare, 1980), which asks students how they feel about their schoolwork and their school experiences. Considering the typical gap between minority and white achievement, one would expect academic self-concept to decline following desegregation.

Green et al. (1975) used a measure called "need for school achievement" to assess a dimension similar to school self-esteem. They found that black and Mexican-American elementary school pupils scored lower than whites on this measure before desegregation and that scores declined for all three groups during their years of desegregated schooling. The authors noted that the changes are not attributable to ethnicity. Brookover et al. (1979) noted the surprisingly high academic self-concept scores of black students. There are at least three possible explanations for this phenomenon. First, black students may compare themselves only with other black students when responding to items such as "Compared to others in your class in ability, would you say you are among the best, above average, or below average?" Second, black students many not receive accurate feedback from teachers concerning their relative performance levels (see Massey et al., 1975, for evidence on this point). Third, children of relatively low socioeconomic level, irrespective of race, may have unrealistic self-concepts of ability (Entwisle and Hayduk, 1978, 1982). This issue should be the focus of further research.

Research on racial self-identity has attempted to determine the extent to which black children or other nonwhite minority children develop racial self-hatred, dominant-group preference, or rejection of their own group. The most extensive study of racial identity in the context of desegregation was conducted in Riverside, California (Goodchilds et al., 1975). This study used photographs of black, Mexican-American, and Anglo girls and boys to assess ethnic identity. The researchers found that a child's ethnic identity and self-attitude are not closely linked (nonsignificant correlations). McAdoo (1977) studied racial attitudes and self-esteem among black children in Michigan, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. The Michigan children lived in a segregated neighborhood but attended biracial schools; the children in the other locations were racially isolated in the neighborhood and at school. While community setting is an important confounding factor, at age 10 only the desegregated Michigan children exhibited relatively high in-group preference as well as positive self-esteem. The other groups maintained high self-esteem but were less problack in their racial preferences. This study, like the Riverside one, seems to support the generalization that identification with one's own race increases with experience in interracial schools. The results of these studies also support Spencer's (1976) finding that racial self-identity and self-esteem are not related (see Spencer, 1982, for a critique of research on racial self-identity and self-esteem among black children).

Academic Achievement

Much attention has been given to the effects of desegregation on academic achievement (see the reviews by Bradley and Bradley, 1977; St. John, 1975). Despite the weak methodology of most of these studies, a few results seem to be fairly well supported.

There is consensus among researchers that, with few exceptions, white children's achievement is not affected either positively or negatively by desegregation. However, some studies have found that black achievement is higher in schools and classrooms in which the staff's racial attitudes are more positive (Coulson et al., 1977; Crain et al., 1981; Forehand et al., 1976). There is little support, however, for the hypothesis that the number of white friends or the amount of interracial contact enhances minority achievement (e.g., Singer et al., 1975). Similar results have been found for secondary school students (Patchen, 1982).

Reviews using statistical research synthesis techniques have found a general positive effect of desegregation on minority achievement (Crain and Mahard, 1982, 1983; Krol, 1978). Crain and Mahard (1982) reported that methodology had a strong effect on outcomes. "Eighteen of 21 samples (86 percent) taken from studies based on random assignment showed positive results, while at the other extreme, over half the studies that compared black performance with white performance or with national norms showed negative results of desegregation" (p. 15).

The Crain and Mahard study is the most extensive to date, covering 93 research reports that included 323 samples of black students. Among other important findings they noted that (1) studies of children who were desegregated at kindergarten or first grade are most likely to show positive results; (2) the typical study finds greater gains for IQ than for achievement test scores; (3) where achievement gains from desegregation are substantial, reading comprehension and language arts subtest scores show a greater increase than do other subtest scores; (4) where achievement gains are slight, the effect is lower for reading comprehension and language arts than for other subtest scores; and (5) metropolitan desegregation plans that result in classroom ratios of 10-30 percent black students are more likely to show achievement gains than are other types of plans.

The need for additional research syntheses as well as closer attention to experimental design is clear. While the "lateral transmission" hypothesis has not been supported, it is not known why desegregation is beneficial. That the teaching of reading comprehension and language arts is a key factor in minority achievement clearly warrants further exploration.

Most studies of desegregation have involved black students. However, many recent desegregation plans have been implemented in areas in which the Hispanic population is relatively large. Some locales also include substantial numbers of Asians and American Indians among their populations. Future researchers should attempt to provide additional information on how other minorities are affected by desegregation. In fact, simultaneous examination of three or more racial/ethnic groups would help untangle some of the perplexing strands in this area.

• Second-Language Learning And Bilingualism

In areas where there are a substantial number of children whose proficiency in English is limited, school districts are required to provide some form of linguistic assistance (see Fernandez and Guskin, 1981, for a discussion of implementation problems). This assistance may take the form of teaching English as a second language, or it may be provided through a bilingual or multicultural approach. The relative effectiveness of the different approaches is the subject of considerable controversy. In this section we examine some of the issues and research in the area of second-language learning and bilingualism and discuss the implications of the research findings.

Bilingual Instruction And Intellectual Development

The majority of the studies conducted before 1962 found strong evidence for the contention that bilingual children, compared with monolingual children, were deficient in vocabulary, articulation, written composition, and grammar (Diaz, 1983:25). Thus, it was widely believed that bilingualism was detrimental to children's intellectual and cognitive development. However, the early studies suffered from many methodological weaknesses. Researchers frequently failed to control for socioeconomic status, degree of bilingualism, age at which the second language was learned, whether the second language was learned formally or acquired "naturally" or whether the child's first language had high or low status in the community.

Peal and Lambert's (1962) study of 75 monolingual and 89 balanced bilingual 10-year-old Canadian children produced the first strong evidence that bilingualism was positively associated with cognitive development. In this study, bilingual children performed better than monolingual children on tests of both verbal and nonverbal abilities. The bilingual children were superior in concept formation and cognitive flexibility and had a more diversified pattern of abilities than the monolingual children. While superior in methodology to most early studies, the results of the Peal and Lambert research may have been affected by sample selection bias. In attempting to ensure that their sample included only balanced bilingual children (those with age-appropriate abilities in both languages), less intelligent bilingual children with less English proficiency may have been eliminated from the sample, thereby creating an intellectual bias favoring the bilingual sample. Nevertheless, their focus on degree of bilingualism prompted later researchers to select bilingual samples with greater care, to measure respondents' actual degree of bilingualism, and to be alert to the possibility of situational influences that might enhance or deter bilingual children's cognitive and intellectual development.

Diaz (1983) concluded his review by noting that recent studies have presented evidence that bilingualism has a positive influence on children's cognitive and linguistic abilities. This evidence comes from studies of balanced bilingual children. "When compared to monolinguals, balanced bilingual children show definite advantages on measures of metalinguistic abilities, concept formation, field independence, and divergent thinking skills" (p. 48). Cummins (1979) proposed a "threshold" hypothesis that emphasizes the importance of the child's level of competence in both languages. When the child has low levels of competence in both languages, bilingualism is usually associated with negative cognitive effects. When the child has age-appropriate competence in one language but is less competent in another, bilingualism has little or no effect on cognitive development. It is in those instances in which the child has at least age-appropriate competence in two languages that positive effects of bilingualism, such as those described by Diaz, are most likely to be found.

Bilingualism And Achievement

It has consistently been reported that bilingualism among middle-and upper-class children is not associated with educational problems. Bilingualism among lower-class ethnic minority children, however, is frequently associated with low levels of academic achievement. Recent research suggests that "semilingualism" may be implicated in the relatively low academic achievement of bilingual minority children in the United States. Cummins (1979) described semilinguals as children who have low levels of competence in both their first and second languages. They tend to perform poorly on tests that measure such cognitive aspects of language usage as understanding the meaning of abstract concepts and synonyms. Diaz (1983) described semilinguals as "children whose second language gradually replaces the native tongue. Therefore, at a given point, these children are neither fluent speakers of the first language nor have mastered the second language with age-appropriate ability" (p. 33). Cummins (1979) also contended that the level of second-language competence that a child attains is partially a function of the type of competence the child has developed in his or her first language at the time that second-language learning takes place. This thesis is supported by research on English-speaking Canadian children attending French-language schools (Macnamara et al., 1976; Swain, 1978, cited in Cummins, 1979). These studies reported that by grade 6, English-speaking children attending French-medium schools did not differ in English achievement when compared with English-speaking children attending English-medium schools, although children attending French-medium schools received no English instruction before the third or fifth grade. Children in immersion programs also acquire second-language skills equal to those of native speakers by the end of elementary school. Cummins concluded: "These data suggest that (i) the prerequisites for acquiring literacy skills are instilled in most middle-class majority-language children by their linguistic experience in the home; (ii) the ability to extract meaning from printed text can be transferred easily from one language to another" (p. 234).

Cummins (1979) also noted that, compared with middle-class children, lower-class minority-language children do not enter school with adequate linguistic skills. He contended that "some children may have limited access to the cognitive-linguistic operations necessary to assimilate [a second language] and develop literacy skills in that language" (p. 236). Thus, lower-class minority-language children may be more dependent on the school to provide the prerequisites for the acquisition of literacy skills. However, Cummins also contended that such children's linguistic and academic growth is handicapped only when their functional literacy skills upon entry to school are translated into deficient levels of first- and second-language competence by inappropriate forms of educational treatment. Cummins hypothesized that "submersion" educational programs, which make no concessions to the child's native language or culture, are least likely to lead to positive achievement or motivational outcomes. Transitional bilingual programs, which use the native language as an instructional medium in the early grades while the child acquires proficiency in the second language, should result in the child's developing age-appropriate skills in the second language while competence in the native language fades away. Maintenance bilingual programs that provide instruction in two languages throughout the child's school career should produce an additive linguistic effect, leading to high levels of achievement in both languages. Cummins's hypotheses have yet to be tested by empirical research; however, he does provide a conceptual model that could be used as a framework for future research.

Most researchers agree that there is little hard evidence that one form of bilingual instruction is more effective than another. Many attempts to evaluate bilingual programs in the United States are plagued by methodological weaknesses that could invalidate their results. Commenting on the American Institutes of Research (1977) evaluation of Title VII bilingual programs, Cummins (1979) pointed out that "the AIR findings are uninterpretable since students whose language abilities are extremely varied and who have received a variety of educational treatments are aggregated for the purposes of data analyses" (p. 243). Cummins contends that bilingual education is a research area in which the interaction of background characteristics and treatment effects should be explored in an effort to ascertain which types of programs are most appropriate for children with different levels of functional linguistic skills.

Diaz (1983) noted two relatively neglected areas of research. He stated that there is a need for research on the effects of bilingualism on nonbalanced bilingual children (those with little knowledge of English). How many of these children (in which types of programs) will attain an effective balance between their two languages? How many will develop age-appropriate proficiency in either or both languages? A second area identified by Diaz as requiring additional research is that of information processing among young bilingual children. There is a need to develop a process model of how bilingualism affects children's cognitive development.

A recent survey (O'Malley, 1982) estimated that only one-third of all children of limited English proficiency in the United States are receiving some form of bilingual education or English as a second language instruction. Most of the children receiving bilingual instruction are in the early elementary grades. This suggests that most programs are not attempting to help children maintain their first language.

A number of politically sensitive questions may be answered by future research. For example, at what age should bilingual instruction begin? Is achievement more likely to be enhanced when instruction is begun in preschool, kindergarten, the primary grades, or the intermediate grades? What is the effect on the English achievement of bilingual children of including English-dominant or monolingual children in bilingual classes? How important is the cultural aspect of bilingual education for English achievement, self-concept, and attitudes toward school of minority-language children? Can maintenance bilingual programs for low-income minority-language children yield positive results similar to those reported for majority-language children in immersion programs?

Snow (1983) contends that children must acquire the ability to use language in a decontextualized manner if they are to be successful in school. Middle-class children acquire decontextualization in the home, but many lower-class homes do not provide the types of linguistic experiences that lead to the development of decontextualized language usage. This suggests that lower-class minority-language children may need preschool bilingual instruction to prepare them for school tasks. Curriculum development efforts at the preschool level show promise (Sandoval-Martinez, 1982), and additional developmental and evaluation research should be continued.

The areas of bilingual education and second-language acquisition have many research needs. The combination of strong political support for bilingual education from minority-language groups and support for improved foreign language instruction for English speakers should provide a climate conducive to vigorous research activity on language learning in the next decade.

• Instructional Approaches To Reducing Educational Inequality

The primary objective of our education system is to assist children in realizing their maximum potential. Achieving this goal is in many ways contingent on the instructional method employed. In an effort to identify ways to maximize achievement and affective outcomes for the greatest number of children, we discuss instructional approaches that seem to offer promise. We provide a description of three alternative approaches to traditional instruction, discuss research findings from studies assessing their effectiveness, and comment on areas that warrant further investigation.

Open Education

Open education, in contrast to traditional education, involves greater flexibility in the use of space, more student choice of activity, a greater variety of learning materials, and more individual and small-group learning. Compared with traditional instruction, there is more emphasis on encouraging children's development of a sense of responsibility for their own learning and a sense of honesty and respect in interpersonal relationships.

Stallings (1975) studied first- and third-grade Follow Through classrooms representing ''open'' and "structured" models. She reported that teachers conformed to the instructional procedures prescribed by the sponsors and that the more structured approaches contributed to higher reading and math scores. However, she stated that "children taught by these methods tend to accept responsibility for their failures but not for their successes" (Stallings, 1975:106). The more open and flexible approaches are associated with lower absence rates and higher scores on a nonverbal problem-solving test of reasoning. The different approaches, according to Stallings, thus bring different strengths to their pupils. Cohen and De Avila (1983), citing Stallings, pointed out that structured or direct instruction approaches tend to contribute to achievement on a mathematics computation subtest to a greater extent than to achievement on a concepts and problem-solving subtest. Cohen and De Avila suggested that direct instruction contributes to the learning of tasks requiring memorization (e.g., computational skills) but that conceptual learning and problem-solving skills may be more effectively enhanced by other approaches (e.g., an approach that uses peer interaction and focuses on the teaching of problem-solving skills).

Recent reviews of research on open education (Hedges et al., 1981; Marshall, 1981) have found that programs labeled open education produce a variety of effects (Giaconia and Hedges, 1982:580):

Some open education programs produced particularly large, positive effects for student outcomes such as self-concept, reading achievement, creativity, locus of control, mathematics achievement, and favorable attitude toward school. Yet other open education programs yielded larger negative effects for these same student outcomes.

Differences in outcomes are attributable to differences in the specific components of open education that are implemented in different classrooms. The programs that produce superior effects on nonachievement outcomes have the following characteristics: (1) an active role for the child in guiding the learning process, (2) diagnostic evaluation rather than norm-referenced evaluation, (3) the presence of diverse materials to stimulate student exploration and learning, and (4) individualized instruction. It should be noted, however, that the programs that produce superior nonachievement outcomes tend to produce smaller than average effects on academic achievement (Giaconia and Hedges, 1982:586). However, traditional education appears to be only marginally more effective than open education for the traditional academic achievement measures. Giaconia and Hedges reported that "for many student outcomes, there are near zero differences between open and traditional education" (p. 586).

Additional research on open education should attempt to further explain the features that produce different achievement and nonachievement outcomes. There is also a need to look at differential effectiveness for student populations of different social compositions.

Lazar and Darlington (1982) conducted a study of the long-term effects of early childhood intervention programs. They did not address the structured versus open instruction controversy but rather assessed the average effect of program participation across the various models or programs. They concluded that "programs can be structured in a variety of ways, responding to complex and diverse needs of local communities, and still be potentially effective" (p. 65). Specifically, this research showed that children who attended programs were significantly more likely to meet their school's basic requirements. For example, they were less likely to have been retained in grade or to have been placed in special education classes than nonparticipants. Early education programs had a positive effect on IQ scores that lasted for 3 or 4 years, and program graduates did somewhat better on achievement tests than control subjects. In addition, program graduates had more positive attitudes toward achievement and school at the time of the follow-up. Finally, early education programs appear to have had a positive effect on children's families: Mothers of participants were more satisfied with their children's school performance than were mothers of controls, and they had high occupational aspirations for their children. Perhaps the most important lesson to be gained from this study is that instructional philosophies that differ drastically along the dimensions of openness and directedness can in the long run enhance children's educational competencies.

Cooperative Small-Group Instruction

The typical classroom goal structure is either competitive or individualistic. Classrooms organized on these principles encourage students to view their peers either as competitors for scarce rewards (teacher praise or grades) or as persons whose actions are unrelated to their own achievement. Most educators view cooperation as a desired outcome of schooling, but few efforts are made to organize instruction in ways that foster cooperation. Johnson and Johnson (1979) have undertaken research on cooperative goal structures, which foster interdependence among students. Students achieve their goals only if other students with whom they are linked achieve their goals.

According to these authors, cooperative goal structures can be set up in classrooms without great difficulty. The research results promise both achievement gains and more positive attitudes toward teachers, peers, school, and self. The major obstacle to the implementation of such strategies is currently parental, teacher, administrator, and political leadership attitudes.

Slavin and DeVries (1979) presented considerable evidence that learning in teams can produce the type of cooperative learning effects described by Johnson and Johnson (1979); however, these authors make a distinction between the games approach and the cooperative technique used with experimental groups at the University of Minnesota (Johnson and Johnson, 1979). The cooperative experimental groups have not demonstrated greater effects on achievement than standard techniques used with control groups. The team techniques that have been most successful in increasing academic performance require individual accountability on the part of students (e.g., Teams-Games-Tournaments; Jigsaw).

To raise the achievement levels of minority children, therefore, it is not enough to set up a cooperative reward and task structure and wait for achievement to increase. One reason for this is subcultural differences in response to different learning structures. For example, Lucker et al. (1976) found that Anglo children performed equally well in interdependent (using games) and traditional classes, but black and Mexican-American children performed significantly better in the interdependent classes. In interdependent classes the achievement level for minorities and Anglos did not differ; in traditional classes, however, Anglo children performed significantly better than minority children. Compared with those in traditional classrooms, students in interdependent learning groups increased in self-esteem, decreased in preference for competitive behavior, and viewed their classmates as learning resources.

A second constraint on the effectiveness of cooperative learning structures for increasing minority students' achievement has been noted by Cohen (1980) and Schofield and Sagar (1979). The reservations are based on observed effects of status differences in socioeconomic background and reading ability on patterns of interaction in interracial classroom groups. Since these status differences usually favor whites, patterns of dominance and friendship selection usually favor whites as well. Consequently, careful attention must be paid to organizing classroom learning groups so that they do not reinforce already existing patterns of status association and competence expectations. Cohen stated that "combining racial groups with similar levels of academic achievement makes it much easier to produce equal status relationships" (1980:273). Cohen also recommended reorganizing classrooms so as to minimize the continued use of reading competence as the major source of students' expectations about competence in general. This involves attention to multiple skills in the curriculum and the use of small groups in instruction. As Slavin and DeVries (1979:136-137) concluded:

If a school wants to promote positive race relations, to increase students' academic performance, to encourage mutual concern, and to develop self-esteem, team techniques may be a means to accomplishing those goals. They are practical and inexpensive, require no special training, and generate enthusiasm. Further, they have been extensively researched and field-tested in hundreds of classrooms.

There is ample evidence that school environments are often less congenial to minority children than to middle-class white children. For example, Mercer et al. (1974) found that third- and sixth-grade teachers rated Anglo children as significantly more competent and sociable than black or Mexican-American children. As long as these kinds of teacher attitudes exist, we are a long way from achieving the goal of effective integrated education. Restructuring schools so that they use cooperative learning structures and team techniques should help to overcome some of these problems. It will also be necessary, however, to change teachers' and administrators' attitudes about instructional processes as well as about the learning potential of minority students.

Mastery Learning

Mastery learning is an instructional technique based on Bloom's theory of school learning (1976). This technique is purported to ensure that 80-90 percent of the students receiving instruction under this method can achieve as high as the top 10 percent of the students in conventional classes. One of the most salient aspects of mastery learning is a corrective feedback procedure. It makes provisions for students to receive corrections and thus to some extent achieve mastery prior to proceeding to the next level or skill.

Findings from studies designed to assess this method's effectiveness support this claim. Block and Bums (1977) reported that 89 percent of the time mastery learning classes achieve at higher levels than students in classrooms using traditional methods. Bloom (1976) reported that the average student in mastery learning classes realized a level of achievement as high as students ranked at the 80th percentile in conventional classes. Furthermore, variation in achievement also tends to decline under the mastery learning technique.

Although Bloom estimated that the mastery learning approach is second only to tutoring in increasing educational achievement, it is not without problems. It is difficult to convince teachers and administrators that ability is not distributed along a normal bell-shaped curve. Bloom construes ability in terms of the amount of time it takes the student to learn a given unit, rather than in terms of how much a student can eventually learn. Consequently, Bloom (1982:13) urges researchers to spend less time classifying and predicting humans and more time and energy on the variables, processes, and concepts that can make a vast difference in teaching and learning. Bloom also contends that human potential for learning is best estimated under optimal conditions for learning. Therefore, the limits of human potential for learning should not be bound by estimates based on traditional methods.

Research Needs

Research on improving the quality of instruction is important and should continue to be a major force. The work of "master developers" (Rosenshine, in press), such as Bloom (mastery learning) and Slavin (student team learning), promises to have a direct effect on instructional practice. Implementation processes as well as theoretical developments should be stressed in future research on such instructional programs. In particular, there is a need for careful studies of the effects of various forms of within-class ability grouping on student achievement, attitudes, and behavior. There are no experimental studies of this critical dimension of classroom organization. Research of this type has been proposed by Slavin and Karweit. In addition, instructional pacing (Barr, 1974) has been found to have an important effect on learning. The emphasis of research should be on how pacing interacts with grouping to enhance or impede learning for different types of students (e.g., of high or low ability).

The use of statistical research synthesis (Burstein, 1980; Glass, 1978; Hedges, 1982; Lazar and Darlington, 1982) is increasing and should help clarify research results in areas in which a substantial body of research has conflicting conclusions. There is still a need, however, for studies that go beyond comparisons of program effects or the effects of student and teacher characteristics. A major focus of research should be on the processes of teaching and learning as they take place under specific conditions. Direct observations of classroom processes in conjunction with well-designed experiments are needed to improve our understanding of educational processes. The research should be guided by carefully constructed causal models that can be tested empirically in classrooms and schools. The emphasis should be on alterable variables that are amenable to manipulation by educators and policy makers (see Bloom, 1980).

This review has many gaps. For example, gender differences have been discussed primarily in the context of studies of other phenomena, yet a large portion of this chapter could have been devoted to that topic. Issues such as school desegregation and bilingual education, which appear to be fertile areas for research, are treated in greater detail. We chose to focus on what we perceive as the cross-cutting issues: the role of schooling, models of research on the effects of schooling, what happens to children in schools, and societal influences on schooling.

Children ages 6-12 exhibit tremendous physical growth and cognitive and emotional development. The graded structure of the schools attempts to provide learning settings and tasks appropriate to the children's developmental levels. The match is often less than perfect because knowledge of developmental progressions is at best fragmentary, and developmental progression itself is not static. As with other institutions, schools are slow to change.

Next to spending time with the family, children ages 6-12 spend most of their time in school. The type of learning and affective environment provided by the school can have a profound impact on children's intellectual and social development. Ecological research in classrooms suggests that children from different socioeconomic backgrounds experience schooling in different ways. There is lack of agreement among researchers with regard to the effects of different patterns of classroom organization and the way teacher attitudes and student characteristics interact to influence learning. We need to know more about how students perceive their classroom experiences and how these perceptions influence their achievement, attitudes, and behavior. It is probable that students perceive teacher behavior and instructional practices in different ways. We do not know much about how student perceptions interact with teacher behavior to produce motivation to learn or to avoid learning.

Student diversity continues to be a major issue. Not much is known about the relationship of various classroom management strategies to outcomes for students with different personal and social characteristics. There is a need to focus research on the quality of instruction and study the way students of different levels of ability and students from different cultural backgrounds react to different ways of presenting instruction.

There is much current activity involving children ages 6-12 in the school setting. Some of this research promises to expand our understanding of the impact of school on children. The linguistic approach to studying teaching-learning processes may help to explain how language is used to construct contexts of education and the meanings within those constructs. Integrating new developments from the study of cognition into research on classroom instruction may also increase our understanding of how schools influence children. Finally, far too little attention has been paid to outcomes of education other than academic achievement. To gain a better perspective on school influences, researchers should also focus on social development, attitudes, and values.

• Allport, G. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice . Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
• American Institutes of Research 1977. Evaluation of the Impact of ESEA Title VII Spanish/English Bilingual Education Programs . Palo Alto, Calif.: American Institutes of Research.
• Anania, J. 1981. The Effects of Quality of Instruction on the Cognitive and Affective Learning of Students . Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
• Anderson, C.S. 1982. The search for school climate: A review of the research . Review of Educational Research 52:368-420.
• Banks, C., and McQuater, G. 1976. Achievement motivation and black children . IRCD Bulletin 11:4 (entire issue).
• Baratz, J., and Baratz, S. 1970. Early childhood intervention: The social science base of institutional racism . Harvard Educational Review 40:29-50.
• Barr, R.C. 1974. Instructional pace differences and their effect on reading acquisition . Reading Research Quarterly 9:526-554.
• Barr, R., and Dreeben, R. 1983. How Schools Work . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Beckerman, T., and Good, T. 1981. The classroom ratio of high- and low-aptitude students and its effect on achievement . American Educational Research Journal 18:317-327.
• Benham, B.J., Giesen, P., and Oakes, J. 1980. A study of schooling: Students' experiences in schools . Phi Delta Kappa 61:337-340.
• Block, J., and Bums, R. 1977. Mastery learning . In L. Schulman, editor. , ed., Review of Research in Education . Vol. 4. Itasca, Ill.: Peacock.
• Bloom, B.S. 1976. Human Characteristics and School Learning . New York: McGraw-Hill.
• 1980. The new direction in educational research: Alterable variables . Phi Delta Kappa 61:382-385.
• 1982. The future of educational research . Educational Researcher 11:6,11-19.
• Bowles, S. 1975. Unequal education and the reproduction of the social division of labor . In M. Carnoy, editor. , ed., Schooling in a Corporate Society . Second ed. New York: David McKay.
• Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. 1976. Schooling in Capitalist Society: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life . New York: Basic Books.
• Bradley, L., and Bradley, G. 1977. The academic achievement of black students in desegregated schools . Review of Educational Research 47:399-499.
• Bronfenbrenner, U. 1974. Is early intervention effective? Teachers College Record 76:279-303.
• Brookover, W.B., and Lezotte, L.W. 1979. Changes in School Characteristics Coincident with Changes in Student Achievement (Executive Summary) . Occasional Paper No. 17, Michigan State University, Institute for Research on Teaching, May.
• Brookover, W.B., Patterson, A., and Thomas, S. 1962. Self-Concept of Ability and School Achievement . U.S. Office of Education, Cooperative Research Project No. 845. East Lansing: Office of Research and Publications, Michigan State University.
• Brookover, W., Beady, C., Flood, P., Schweitzer, J., and Wisenbaker, J. 1979. School Social Systems and Student Achievement: Schools Can Make a Difference . New York: Praeger.
• Brophy, J. 1970. Mothers as teachers of their own preschool children: The influence of socioeconomic status and task structure on teaching specificity . Child Development 41:79-94.
• Brophy, J.E., and Evertson, C.M. 1974. Process Product Correlations in the Texas Teacher Effectiveness Study . Report No. 74-4. Austin: University of Texas Research and Development Center for Teacher Education.
• Brophy, J., and Good, T. 1974. Teacher-Student Relationships: Causes and Consequences . New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Burstein, L. 1980. The analysis of multilevel data in educational research and evaluation . In D.C. Berliner, editor. , ed., Review of Research in Education . Vol. 8. Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association.
• Buriel, R. 1981. Relation of Anglo- and Mexican-American children's locus of control beliefs to parents' and teachers' socialization practicies . Child Development 52:104-113.
• Busk, P., Ford, R., and Schulman, J. 1973. Effects of schools' racial composition on the self-concept of black and white students . Journal of Educational Research 67:57-63.
• Carew, J. 1980. Experience and the development of intelligence in young children at home and in day care . Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 45(6-7, Serial no. 187). [ PubMed : 7219418 ]
• Carroll, J.G. 1963. A model of school learning . Teachers College Record 64:723-733.
• Cicirelli, V. 1977. Relationship of socioeconomic status and ethnicity to primary grade children's self-concept . Psychology in the Schools 14:213-215.
• Clark, K. 1965. Dark Ghetto . New York: Harper & Row.
• Clark, R. 1982. The Quality of Family Pedagogic Life: What Is That? Unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York.
• Clarke-Stewart, K.A. 1973. Interactions between mothers and their young children: Characteristics and consequences . Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 38(6-7, Serial no. 153). [ PubMed : 4783875 ]
• Cohen, E. 1975. The effects of desegregation on race relations . Law and Contemporary Problems 39:271-299.
• 1980. Design and redesign of the desegregated school: Problems of status, power, and conflict . In W. Stephan, editor; and J. Fegin, editor. , eds., School Desegregation: Past, Present and Future . New York: Plenum Press.
• Cohen, E., and De Avila, E. 1983. Indirect Instruction and Conceptual Learning . Unpublished paper, Stanford University.
• Coleman, J.S., Campbell, E.Q., Mabson, C.J., McPartland, J., Mood, A., Weinfeld, F.D., and York, R.L. 1966. Equality of Educational Opportunity . 2 vols. Washington, D.C.: Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
• Comer, James P. 1980. School Power . New York: Free Press.
• Connell, J.P. 1980. A Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control . Unpublished master's thesis, University of Denver.
• Coopersmith, S. 1967. The Antecedents of Self-Esteem . San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
• Corno, L., Mitman, A., and Hedges, L. 1981. The influence of direct instruction on student self-appraisals: A hierarchical analysis of treatment and aptitude-treatment interaction effects . American Educational Research Journal 18:39-61.
• Coulson, J., Hanes, S., Ozene, D., Bradford, C., Doherty, W., Duck, G., and Hemenway, J. 1977. The Third Year of Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) Implementation . Santa Monica, Calif.: System Development Corp.
• Crain, R., and Mahard, R. 1982. Desegregation Plans That Raise Black Achievement . A Review of the Research . Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corp.
• 1983. The effect of research methodology on desegregation-achievement studies: A meta-analysis . American Journal of Sociology 88:839-854.
• Crain, R., Mahard, R., and Narot, R. 1981. Making Desegregation Work: How Schools Create Social Climates . Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger.
• Cronbach, L., and Snow, R. 1977. Aptitude and Instructional Methods . New York: Irving Productions.
• Cummins, J. 1979. Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children . Review of Educational Research 49:222-251.
• Dave, R. 1963. The Identification and Measurement of Environmental Process Variables That Are Related to Educational Achievement . Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
• DeBord, L., Griffin, L., and Clark, M. 1977. Race and sex influence in the schooling process of rural and small town youth . Sociology of Education 50:85-102.
• Diaz, R. 1983. Thought and two languages: The impact of bilingualism on cognitive growth . In E. Gordon, editor. , ed., Review of Research in Education . Vol. 10. Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association.
• Dolan, L. 1978. The affective consequences of home support, instructional quality, and achievement . Urban Education 13:323-344.
• Dreeben, R. 1968. On What Is Learned in School . Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
• Dunkin, M.J., and Biddle, B.J. 1974. The Study of Teaching . New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Dweck, C., Davidson, W., Nelson, S., and Enna, B. 1978. Sex differences in learned helplessness: II. The contingencies of evaluative feedback in the classroom. III. An experimental analysis . Developmental Psychology 14:268-276.
• Dyer, P. 1967. Home Environment and Achievement in Trinidad . Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta.
• Eder, D. 1981. Ability grouping as a self-fulfilling prophecy: A micro-analysis of teacher-student interaction . Sociology of Education 54:151-161.
• Edmonds, R. 1979. Some schools work and more can . Social Policy (March/April):28-32.
• Edmonds, R.R., and Fredericksen, J.R. 1978. Search for Effective Schools: The Identification and Analysis of City Schools That Are Instructionally Effective for Poor Children . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, Center for Urban Studies.
• Elashoff, J., and Snow, R. 1971. Pygmalion Reconsidered . Worthington , Ohio: Jones.
• Ellett, C.D., Payne, D.A., Master, J.A., and Pool, J.E. 1977. The Relationship Between Teacher and Student Assessments of School Environment Characteristics and School Outcome Variables . Paper presented at the twenty-third annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Hollywood, Fla., May.
• Entwisle, D.R., and Hayduk, L.A. 1978. Too Great Expectations: The Academic Outlook of Young Children . Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• 1982. Early Schooling Cognitive and Affective Outcomes . Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Epps, E. 1969. Correlates of academic achievement among northern and southern urban Negro students . Journal of Social Issues 25(3):55-70.
• 1975. Impact of school desegregation on aspirations, self-concept, and other aspects of personality . Law and Contemporary Problems 39:300-313.
• 1978. The impact of school desegregation on the self-evaluation and achievement orientation of minority children . Law and Contemporary Problems 42:57-76.
• 1981. Minority children: Desegregation, self-evaluation, and achievement motivation . In W. Hawley, editor. , ed., Effective School Desegregation: Equity, Quality, and Feasibility . Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
• Epstein, J. 1983. Longitudinal effects of family-school-person interactions on student outcomes . In A. Kerckhoff, editor. , ed., Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization . Vol. 4. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.
• Epstein, J., and Becker, H.J. 1982. Teachers' reported practices of parent involvement: Problems and possibilities . Elementary School Journal 83:103-113.
• Fernandez, R., and Guskin, J. 1981. Hispanic students and school desegregation . In W. Hawley, editor. , ed., E ffective School Desegregation: Equity, Quality, and Feasibility . Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
• Findley, M., and Cooper, H. 1983. Locus of control and academic achievement: A literature review . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44:419-427.
• Fisher, C.W., Filby, N.N., Maliave, R., Cohen, L.S., Dishaw, M.M., Moore, J.E., and Berliner, D.C. 1978. Teaching Behaviors, Academic Learning Time and Student Achievement . Final report of Phase III-B, Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study. Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, San Francisco.
• Forehand, G., Ragosta, M., and Rock, D. 1976. Conditions and Processes of Effective School Desegregation . Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service.
• Froemel, J. 1980. Cognitive Entry Behaviors, Instructional Conditions, and Achievement: A Study of Their Interrelationships . Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
• Fuerst, J. 1977. Child parent centers: An evaluation . Integrated Education (May-June):17-20.
• Gage, N.L. 1972. Teacher Effectiveness and Teacher Education . Palo Alto, Calif.: Pacific.
• 1978. The Scientific Basis of the Art of Teaching . New York: Teachers College Press.
• Gallimore, R., and Au, K. 1979. The competence/incompetence paradox in the education of minority culture children . The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 1(3):32-37.
• Gaudry, E., editor; , and Spielberger, C., editor. , eds. 1971. Anxiety and School Achievement . Sydney, Australia: John Wiley & Sons.
• Gerard H., and Miller, N. 1975. School Desegregation . New York: Plenum Press;
• Gerard, H., Jackson, T., and Conolley, E. 1975. Social contact in the desegregated classroom . In H. Gerard, editor; and N. Miller, editor. , eds., School Desegregation . New York: Plenum Press.
• Giaconia, R.M. and Hedges, L.V. 1982. Identifying features of effective open education . Review of Educational Research 52:579-602.
• Glass, G.V. 1978. Integrating findings: The meta-analysis of research . In L.S. Shulman, editor. , ed., Review of Research in Education . Vol. 5. Itasca, Ill.: Peacock.
• Glass, G.V., and Smith, M. 1978. Meta-Analysis of Research on the Relationship of Class Size and Achievement . San Francisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development.
• Glass, G., Cohen, E., and Smith, M. 1982. School Class Size: Research and Policy . Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.
• Good, T.L. 1983. Classroom research: A decade of progress . Educational Psychologist 18:127-144.
• Goodchilds, J., Green, J., and Biksen, T. 1975. The school experience and adjustment . In H. Gerard, editor; and N. Miller, editor. , eds., School Desegregation . New York: Plenum Press.
• Goodlad, J.I. 1973. The elementary school as a social institution . In J. Goodlad, editor; and H. Shane, editor. , eds., The Elementary School in the United States . Seventy-second Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• 1983. Individuality, commonality, and curricular practice . In G. Fenstermacher, editor; and J. Goodlad, editor. , eds., Individual Differences and the Common Curriculum . Eighty-second Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Goodlad, J.I., Sirotnik, K.S., and Overman, B.C. 1979. An overview of a study of schooling . Phi Delta Kappa 61:174-178.
• Grant, L. 1981. Race, Sex, and Schooling: Social Location and Children's Experiences in Desegregated Classrooms . Unpublished dissertation, University of Michigan.
• Green, D., Miller, N., and Gerard, D. 1975. Personality-traits and adjustment . In H. Gerard, editor; and N. Miller, editor. , eds., School Desegregation . New York: Plenum Press.
• Hare, B. 1977. Racial and socioeconomic variation in preadolescent area-specific and general self-esteem . International Journal of Intercultural Relations 1:31-51.
• 1980. Self-perception and academic achievement: Variations in a desegregated setting . American Journal of Psychiatry 137:683-689. [ PubMed : 7377388 ]
• Harter, S. 1978. Effectance motivation reconsidered: Toward a developmental model . Human Development 1:34-64.
• 1981. A new self-report scale of intrinsic versus extrinsic orientation in the classroom: Motivational and informational components . Developmental Psychology 17:300-312.
• 1982. The perceived competence scale for children . Child Development 53:87-97.
• Harter, S., and Connell, J.P. In press A model of the relationship among children's academic achievement and their self-perceptions of competence, control, and motivational orientation . In J. Nicholls, editor. , ed., The Development of Achievement Motivation . Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.
• Hedges, L.V. 1981. Appendix note: Illustrating two-aptitude treatment interactions: A methodological note . American Educational Research Journal 18:57-61.
• 1982. Estimating effect size from a series of independent experiments . Psychological Bulletin 92:490-499.
• Hedges, L.V., Giaconia, R.M., and Gage, N.L. 1981. Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Open and Traditional Instruction . Stanford University Program on Teaching Effectiveness Meta-Analysis Project, Final Report, Vol. 2.
• Heller, K., Holtzman, W., and Messick, S., editor. , eds. 1982. Placing Children in Special Education: A Strategy for Equity . Panel on Selection and Placement of Students in Programs for the Mentally Retarded, Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
• Hess, R. 1970. Social class and ethnic influences on socialization . In P. Mussen, editor. , ed., Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology . Vol. 2. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Hess, R., and Shipman, V. 1965. Early experience and the socialization of cognitive modes in children . Child Development ; 36:869-886. [ PubMed : 5851036 ]
• 1967. Cognitive elements in maternal behavior . In J. Hill, editor. , ed., Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology . Vol. 1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
• Hess, R., Holloway, S., Price, G., and Dickson, W. 1980. Family environments and the acquisition of reading skills . In L. Laosa, editor; and I. Sigel, editor. , eds., Families as Learning Environments for Children . New York: Plenum Press.
• Hewison, J., and Tizard, J. 1980. Parental involvement and reading attainment . The British Journal of Educational Psychology 50:209-215. [ PubMed : 7437294 ]
• Heyneman, S. 1976. A brief note on the relationship between socioeconomic status and test performance among Ugandan primary school children . Comparative Education Review 20:42-47.
• Heyns, B. 1978. Summer Learning and the Effects of Schooling . New York: Academic.
• Holliday, B.G. 1984. Towards a structural model of teacher-child transactional processes affecting black children's academic achievement . In M. Spencer, editor; , G. Brookings, editor; , and W. Allen, editor. , eds., Be ginnings: The Social and Affective Development of Black Children . Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Hunt, J., and Hunt, L. 1977. Racial inequality and self-image: Identity maintenance as identity diffusion . Sociology and Social Research 61:539-559.
• Inkeles, A. 1968. Social structure and the socialization of competence . In Socialization and Schools . Reprint Series No. 1, Harvard Educational Review .
• Jackson, P.W. 1968. Life in Classrooms . New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Janicki, T., and Peterson, P. 1981. Aptitude-treatment interaction effects of variations in direct instruction . American Educational Research Journal 18-63-82.
• Jencks, C., Smith, M., Acland, H., Bane, M., Cohen, D., Gintis, H., Heyns, B., and Michelson, S. 1972. Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America . New York: Basic Books.
• Johnson, D.W., and Johnson, R.T. 1979. Cooperation, competition, and individualization . In H.J. Walberg, editor. , ed., Educational Environments and Effects . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., and Maruyama, G. 1983. Interdependence and interpersonal attraction among heterogeneous and homogeneous individuals: A theoretical formulation and a meta-analysis of the research . Review of Educational Research 53:5-54.
• Kellaghan, T. 1977. Relationships between home environment and scholastic behavior in a disadvantaged population . Journal of Educational Psychology 69:754-760.
• Kifer, E. 1975. Relationship between academic achievement and personality characteristics: A quasilongitudinal study . American Educational Research Journal 12:191-220.
• Kohn, M. 1969. Class and Conformity: A Study in Values . Second ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Krol, D.F. 1978. A Meta-Analysis of School Desegregation and Achievement . Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Western Michigan University.
• Laosa, L. 1977. Socialization, education, and continuity: The importance of the socioculture context . Young Children 32:21-27.
• 1982. School, occupation, culture and family: The impact of parental schooling on the parentchild relationship . Journal of Education Psychology 74:791-827.
• Lavin, D.E. 1965. The Prediction of Academic Performance: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of Research . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Lazar, I., and Darlington, R. 1982. Lasting effects of early education: A report from the consortium for longitudinal studies . Monographs for Research in Child Development 47 (2-3, Serial no. 195.)
• Leacock, E. 1969. Teaching and Learning in City Schools . New York: Basic Books.
• 1982. The influence of teacher attitudes on children's performance: Case studies . In K. Borman, editor. , ed., The Social Life of Children in a Changing Society . Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Leiter, J. 1983. Classroom composition and achievement gains . Sociology of Education 56:126-132.
• Lesser, G., Fifer, G., and Clark, D. 1967. Mental abilities of children in different social and cultural groups . In J. Roberts, editor. , ed., School Children in the Urban Slum . New York: Free Press.
• Levine, D., Lachowicz, H., Oxman, K., and Tangeman, A. 1972. The home environment of students in a high achieving tuner-city parochial school and a nearby public school . Sociology of Education 45:435-445.
• Lightfoot, S. 1979. Families and schools . In H. Walberg, editor. , ed., Educational Environment and Effects . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Lucker, G., Rosenfeld, D., Sikes, J., and Aaronson, E. 1976. Performance in the interdependent classroom: A field study . American Educational Research Journal 68:588-596.
• Macnamara, J., Svarc, J., and Homer, S. 1976. Attending a primary school of the other language in Montreal . In A. Simoes, Jr., editor. , ed., The Bilingual Child . New York: Academic Press.
• Marjoribanks, K. 1979. Family environments . In H. Walberg, editor. , ed., Educational Environments and Effects . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Marshall, H.H. 1981. Open classrooms: Has the term outlived its usefulness? Review of Educational Research 51:182-192.
• Maruyama, G., Rubin, R., and Kingsbury, G. 1981. Self-esteem and educational achievement: Independent constructs with a common cause . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40:962-975.
• Massey, G., Scott, M., and Dornbusch, S. 1975. Racism without racists: Institutional racism in urban schools . The Black Scholar 7:2-11.
• McAdoo, H.P. 1977. The development of self-concept and race attitudes in black children: A longitudinal study . In Report of the Third Conference on Empirical Research in Black Psychology . Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education.
• McConahay, J. 1978. The effects of school desegregation upon students' racial attitudes and behavior: A critical review of the literature and a prolegomenon to future research . Law and Contemporary Problems 42:77-107.
• McDill, E.L., and Rigsby, L.C. 1973. Structure and Process in Secondary Schools: The Academic Impact of Educational Climates . Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• McPartland, J.M., and Karweit, N. 1979. Research on educational effects . In H.J. Walberg, editor. , ed., Educational Environments and Effects . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Meece, J.L., Parsons, J.E., Kaczala, C.M., Goff, S.B., and Futterman, R. 1982. Sex differences in math achievement: Toward a model of academic choice . Psychological Bulletin 91:324-348.
• Mercer, J., Coleman, M., and Harloe, J. 1974. Racial/ethnic segregation and desegregation in American public education . In C. Gordon, editor. , ed., Uses of the Sociology of Education . 73rd Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Mercy, J.A., and Steelman, L.C. 1982. Familial influence on the intellectual attainment of children . American Sociological Review 47:532-542.
• Miller, A. 1982. Changes in Self-Esteem in Early School Years: Cognitive Development or Declining Self-Affect . Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, March.
• Minuchin, P.P., and Shapiro, E.K. 1983. The school as a context for social development . In P.H. Mussen, editor; , ed., Handbook of Child Psychology . Fourth ed. E.M. Hetherington, editor. , ed., Social Development , Vol. 3. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Moore, E.G. 1981. Ethnicity as a Variable in Child Development . Unpublished paper, Arizona State University.
• Murnane, R.J. 1975. The Impact of School Resources on the Learning of Inner City Children . Cambridge: Ballinger.
• Ogbu, J.U. 1978. Minority Education and Caste: The American School System in Cross-Cultural Perspective . New York: Academic Press.
• 1981. Origins of human competence: A cultural-ecological perspective . Child Development 52:413-429.
• 1983. Crossing Cultural Boundaries: A Comparative Perspective on Minority Education . Unpublished paper for a Symposium on Race, Class, Socialization, and the Life Cycle, University of Chicago, October 21-22.
• O'Malley, J.M. 1982. Instructional services for limited English proficient children . NABE Journal 7:21-35.
• Patchen, M. 1982. Black-White Contact in Schools: Its Social and Academic Effects . West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press.
• Peal, E., and Lambert, W. 1962. The relation of bilingualism to intelligence . Psychological Monographs 76(546):1-23.
• Purkey, W. 1970. Self-Concept and School Achievement . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
• Ramirez, M., and Price-Williams, D. 1976. Achievement motivation in children of three ethnic groups in the United States . Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 7:49-60.
• Rist, R.C. 1970. Student social class and teacher expectations: The self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education . Harvard Educational Review 40:411-451.
• 1973. The Urban School: A Factory for Failure . Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
• Rosenshine, B.V. 1971. Teaching Behaviors and Student Achievement . London: National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales.
• In press The master teacher and the master developer . In M. Wang, editor; and H. Walberg, editor. , eds., Adapting Instruction to Student Differences: A Synthesis of Theory, Research and Practice . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Rosenthal, R., and Jacobson, L. 1968. Pygmalion in the Classroom . New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Rowan, B., and Miracle, A.W., Jr. 1983. Systems of ability grouping and the stratification of achievement in elementary schools . Sociology of Education 56(July):133-144.
• Ruhland, D., and Feld, S. 1977. The development of achievement motivation in black and white children . Child Development 48:1362-1368.
• Rutter, M. 1983. School effects on pupil progress: Research findings and policy implications . Child Development 54:1-29.
• Rutter, M., Maughn, B., Mortimore, P., Ouston, J., and Smith, A. 1979. Fifteen-Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
• Sandoval-Martinez, S. 1982. Findings from the Head Start bilingual curriculum development effort . NABE Journal 7:1-12. Sarason, S., Lighthall, F., Waite, R., and Ruebush, B. 1960. Anxiety in Elementary School Children . New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Scheirer, M., and Kraut, R. 1979. Increasing educational achievement via self-concept change . Review of Educational Research 49:131-150.
• Schofield, J. 1979. The Impact of positively structured contact on intergroup behavior: Does it last under adverse conditions? Social Psychology Quarterly 42:280-284.
• Schofield, J., and McGivern, E. 1978. Who Likes Desegregated Schools? The Effect of Sex and Race on Students' Attitudes . Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, March.
• Schofield, J., and Sager, A. 1979. The social context of learning in an interfacial school . In R. Rist, editor. , ed., Desegregated Schools: Appraisals of an American Experiment . New York: Academic Press.
• Scott, R., and McPartland, J. 1982. Desegregation as national policy: Correlates of racial attitudes . American Educational Research Journal 19:397-414.
• Shade, B. 1982. Afro-American cognitive style: A variable in school success . Review of Educational Research 52:219-244.
• Sharp, D., Gale, M., and Lave, C. 1979. Education and cognitive development: The evidence from experimental research . Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 44(1-2, Serial no. 178).
• Shipman, V., Boroson, M., Bridgeman, B., Gant, J., and Mikovsky, M. 1976. Disadvantaged Children and Their First School Experiences: Notable Early Characteristics of High and Low Achieving Black Low-SES Children . (PR-76-21) Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service; (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 138-340).
• Simpson, A., and Erickson, M. 1983. Teachers' verbal and nonverbal communication patterns as a function of teacher race, student gender, and student race . American Education Research Journal 20:183-198.
• Singer, H., Gerard, H., and Redfern, D. 1975. Achievement . In H. Gerard, editor; and N. Miller, editor. , eds., School Desegregation . New York: Plenum Press.
• Slaughter, D. 1969. Maternal antecedents of the academic achievement behaviors of Afro-American Head Start children . Educational Horizons (Fall):24-28.
• 1977. Relation of early parent-teacher socialization influences to achievement orientation and self-esteem in middle childhood among low-income black children . In J. Glidewell, editor. , ed., The Social Context of Learning and Development . New York: Gardner.
• 1981. Social policy issues affecting infants . In B. Weissbourd, editor; and J. Musich, editor. , eds., Infants: Their Social Environments . Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children.
• 1983. Education and family . In B. Bloom, editor; and C. Mathis, editor. , eds., The Schools, Schools of Education and Major Changes Affecting Education: The Crises of Our Time . Unpublished manuscript.
• Slavin, R.E., and DeVries, D.L. 1979. Learning in teams . In H.J. Walberg, editor. , ed., Educational Environments and Effects . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Slavin, R., and Madden, N. 1979. School practices that improve race relations . American Educational Research Journal 16.169-180.
• Snow, C.E. 1983. Literacy and language: Relationships during the preschool years . Harvard Educational Review 53:165-189.
• Sorensen, A.B. 1970. Organizational differentiation of students and educational opportunity . Sociology of Education 43:355-376.
• Spencer, M.B. 1976. The Social-Cognitive and Personality Development of the Black Pre-school Child: An Exploratory Study of Developmental Process . Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
• 1982. Personal and group Identity of black children: An alternative hypothesis . Genetic Psychology Monographs 106:59-84.
• St. John, N.H. 1975. School Desegregation: Outcomes for Children New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• St. John, N., and Lewis, R. 1975. Race and the social structure of the elementary classroom . Sociology of Education 48:346-368.
• Stallings, J. 1975. Implementation and child effects of teaching practices in Follow Through classrooms, with commentary by M. Almy, L.B. Resnick, and G. Leinhardt . Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 43(165).
• Stephan, W. 1978. School desegregation: An evaluation of predictions made in Brown v. Board of Education . Psychological Bulletin 85:217-237.
• Stevenson, H.W., Parker, T., Wilkinson, A., Bonneveux, B., and Gonzalez, M. 1978. Schooling, environment, and cognitive development: A cross-cultural study . Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 43(3, Serial no. 175). [ PubMed : 740004 ]
• Stipek, D.J., and Weisz, J.R. 1981. Perceived personal control and academic achievement . Review of Research in Education 51:101-137.
• Stodolsky, S. 1965. Maternal Behavior and Language and Concept Formation in Negro Pre-school Children: An Inquiry Into Process . Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
• Stodolsky, S., and Lesser, G. 1967. Learning patterns in the disadvantaged . Harvard Educational Review 37:546-593.
• Strodtbeck, F. 1958. Family interaction, values and achievement . In D. McClelland et al., editor. , eds., Talent and Society . New York: Van Nostrand.
• Summers, A.A., and Wolfe, B.L. 1977. Do schools make a difference? American Economic Review 67:639-652.
• Swain, M. 1978. French immersion: Early, late or partial? The Canadian Modern Language Review 34:557-585.
• Tharp, R., and Gallimore, R. 1982. Inquiry process in program development . Journal of Community Psychology 10:103-118.
• Tizard, J., Schofield, W.N., and Hewison, J. 1982. Collaboration between teachers and parents assisting children's reading . British Journal of Educational Psychology 52:1-15.
• Tulkin, S. 1972. An analysis of the concept of cultural deprivation . Developmental Psychology 6(2):326-339.
• Walberg, H.J. 1981. A psychological theory of educational productivity . In F. Farley, editor; and N. Gordon, editor. , eds., Psychology and Education: The State of the Union . Berkeley, Calif.: McCutchan.
• Walden, T., and Ramey, C. 1983. Locus of control and academic achievement: Results from a preschool intervention program . Journal of Educational Psychology 75:347-358.
• Weber, G. 1971. Inner City Children Can Be Taught to Read: Four Successful Schools . Occasional paper 18 . Washington, D.C.: Council for Basic Education.
• Weinberg, M. 1977. Minority Students: A Research Appraisal . Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education.
• Weiss, J. 1969. The Identification and Measure of Home Environmental Factors Related to Achievement Motivation and Self-Esteem . Unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago.
• White, K.R. 1982. The relation between socioeconomic status and academic achievement . Psychological Bulletin 91:461-481.
• Wiley, D.E., and Harnischfeger, A. 1974. Explosion of a myth: Quality of schooling and exposure to instruction, major educational vehicles . Educational Researcher 3:7-12.
• World Bank 1980. Education Sector Policy Paper . Third ed. W.D. Haddad, editor; , A. Habte, editor; , and M. Hultin, editor. . Washington, D.C.: World Bank.
• Wylie, R. 1974. The Self-Concept . Rev. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• 1979. The Self-Concept: Theory and Research on Selected Topics . Vol. 2. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• Cite this Page National Research Council (US) Panel to Review the Status of Basic Research on School-Age Children; Collins WA, editor. Development During Middle Childhood: The Years From Six to Twelve. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1984. Chapter 7, School And Children: The Middle Childhood Years.
• PDF version of this title (2.1M)

In this Page

Related information.

• PubMed Links to PubMed

Recent Activity

• School And Children: The Middle Childhood Years - Development During Middle Chil... School And Children: The Middle Childhood Years - Development During Middle Childhood

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

Connect with NLM

National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894

Web Policies FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure

Help Accessibility Careers

Educating middle school students

MFLTC creates Arizona’s first middle grades teacher prep program.

Early adolescence can sometimes feel like learning how to drive on a winding road with lots of detours and confusing signage. This stage of life is often about breaking away from childhood, starting to test rule limits and learning to navigate all sorts of terrain. 

Middle school educators have a unique role in guiding early adolescents during this developmental crossroad that is also critical for college and career readiness. Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College recently launched the only middle grades teacher preparation program in Arizona to prepare educators to work with youth during this unique life stage, which is often defined as between the ages of 11 and 14.

Carlyn Ludlow , who is the associate division director of undergraduate programs and clinical associate professor at ASU’s MLFTC, shares how the new program is designed to address these academic and human development needs in grades 5-9. Ludlow is a former middle school social studies teacher.

What makes middle school students unique?

Middle school students are at a unique crossroads—they are no longer children, but not yet adults. They are literally navigating a new world where they learn to move from one teacher to many teachers, from one classroom full of peers to class periods surrounded by a rotating group of peers. It is a significant shift, and middle school teachers get to help students maneuver this uncertainty as they discover who they are and what they want to become.

Research by developmental scientists into brain development in the preteen years indicates that the brain undergoes a “second spurt” of development during this stage. As their teachers, we have the opportunity to guide students through these transformations. This transition makes the role of a middle school teacher both challenging and rewarding, as we witness and support the growth of students in real time. 

What are some of the areas where educators can have an impact on middle school students?

Middle school is where foundational skills are solidified. We teach them critical thinking, problem-solving and the ability to work collaboratively. These skills are not just academic; they are skills that will serve them throughout their lives. This is also the time when students begin to take more responsibility for their learning. We help them develop study habits, time management skills and the ability to set and achieve goals. At this age, students are naturally curious and eager to explore new ideas. We have the opportunity to ignite their passion for learning. Whether through a science experiment, a historical debate or a creative writing project, we can inspire them to see the world in new and exciting ways.

What did you find surprising about teaching middle school? 

There’s something special about this age group that makes them so wonderful to work with. Their combination of humor, curiosity and energy means that no two days are the same. When middle schoolers connect with a teacher, they can be fiercely loyal. They often rally around their favorite teachers, creating a supportive classroom community. Middle schoolers also have a unique sense of humor that can be downright hilarious. They love to joke around and enjoy being creative, which makes for a lively classroom atmosphere. When we embrace their energy, we build strong connections and can make learning and teaching fun.  

How important is it for educators to develop expertise in human development?

Middle school is an emotional rollercoaster. Students are dealing with friendships, crushes and all sorts of social pressures. They are incredibly sensitive to what their peers think, which makes it a crucial time for us to create a supportive classroom. The middle grades program at MLFTC emphasizes human development as part of the learning process so that students can apply that knowledge to reach middle grade learners where they are emotionally and academically. At this stage, students are demonstrating critical thinking skills and asking deeper questions. As educators, we can capitalize on that intellectual curiosity and design lessons that challenge them even further. 

What are some different approaches to teaching middle school compared to other grade levels?

Middle school often allows teachers to create engaging project-based and interdisciplinary learning approaches. We can mix subjects and get students working on hands-on projects that connect to the real world, as is done in service-learning experiences. This not only keeps things fresh for us as teachers but also makes learning exciting for the students. 

At the school or district systems level, some approaches that can be effective include pairing students with advisors and mentors to help them through middle school, as well as creating interdisciplinary teams of teachers to encourage positive relationships with students. These and other recommendations are outlined in a report by Chiefs for Change called Middle School Strategy: Leveraging the Science of Learning and Development to Inform Education in Middle School . Strategic school staffing models, such as those being advanced through MLFTC’s Next Education Workforce ™ initiative, can also serve as a foundation for these approaches. 

What are ways that MLFTC can help candidates prepare for working with middle school grades—what does this new program offer that is distinct?

Teacher candidates will learn from faculty teams that include people like me who have taught middle grades ourselves. As with all MLFTC teacher preparation programs, this program emphasizes research-to-practice connections. Students learn how adolescent development impacts learning as well as how to create inclusive learning environments, design and deliver meaningful instruction, and assess learning. We have individualized academic and support services to ensure that our students have the resources they need to succeed throughout their academic journey and in their own classrooms. Through these supports, we encourage the development of teachers who have not only the academic background to be effective educators but also the heart for working with adolescents.

_______________________________________________

Learn more about the MLFTC middle grades education program , which prepares graduates to earn an institutional recommendation from ASU for Arizona teacher certification in Middle Grades Education, and an endorsement in Structured English Immersion, PreK-12, from the Arizona Department of Education. In order to teach in an Arizona public school, graduates must pass the appropriate Arizona educator exams: National Evaluation Series or Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessments.

• St Petersburg

Best Middle Schools in St Petersburg, FL

The city of St. Petersburg, Florida is home to 6 middle schools that are part of the Pinellas County School District , which is ranked 23rd out of 68 districts in the state and has an overall rating of 3 stars out of 5 from SchoolDigger. These schools serve students in grades 6-8 and provide a range of educational opportunities and outcomes.

Among the standout schools in the area, Thurgood Marshall Fundamental is the highest-performing, ranking in the top 25% of Florida middle schools and earning a 4-star rating from SchoolDigger. It boasts particularly strong test scores, with 93% proficiency in Algebra 1, 100% in Geometry, and 81% in Civics. In contrast, Tyrone Middle School and Bay Point Middle School have above-average test scores in certain subjects, but lower overall performance compared to Thurgood Marshall.

Across the district, chronic absenteeism is a significant issue, ranging from 16.5% at Thurgood Marshall to a concerning 47% at Azalea Middle School . Additionally, all the schools have high percentages of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a high level of economic disadvantage among the student populations. While per-student spending varies, there does not appear to be a clear correlation between spending and performance. The racial diversity of the schools also varies, with Thurgood Marshall being the most balanced and Bay Point Middle School having a majority African American student population.

• Public Primary
• Public Middle
• Public High
• Other/Alternative
• School Name
• SchoolDigger Rank
• Student Body Size
•  See just my schools...
•  Email my school list...
• Press the button next to a school to save it to this list!

• School Rank
• % Free/Reduced Lunch Recipients
• % African American Students
• % American Indian Students
• % Asian Students
• % Hispanic Students
• % Pacific Islander Students
• % White Students

Thurgood Marshall Fundamental

Tyrone middle school, john hopkins middle school, bay point middle school, meadowlawn middle school, azalea middle school.

Cities Near St Petersburg

Tyrone Middle School

• School Type: Magnet School
• Grades: 6-8
• Enrollment: 899 students
• Student:Teacher Ratio: 20:1
• Minority Enrollment: 59%
• Overall Testing Rank : Bottom 50% in FL
• Math Proficiency : 29% (Btm 50%)
• Reading Proficiency : 26% (Btm 50%)
• Science Proficiency : 23% (Btm 50%)
• Source: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), FL Dept. of Education

Top Rankings

Tyrone Middle School ranks among the top 20% of public schools in Florida for:

School Overview

School rankings, frequently asked questions, school calendar.

View the Tyrone Middle School yearly calendar below. Note key dates such as:

Nearby Public Schools

Review Tyrone Middle School. Reviews should be a few sentences in length. Please include any comments on:

• Quality of academic programs, teachers, and facilities
• Availability of music, art, sports and other extracurricular activities
• Overall Testing Rank : Bottom 50%

Bay Point and Tyrone Middle School sixth graders explore careers!

PCS Referendum creates unique learning opportunity for Tyrone Middle School Spanish class!

JWB-TV- January 2018 -Anti Bullying Program at Tyrone Middle School

Tyrone Middle School (approx. 2009)

View more school videos

• ‘I will shoot this school up’: Tyrone Middle School student sends mass shooting threats to teachers, deputies say (2024) A 13-year-old boy was arrested Monday after he send multiple mass ...
• Tyrone Middle student arrested for posting shooting threats on social media, police say (2019) A 12-year-old student was arrested after posting shooting threats about Tyrone Middle School on social media, St. Petersburg ...
• Rumored social media threat against Tyrone Middle School deemed not credible (2018) ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) – Police say social media posts referencing a threat to Tyrone Middle School are not credible. ...

More Articles

• Search schools by zip
• Compare schools side-by-side
• Blue Ribbon (110)
• Magnet (616)
• Charter (744)
• Online (11)
• Special Education (158)
• Vocational (38)
• Alternative (368)
• School districts (75)
• Private schools in Florida
• Boarding schools in Florida
• Florida Dept. of Education